I Memorize Names the First Day. Hate Me.

I Memorize Names the First Day. Hate Me.

You’re probably curious about WHY I would bother to do such a crazy, stressful, unnecessary thing, but I’ll going to start with the HOW instead. I’m pretty good at faces, but terrible at names. So to compensate, I use all the usual tricks everyone already knows, like...
My Class is Not the Center of the Universe

My Class is Not the Center of the Universe

Although I quickly go through all my policies on the first day of class, I don’t expect my students to remember, say, what my absence policy is, or what my late work policy is—let alone minutiae like how much each unit is weighed, grade-wise. Why should they remember...
The Logical Consequence of an Overly Corrective and Punitive Pedagogy

The Logical Consequence of an Overly Corrective and Punitive Pedagogy

Once upon a time, when I was a bright and shiny new graduate student teacher at the University of Tennessee, I was assigned an office with two veteran instructors. Both women had been there for decades; both were best described as “old school” in their outlooks about...
Why Not Random Groups?

Why Not Random Groups?

If you teach a class where you have lots of group activities, as I do, you inevitably face the issue of how to divide the class up. If your class already clumps into prickly social pods, then letting them group themselves risks replicating the same social order. But...