Would You Please Start Arguing Part 3 of 4
Where we left off last week is that people have trouble constructively disagreeing and prefer to shut down and dismiss instead of hearing out or seeking out debate and opposition. In fact, some so distrust these actions that they actively distrust journalistic media...
Using Reflection in the Classroom
Last Friday’s Friday Forum focused on using reflection and metacognition in the classroom. We talked about using student reflection for two purposes: 1) instructor’s information--we can use student reflection to assess learning, pacing, and/or achievement of outcomes,...
The Great Calculus Exam Throw-down
To a bunch of high school students railing against the system in the 70’s, Jimmy Reeves was “The Guy”. You know the type, long wavy brown hair, a trimmed but significant beard, often clothed in jeans and sandals with a wonderfully impish smile. A common enough...
The Tribe of Late-Night Wanderers
In Sherman Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character at one point lists all the tribes he belongs to including the Spokane Indian tribe, the tribe of basketball players, the tribe of small-town kids, the tribe of...
9x9x25 #5: Flexible and Organized
This past week has been been a challenging one. At times I didn’t know if I was up or down. These two words FLEXIBLE and ORGANIZED are ringing true for my work as an educator, and for my students in…
Blending the Blended – 9x9x25 Challenge #6
This past week I had a student come to me within issue. Let’s call her “Jane”. Jane was not going to be able to make class today and wanted to find out what she was going to miss. Jane’s …
Do I have enough content in my course?
Now there is a question I would guess many people have either asked or been asked. For blended and online developments in particular I have this conversation time and time again. Of course there is a particular pedagogical paradigm and …
Can We Treat Our Students Like Adults?
For many of us, our students are first-time college students which means they are first time adults. For many of these students this means this is the first time they are given the chance to choose for themselves. Their whole lives someone has been making all of the...
Never Give Them Zeros for a Grade
You may have seen the headline, “Teacher Fired for Giving Students Zeros for not Turning in Assignments”. Certainly great click-bait from a publisher’s standpoint, but what is this really about. At a conference roundtable I attended many years ago, we discussed this...
Would You Please Start Arguing Part 2 of 4
Welcome back to my serial piece--I’ll pick up where I left off last week, on the idea that it is difficult to abandon old techniques and move toward new ones, argumentatively. Something that exacerbates the comment-section mentality is that we’re experiencing...