Reading is hard. It requires greater focus and concentration and attention than looking at photos or memes. The dopamine hits that bombard TikTok users are hard to come by in books. What does BookTok have to teach us about motivating students to read?
There's something to be said for being the kind of educator that authoritarians want to ban, if you can afford the risk.
Aristotle described a broad education as one of the distinguishing characteristics of a free person but also of a free and independent mind, hence “liberal" education. Citizens in a democracy need education to free their mind.
The core principles of feminist pedagogy are radically inclusive and democratic: An insistence that education be applicable to real struggles to liberate; An effort to make classroom spaces more egalitarian or democratic; and The validation of lived experience as a source of knowledge
Highlander was all about empowering marginalized, oppressed people to realize how much they actually already knew, to find solidarity with others around them, and to use their knowledge to bring about social change together.
Reading a peer's work triggers many students to recognize improvements that they could make in their own. In fact, giving feedback might actually support more learning and growth than getting feedback.
To be helpful, feedback should focus on helping students to improve their work, not on evaluating them. And it should connect back to expectations that were clear from the start.
Dewey was not just concerned with adapting education to meet the moment of the Industrial Revolution, but in realizing the democratic ideals of the United States.
Despite being suspended and banned from campus or even denied their degrees in some cases, the students in those encampments got a better education than many of their classmates, in the ways that matter.
Formative assessment is dialogic in nature, a conversation where student and instructor communicate back and forth about beliefs, strategies, expectations, and judgments. Both the student and the instructor get feedback that will help them do better.
It's important for instructors to get to know the learners in the room, because the learners' prior knowledge and goals play a huge role in determining what they'll learn, and how much they'll learn, and how quickly. Everyone in the room will learn a lot more if the class becomes a community.
In my mind, there are three great ways to use mind maps in the classroom: 1) mastering a lot of new information in an intro class; 2) going beyond rote learning; or 3) planning an essay, paper, project, or complex assignment, especially in a group
When I delved into scholarship on supporting first-gen college students, I thought about Marius and the Roman "new man" trope. They turned a potential deficit into an asset, and a core aspect of their identity.
course planning
By teaching students to pick apart and become conscious of the structures and conventions of scholarly writing, we can help them to absorb those conventions and replicate them.
course planning
UDL can and should include using tech accessibility tools, but also goes much further. At the end of the day, UDL is about getting rid of artificial barriers so that everyone can get on with the business of learning.
graduate education
When I first heard the term "student-centered teaching," I recognized it as an apt description of what I had been doing instinctively. In general, it means shifting your focus from the content you're teaching to what your students are learning.
I think the "Quickfire" is a framework that we can apply to teaching, particularly to active learning in the form of group work, including online breakout rooms. It's something we can do in every class, and we can mix it up to keep it interesting.
As professors and facilitators of discussion, we urgently need more training on what to do when discussion goes off the rails, because it does not feel good to let students down.
Embrace taking breaks during your lectures, even just for a minute or two, and even at the end of the semester when you're exhausted. It's not laziness, it's cognitive science!
graduate education
It's worth reflecting on what assets you bring to the table as a learner, too, as you think about how to make the most of the assets others bring to your classrooms.
course planning
Missed Part I? Read it here. 3. Create community in your classroom I only taught for a few months during the pandemic. It was one of the hardest challenges I’d faced in teaching—like laying railroad tracks while the train was moving—and I know I wasn’t the
After 8 years of teaching Latin, Greek, Roman civilization, and other topics in the classical world, I’ve moved on to work as a curriculum designer and faculty development facilitator for a small nonprofit, The Citizens Campaign. I’m on a team of former practitioners of government and politics who
A lot is going to change, both in politics and in higher education, in 2021. At The Citizens Campaign, we have undertaken a groundbreaking new initiative to meet the fierce urgency of 21st century crises, by giving citizens — especially people of color and economically disadvantaged urban communities — the tools they