Here are my best wishes for your holiday season. May there be peace, joy, giving, and thankfulness as you celebrate with family and friends.
We’re having a quiet, white Christmas at our farm in Pennsylvania. I’m giving the birds extra seed and the neighbors the Christmas cookies my Mom used to make.
Thanks for reading this blog. [...]
Archive for December, 2009
Holiday Best Wishes
Posted Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerOh Those Students. . .
Posted Thursday, December 17th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerEven with the holidays upon us, it’s hard not to think about those students who did poorly in our courses this semester.
Some of them just didn’t make the effort. They tend to be the ones who don’t really know why they’re in college or what they want to do with their lives. At this moment, it’s the social life — meeting new people, the parties, games, and the myriad of “fun” things college kids can find to do.
Grading Advice for the End-of-the-Semester Crunch
Posted Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI’m thinking that this week you don’t have time for blog entries that require more than a quick read through. End of courses are such a harried time, so much grading, students lining up for office hours, final committee meetings and with the holidays, there are all those celebratory events at attend. To say nothing of everything that needs to be done at home.
So, take a deep breath and a moment to relax while I offer some simple reminders about grading.
Blending Instructional Formats
Posted Thursday, December 10th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerAn article in a recent issue of Change magazine reports on the transformation of general education courses at the University of North Texas. Faculty fellows, competitively selected and awarded with grant funds, redesign a general education course in ways that promote higher-level learning. Carefully constructed assessment plans are also developed for the course. I was especially interested in the blend of instructional approaches recommended for these course redesigns.
Beyond the Prohibitions: Teaching Students not to Plagiarize
Posted Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 by Maryellen Weimer“I don’t think teachers teach it well enough. I don’t think they teach well enough citing, and what to do, and how to take the words, and how many words you can take without being considered plagiarism. They just say, ‘Don’t plagiarize.’ But they never tell you what to do to not plagiarize.” (p. 655)
This [...]
‘A Teaching Life’
Posted Friday, December 4th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerOn a fairly regular basis, I reread what may well be my all time favorite essay on teaching—Christa L. Walck’s “A Teaching Life.” Walck’s essay draws heavily from one of my favorite books, Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, in which Dillard describes how writing creates her life. Walck wonders if teaching does the same for [...]
The Power of Examples
Posted Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI’m searching for something in an old issue of The Teaching Professor, wishing along the way that we’d done a better job of indexing content in the newsletter but rediscovering all sorts of good things that I’ve forgotten. Case in point: here’s a great quote about examples.
“Examples are instructional workhorses: they carry a great deal [...]