“One can still be committed to one’s discipline, one can still be scholarly, studious and literate … and SMILE while you are doing it.” That was the message early in John Huss’ session on humor at The Teaching Professor Conference this past weekend.
Archive for May, 2010
Revisiting Handouts
Posted Thursday, May 20th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerHandouts—for many of us they are an essential part of teaching, but conceptually they are not something to which we devote much mental energy. With summer approaching or during the current break between semesters, maybe a review of what handouts can be used to accomplish might motivate us to reconsider how we use them. Could it be time to explore some other options?
Lessons: Humility, Acceptance, and a Commitment to Improvement
Posted Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerWe can all improve. And we should feel at least some responsibility to do so. I also don’t think we reckon as we should with the fact that teaching skills don’t stay the same, at least not for very long. Either we are improving or the opposite is happening.
Do Take Care
Posted Friday, May 14th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerThe Teaching Professor Conference is next week, and it’s a sold-out event. More than 800 of us will gather in Cambridge outside Boston for this event. If this year’s conference is like previous ones, it will be a high-energy event with virtually nonstop talk about teaching and learning
Despite some exhaustion by the time it’s over, [...]
Paradigm Shifts
Posted Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerI just received a copy of Michael Harris and Roxanne Cullen’s new book, Leading the Learner-Centered Campus. I’ll be writing more about it in the newsletter. When I first reviewed this manuscript, there was one idea that struck me as being so insightful and on target. It’s what these authors say about the now common [...]
How Much Group Work?
Posted Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerSo, this is a bit embarrassing. In the previous blog I noted that faculty endorsement of group work was tentative. It may be, but I’ve also been assuming that as a consequence, use of it in college courses is not as widespread as it might need to be. Well, shortly (as in a couple of [...]
Faculty Perceptions of Group Work
Posted Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerWe’ve all seen those survey results where employers and recruiters list the skills and characteristics they are most looking for in college graduates. And I expect you know that teamwork, the ability to work in groups with others, is always high on the list (second only to communication skills in a Wall Street Journal survey [...]
