Part of the lasting impact of the scholarship on teaching philosophies highlighted in my previous column results from the activities the authors (Beatty et al., 2009) developed to help faculty find their way to beliefs and a philosophy. The first, a guided imagery exercise, uses prompts to explore individual effectiveness in the classroom. More substantive, the second involves sorting through a series of cards (now available online through an app) and selecting those statements that reflect one’s beliefs. Completed individually or groups, the activity is clearly described in the article. Besides accomplishing its objectives, the card sort is an engaging exercise that one participant equated to peeling an onion—but likely with fewer tears, I suspect.
