September 2003
Tuesday 30 September 2003
- Millennials Go to College - This afternoon, I attended an open General Assembly at SHU, where Director of Admissions Mary Kay Cooper presented a well-delivered demographic snapshot of today's entering college students, drawn largely from the booklet, Millenials Go To College by Neil Howe and William Strauss. We were given seven core traits of students... (23:09 | 0 Trackbacks | 5 Comments)
- Good Prof vs. Bad Prof - Good Teacher vs. Bad Teacher Good Lecture vs. Bad Lecture Lecture vs. Discussion Good Breath | Bad Breath... (01:16 | 0 Trackbacks | 3 Comments)
Monday 29 September 2003
- Scholarship Reconsidered: Conclusions - In this entry, I conclude my reading log of Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. I'll cover Chapter 6 ("A New Generation of Scholars") and 7 ("Scholarship and Community") in one session. In a nutshell, these chapters discuss graduate student learning and... (22:27 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
Sunday 28 September 2003
- Literature Circles - I frequently assign small group work in my classes; in lit courses the groups often focus on a particular reading and report back to the class. In my surfing of edublogs, I've routinely bumped into references to "literature circles": small groups that not only read a text, but have each... (21:24 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
- Scholarship Reconsidered IV & V: Diversity in Time & Space - In this entry, I continue my reading log of Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. I'll cover Chapter 4 ("The Creativity Contract") and Chapter 5 ("The Campuses: Diversity with Dignity") in one session. In a nutshell, these chapters advocate for maximum flexibility... (15:43 | 0 Trackbacks | 1 Comments)
- The Teacher's Predicament - Thanks to Will R. on Weblogg-ed, I've found this thoughtful essay in Teacher Magazine (requires sign-up, but free) on the pros and cons of teachers blogging about their classes, called "This Time, It's Personal" by Mark Toner. The article surveys the ways in which blogs can help teachers grow by... (13:03 | 0 Trackbacks | 2 Comments)
- Do Essay Comments Matter? - Buried below (in the post on "Commenting"), Dr. John Spurlock raised the issue of whether or not commenting on student papers really makes a difference in student learning: "Do we know that commenting works? What kinds of comments work best? Are there tactics that should be used in addition to... (02:06 | 0 Trackbacks | 6 Comments)
- Quiz Grader...Note Taker - I use quizzes as ways to not only spot check that students are doing the work, but to organize a class conversation or lecture. In my Art of Film course last Wednesday, I quizzed the students over the readings and pulled a surprise on everyone....... (01:24 | 0 Trackbacks | 2 Comments)
Saturday 27 September 2003
- Scholarship Reconsidered III: On the Diversity of Faculty Talent - In this entry, I continue my reading log of Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In Chapter 3, "The Faculty: A Mosaic of Talent" Boyer explores the diversity of faculty work and contemplates alternative methods for assessing a professor's scholarly performance. ....... (12:36 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
Friday 26 September 2003
- "Shout Out" Exercise - Jeannine Stanko -- a former English student who is moving into teaching as a profession -- wrote me the other day: "I've been teaching the ninth graders how to write. It's been going well and it's a lot of fun. I find myself trying to think creative ways to help... (15:28 | 0 Trackbacks | 1 Comments)
- Scholarship Reconsidered II: The Boyer Model - In this entry, I continue my reading log of Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In "Enlarging the Perspective," the second chapter, Boyer outlines four "separate but overlapping functions of scholarship which constitute the primary work of the professoriate: discovery, integration, application... (11:16 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
Thursday 25 September 2003
- Scholarship Reconsidered I: Shifting Meanings of "Scholarship" - I've decided to read Scholarship Reconsidered by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from cover to cover. I'll post a summary and my unstructured gut-level responses as I go from chapter to chapter. I'm finding it a fascinating study....... (22:47 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
- Research || Teaching - I've been reading a few pieces here and there by a scholar named Sandy Middleton, an advocate for the Boyer model of "scholarship of teaching" who sees many parallels between the practice of teaching and the practice of traditional research. Great stuff. Middleton suggests that publication is analagous to a... (00:23 | 0 Trackbacks | 3 Comments)
Wednesday 24 September 2003
- Educator Blogs - Naturally, there are tons of other weblogs by educators. I'm on the hunt for the best of them. Initial findings I wanted to 'blogmark': The Subtle Knife: a comfortable hotlist which organizes academic bloggers, research blogs, and major websites for teachers (and, okay, I like the title). WebLogg-Ed: a great... (11:48 | 0 Trackbacks | 1 Comments)
Tuesday 23 September 2003
- Uncanny! - Moments after I posted the message about plagiarism (below), I discovered a plagiarized response paper from my film course. I wrote in the margins: "Well-written!" because the student was articulate >and Other signs that led me to check on the paper: sophisticated style in a paper that is only three... (20:17 | 0 Trackbacks | 1 Comments)
- Anti-Plagiarism - I just found a great resource of online articles about combatting plagiarism, compiled by librarian Sharon Stoerger. This has been on my mind lately as our school investigates plagiarism detection software like turnitin.com. One issue is whether or not such programs are any better than using google or ebsco host... (20:02 | 0 Trackbacks | 4 Comments)
- The Blueprint - Eureka. I found a primary source (from several years ago, actually) for a lot of the impetus behind the movement toward "Scholarship of Teaching" and the renewed sense of mission among many universities today: REINVENTING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities. I think the ideas in this document... (09:41 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
Monday 22 September 2003
- Commenting (again) - Two quick addenda: 1) Here's a small bibliography of sources on end commenting, paper annotation, and other grading-related marginalia as a genre. Might be worth looking into. 2) I had a brilliant idea just now while grading a portfolio: to buy one of those "label" printers that they sell at... (14:16 | 0 Trackbacks | 3 Comments)
- Commenting - I'm still learning the culture and conventions of blogspace, and I'm happy to see that already some folks have found their way to The Pedablogue and kindly left some encouraging comments. And people like my colleague Dennis Jerz have even blogged and discussed my opening entries. It's encouraging to know... (14:02 | 0 Trackbacks | 5 Comments)
Sunday 21 September 2003
- Essential Definition II: "Scholarship of Teaching" - The "Scholarship of Teaching" is mentioned among faculty at Seton Hill University almost as if it had the power of a buzzphrase. And it does have a particular kind of power. While the phrase means what it says, and reflects the work of anyone who works in the field of... (22:19 | 0 Trackbacks | 3 Comments)
- Essential Definition I: PEDAGOGUE - Since the title of this blog is a pun on "PEDAGOGUE," I thought I better define this term for those reading who don't know what it is. A "pedagogue" -- at bottom -- is simply an "educator." You'd think that would be a good thing, but the term also has... (21:48 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
- A New Purpose - Now that I'm done experimenting with blogspace, I've backed up my initial entries in an attempt to streamline this blog and focus on the scholarship of teaching.... (20:50 | 0 Trackbacks | 1 Comments)