I had very different intentions for this post when I set up the draft and titled it. I thought I'd share how I was finally hitting my stride with this whole newborn care and working from home thing. Share some of my newfound wisdom, if you will. And then yesterday happened. The baby threw up … Continue reading Productivity While Caregiving
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Your Future Self
The first time I remember reading about "your future self" was in Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. She gave the example of preparing the coffee machine the night before so all you had to do was enjoy your coffee the next day. It isn't about saving time necessarily, but rather thinking of what your future self … Continue reading Your Future Self
Why Does Grading Feel So Hard?
Tis the season for faculty complaints about grading. Not that I blame them. Grading is the absolute worst part of teaching---just ask any teacher. I myself was feeling incredibly unmotivated to review my students' midterm projects, and then I immediately felt guilty. After all, I am the one who sets the assignments. I am the … Continue reading Why Does Grading Feel So Hard?
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Group Work
Ah group work. Every student's nemesis. A lot of teachers don't like it either because we know how much students hate it and because rarely is it less work for us in spite of having fewer projects overall to manage. What is it they say about hell being other people? And yet we assign group … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Group Work
Multimodal Assignment Design
During the week of September 21st - 25th, I will be presenting a 15 minute pre-recorded session titled "Designing, Scaffolding, and Evaluating Multimodal Assignments" at the 2020 Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference hosted by the Stearns Center at George Mason University. In connection with the video presentation, I have also created a PDF designed … Continue reading Multimodal Assignment Design
Digital Literacy
This week was the first week of fall classes at my institution. While it has been fraught with technology issues like a massive Zoom outage, Blackboard lockout, and Kaltura/MyMedia crash, it has also been exciting to meet my new students and begin some of the conversations central to our courses. In particular, I am excited … Continue reading Digital Literacy
NeMLA 2021 – Digital Pedagogy in the Composition Classroom
I am pleased to announce that my panel proposal for Northeast MLA 2021 has been accepted. Little did I know when I wrote the proposal how pervasive digital approaches to teaching composition would become now that we find ourselves in the middle (?) of a global pandemic. As I write this, it is not yet … Continue reading NeMLA 2021 – Digital Pedagogy in the Composition Classroom
CtrlF – A 1 Minute Podcast on Digital Literacy
This semester I am co-leading a Faculty Learning Community on Multimodal Assignments. This week we are producing one-minute audio compositions with captions and/or transcripts to practice making multimodal compositions which are accessible. Recently I tweeted about my experience volunteering with Computer Core which seeks to help low-income people acquire digital literacy skills. At the same … Continue reading CtrlF – A 1 Minute Podcast on Digital Literacy
How I Replaced the Research Paper in First-year Composition Using The Gelman Library Social Feed Manager
Recently three of my students from the Fall semester of 2018 presented at the Writing and Research Conference hosted by the University Writing program at George Washington University. This conference is designed to showcase the research and writing that first-year students do in their UW courses with current first-year writing students, librarians, and faculty. I … Continue reading How I Replaced the Research Paper in First-year Composition Using The Gelman Library Social Feed Manager
Using Wikipedia in the College Composition Classroom
Last semester, I partnered with the Wikipedia Education Foundation to organize a Wikipedia editing project for my first-year composition students. Using Wikipedia in the classroom has changed the way I think about the production and consumption of knowledge. Like many academics, I had been indoctrinated to think of Wikipedia as a non-reliable source. Period. And … Continue reading Using Wikipedia in the College Composition Classroom
Tawnya Azar 