Today's rather short post is brought to you by an instructor with 100 student projects to review! lol But seriously, I wanted to take a moment because it is officially the season of course evaluations, and I saw some interesting chatter in my program's slack about this topic. There was the very familiar back-and-forth about … Continue reading Negativity Bias
higher education
Rest
Fall Break is almost here at my institution. For most of us this means a three day weekend. Because I teach on a Tues/Thurs schedule it means a four day weekend for me. My question is: do you rest on these occasions? Academics in particular, but also many of us I suspect, don't actually take … Continue reading Rest
Digital Inclusion Week Campaign
I'm replacing this Tuesday's tip post with an update on my community-engaged students' second major project: the Digital Inclusion Week Campaign (hosted by NDIA). If you read my "So You Want to Teach a Service Learning Course?" post, you know I've been teaching two CE sections this semester. I also wrote briefly about what my … Continue reading Digital Inclusion Week Campaign
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Changing Course Mid-Semester
While most of us aren't quite mid-semester yet, I'm already facing a decision to backtrack on a key component of my course design. I mentioned teaching CE courses in a pandemic was hard, right? We've all likely experienced some version of pivoting in the past 1.5 years thanks to said pandemic, but have you ever … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Changing Course Mid-Semester
So You Want to Teach a Service Learning Course?
Sometimes I think I must have been out of my mind when I decided to teach two sections of a community-engaged course in a pandemic (this makes up only half of my 4 course load mind you). The coordination details feel endless at the moment. It is already the end of Week 4 and I … Continue reading So You Want to Teach a Service Learning Course?
Asynchronous Online Teaching
I recently had a conversation with a parent of a college student who was "disappointed" that her daughter *still* had some of her classes online this semester in spite of our institution's decision to "come back to campus" this fall. First, I informed her that at our specific institution, even before the pandemic, it is … Continue reading Asynchronous Online Teaching
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Get Into the Weeds
I can't tell you the number of times I've had students send me unsolicited emails thanking me for explaining what a scholarly article actually is. For years, they tell me, their instructors have demanded scholarly sources, but never explained to them what makes a source scholarly or not. I not only explain what a scholarly … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Get Into the Weeds
Covid-19 University
How are you all doing? Throughout the week, I collected some screenshots from Twitter that resonated with me and the experience of returning to campus for the fall semester. This past week marked my first time back in the classroom in 18 months. It was surreal. Partly because my department had moved into an entirely … Continue reading Covid-19 University
What You REALLY Need to Be Productive
(Nerd Alert!) I happen to love academic productivity advice, but a lot of it is CRAP-tastic for early career academics. At best it glosses over the real systemic issues facing EC academics; at worst it is insulting. I personally find it oddly comforting to listen to podcasts about paper planners and read posts about finding … Continue reading What You REALLY Need to Be Productive
10 Tips for Virtual, Synchronous Participation
I was actually going to write about a different topic this week, but in a recent meeting a colleague mentioned how fatigued she was because her virtual synchronous sessions were basically all black boxes with the same four students participating each time. This particular colleague is up for a pretty rad teaching award this year, … Continue reading 10 Tips for Virtual, Synchronous Participation
Tawnya Azar 