“Smells Like a B-Minus?”: Surrender Privilege for Transparency Posted on October 1, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorUnderstanding by Design is an outcomes-based approach to course design whereby an instructor first articulates her most profligate hopes and dreams for her students: what are the enduring understandings about the subject matter that animate her love for the course and which she strives to kindle in her learners? There is a cost to doing it well, but it’s a cost many of us are more than happy to pay: we have to surrender the privilege of issuing letter-grades from within the fortress of our privileged Instructor’s Black Box, and take up the adult responsibility of making our evaluations processes transparent to learners. Transparency in assessment is a loaded concept for faculty. Traditionally, we are not accustomed to having our discernment questioned: if it “smells like a B-plus” to us, then that is that…
Sleep in Academia: Sleep Tight Posted on September 16, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorStep One: We admitted that we were powerless over academia’s sleep-deprivation culture, that our lives had become unmanageable. If we want better sleep, then there are two aspects. First, there are the physiological solutions, many of which will seem both obvious and impractical. Second, there is the task of making these possible by Jobby-Jobbing Our Job.
Sleep in Academia: An End-of-Term Tantrum Posted on May 15, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorI’m sleeping terribly this month. Because it’s May. Again. In the first two installments of this sleep-deprivation series I bragged about how meticulously I average 8+ hours of sleep per night. But it’s May. Again. Normally, “May” means “grading,” and “grading” means “throwing out my lower back and suffering 3–4 weeks of sleep- and work-inhibiting chronic pain.” As it happens, I’m on sabbatical this term, but I do have an end-of-month writing deadline, which turns out to have the same effect. You don’t need me to tell you what work-related stressors prevent you from getting enough sleep. But having named the problem, and having acknowledged the crippling effects of sleep deprivation on our performance and our health, and before looking for solutions, it seems right to ask out loud: What are the stressors in academia that kill our sleep, whether by introducing physical pain, or by keeping our brains in fight-or-flight mode, or by simply filling too many hours?
Sleep in Academia: The Brain We’ve Got Posted on April 21, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, Curator(See also Part One: Waking Up to the Problem.) It’s sometimes said in “recovery” circles that “You can’t fix the brain you’ve got with the brain you’ve got.” But let’s see if we can’t try to think clearly—our crippling sleep deficit notwithstanding—about the brain. Anybody who can manage a Google or YouTube search can discover…
Sleep in Academia: Waking up to the Problem Posted on March 28, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorCome closer, I have a confession to make. Lean in so I can whisper: I get enough sleep. It’s a lonely admission. Like the newly sobor alcoholic fidgeting silently at the edge of the Monday-morning water-cooler crowd (“I got sooooo wasted this weekend!”), I stand wistfully unwelcome among the ranks of the mock-serious humble-braggers of sleep deprivation (“I know…”beat “I need more sleep.” snort! guffaw!). Sleep deprivation is generally considered today to be like the weather: worth complaining about as a friendship-building exercise, but not a problem seriously considered solvable…