Culture Check: Course Work Extensions Posted on January 30, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorIt is the end of January, and I am beginning to hear around me the muffled groans of faculty colleagues as the Fall 2013 “extensions” roll in. I don’t know whether they are called “extensions” everywhere, but we all know what we’re talking about, right? This is when a student is granted permission to complete some of their course requirements during the weeks or months after the course is over. At my institution, the student contracts with the instructor and the registrar, agreeing on what work remains, and what grade will result if the work is not done. But even if we all know what “extensions” are, that does not mean that everyone agrees on how to administer them, or that every school has the same perspective on them. How is the practice of granting extensions assessed in the “ecosystem” of your institution? What is your own thinking on extensions…?
Why Don’t You Just Tell Me What Grade You Want? Posted on January 13, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorWant an “A”? Okay. Shake on it. In “contract grading,” the student and instructor agree at the outset what grade the student is going for, and what is needed to earn that grade. Of course, this could describe the point of many syllabi. What distinguishes “contract grading” (at least the examples I have seen) is that the student decides which assignments she will do and which assignments she won’t do. Also, in most examples I have seen, the work is assessed on a “satisfactory/unsatisfactory” basis. I have been looking closely at “contract grading,” and am planning to implement some version of it for my 2014–15 courses…
Sound Bites from the Past Posted on December 13, 2013 by Jim PapandreaWhen I was a student, the way many professors taught Church History was through readers—a published book of excerpts from the primary sources. These books were assigned, and students were to read the relevant excerpts as preparation for lectures on the various time periods, controversies, and patristic writers. When I became the professor, I simply followed the lead of my own teachers, without really considering whether there was another way to do it. . . .
Teaching with Meta-Questions Posted on November 8, 2013 by Jane S. WebsterWhat’s the point? Do you ever get those blank why-are-we-talking-about-this stare? Is your answer too often, “Just because?” Today’s challenge is to consider your larger course agenda and how it maps onto student curiosity. More specifically, it is time to identify the metaquestion you hope your course will answer. . . .
Write Along Side of Them Posted on October 5, 2013 by Philip Ruge-JonesTwo things often slip my mind when teaching a writing intensive research course: That students refuse to believe that writing is a process and overestimate their ability to pull off a project in the final hour, and That when I’m writing I know the lure of the same delusions….