Late Nights in the Library: Meeting Students on Their Terms Posted on December 29, 2014 by Josh KingcadeNow, we should never encourage procrastination. Nor should we commend the practice of cramming in library late nights right before a paper deadline. But often, faculty expect students to make time only during the day (AKA: during our office hours). Normally, this is reasonable. But when do you think students are doing most of their work on their papers? (When did you do most of your work on your papers?) It’s at night, when they can focus more, and yet faculty are nowhere to be seen. I’ll bet if you surveyed your students, over eighty percent of work on term papers is done during the evenings on the week the paper is due. If your students are doing their work in the evenings leading up to the due date, why not be available to help them then?
Prepping Class with Newspaper in Hand Posted on August 25, 2014 by Julia FoggI have observed that most of my traditional undergraduates do not read the day’s news reports, listen to weekly political analysts, or even follow current issues on social media. Unfortunately, this lacunae can further the perceived disconnect between the classroom/campus and “real life”…. ….so how can a newspaper help? What happens when we put contemporary issues side by side with biblical texts in the classroom? Can we prep class like Jeremiah, one eye on God’s word and the other on the political jungle around us?
Sustainable Service Learning: A SLO Transformation Posted on July 11, 2014 by Julia FoggI began incorporating service learning over a decade ago, fresh out of grad school. I had few committee and no administrative responsibilities so all my time and energy went into teaching. I quickly learned two things: service and experiential learning are deeply transformative for students but incredibly time consuming for faculty…. Designing service learning or experiential learning courses presents two make-or-break challenges. The first is challenge is logistical…the second is relational…
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. . . .