“Let Them Read Drafts!”—Integrating Teaching & ScholarshipPosted on May 16, 2014 by Mindy McGarrah SharpLike brioche of “Let Them Eat Cake” fame, students need to delve into the kneading process that moves academic writing from idea to publication. Many of us get stuck believing that a first draft should be a polished draft, which is far from the case. Sharing drafts can also begin to address power dynamics by opening up what can be seen as exclusive academic conversations.
Integrating by PartsPosted on February 11, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorSomething there is that doesn’t love a silo. A curriculum is divided into fields are divided into courses are divided into units are divided into assignments. Ever review a student’s final paper for a course and find that, somehow, she didn’t succeed in using the knowledge and skills that she _actually did develop_ throughout the course? That final paper was constructed in a silo. There are a lot of factors from which the silo problem has been constructed and maintained. But, it’s pretty disheartening to imagine our learners going into their vocations and building silos around the challenges they find there…silos with high walls that keep out all the knowledge, intuition, skills, and habits that they’ve poured themselves into developing.My institution’s response-in-progress to the silo problem is a capstone project to the M.Div program, the “Final Integrative Paper…”
ACE Series Part V: A Call to ACE Critical Reasoning for the Last TimePosted on August 21, 2013 by Richard NewtonWe are at a pedagogical turning point. Once we could impress students with our powers of memorization and recall. But that day is ending. Fast thumbs and fine-tuned algorithms can replicate the same thing.Sure, you can hold onto the belief that no one lectures quite the way you do. But what will you teach when your school uploads your lectures to iTunes University?Our task is becoming less about just transmitting content. Whatever our respective domains, we are increasingly called to train students in application, access, and analysis….
ACE Series Part IV: Writing ACE Commentary, or Everything I Need to Know About Arguing I Learned from Billy Madison!Posted on August 13, 2013 by Richard NewtonMy research deals with the scriptures people use to orient their lives. This interest may have begun in adolescence. Much to the chagrin of my youth group directors, my friends and I had a wider canon than the authorized version of any denomination out there.Our central text was the Adam Sandler film, Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis, 1995). To us it was a cult classic to be quoted chapter and verse. This movie made those awkward teenage years some how more bearable. For every situation, there was some line from the film available for application. And for whatever reason, when I think of ACE commentary, this film clip comes to mind….
ACE Series Part III: Good Evidence Must ACE the BS Test—It’s the Law!Posted on August 6, 2013 by Richard NewtonWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…Some of my students think that they are Thomas Jefferson. They will write paragraphs with assertions they hold to be self-evident. And while I laud their desire to write revolutionary words, they must first learn that no one, not even the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, can get away with offering evidence-less assertions.Mock academic politics all you want, but higher education at least claims the democratic notion of fair criticism. It’s a place where anyone should be able to call BS on an unsupported assertion at any time. And its participants should get the opportunity to challenge a point’s validity and qualify it with amendments—the 13th, 14, 15th, and 19th in Mr. Jefferson’s case….