Tag Archives: Teaching

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What are trigger warnings and why all the fuss?

Since the University of Chicago sent a letter to all incoming students informing them that they wouldn’t receive trigger warnings, the concept has been debated within and outside of higher education. In fact, it has probably been debated more than many higher education problems that are far more prevalent. In today’s post, I will answer the question: What are trigger warnings and why all the fuss?

what are trigger warnings

Photo credit: Jason Eppink

When I teach the History of Higher Education, I have the students read the Charter and Statutes of William and Mary. The text is dense with hard to understand language. Before I have them read it, I warn them that largely because of the language that it will probably be the hardest thing that we will read in class. I also tell them it is pretty dry, but there are some key themes that I want them to gather.

So is this a trigger warning?

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A response to the Atlantic: Active Learning Doesn’t Harm Students

The Atlantic published an essay from Christine Gross-Loh entitled, “Should Colleges Really Eliminate the College Lecture?” This follows a similar op-ed published in the New York Times, “Lecture Me. Really.” Is there someone out there assaulting lecturers? Are there colleges out there eliminating the lecture? Is there even a college out there that could force an elimination if they tried? What is this really about? There is a growing and substantial body of research that suggests the importance of engagement and active learning. This scholarship has led to calls to reduce the frequency (more importantly, the length) of lectures in favor of engaging students in the classroom. Clearly, those who believe in the power and potential of lectures feel under threat. Yet, the research is clear that the inclusion of active learning helps students learn content better. The defense of the lecture in the Atlantic essay is long on anecdotal support for lecturing and wrong in numerous ways. In response, I want to respond to a few of the most inaccurate passages as a response to the Atlantic and underline my central argument: active learning doesn’t harm students.

14th Century Lecture in Bologna
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Are college students more brilliant? The grade inflation debate

Brilliant! I loved the series of Guinness commercials that made fun of the British affinity for using the word brilliant. It is hard not to love using brilliant and I often join in after only a few days in England (resulting in much ribbing from my colleagues). Of course, the issue is that if everything is brilliant- is anything? Brilliant used to mean exceptionally good, but now it has been watered down due to overuse. All of this leads to me think of the grade inflation debate in higher education and whether today’s college students are more brilliant than in the past.

“Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily—Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity. . . One of the chief obstacles to raising the standards of the degree is the readiness with which insincere students gain passable grades by sham work.”  — Report of the Committee on Raising the Standard, Harvard University, 1984

The grade inflation debate is not new.  

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Designing environments to encourage student learning

We do a notoriously poor job teaching graduate students how to teach. Graduate programs devote tremendous energy into delivering content knowledge while pedagogy is all but ignored. Yet, we know that many graduate students will be teaching whether in undergraduate classes or in other professional settings. Content knowledge is vital, yet it is not the only component needed when teaching. In addition, one needs to understand how to design environments to encourage student learning and how to work with students. In today’s post, I will focus on designing positive learning environments.

Photo credit: planzeichnen

Teaching is hard work. It often doesn’t come easy and requires effort to improve.

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How do tenure committees evaluate candidates

The tenure review process may be one of the most mysterious performance review processes in any industry. In most cases, there are vague guidelines and unclear expectations. As I went through the tenure process, I felt like I had done enough, but you never really know.  In large measure, the lack of clarity stems from a fear of establishing legally binding precedent as well as an attitude of “I did it this way, you can too” on the part of senior faculty. In today’s post, I want to pull the curtain back and answer the basic question: How do tenure committees evaluate candidates?

To be sure, each department, school, and institution vary somewhat on what they’re looking for and how they evaluate pre-tenure candidates.

While the relative weight of each of the 8 aspects I identify vary, I want to suggest that these are the primary criteria considered by colleges and universities across the country— no matter their size, research mission, or prestige.