Author Archives: George H. Williams

research methods and undergraduate students

Posted on by

I’ve created a poll, and I’m seeking the feedback of those who teach in higher ed. Consider the following hypothetical situation.

During a class conversation about useful online tools in your field of study, an undergraduate student (a graduating senior) asserts that Google should be acknowledged as the default online tool for students in your discipline to do academic research. And when you suggest otherwise, the student dismisses the idea that students need to be introduced to anything else.

How comfortable are you knowing that this student is about to graduate with a degree from your department?

Click right here or on the “Participate” link below to add your opinion to the poll.

students need a reason to learn a new technology

Posted on by
Reply

That’s why I’m abdicating a bit of my authority and giving it to them so that they may collaboratively write the mobile phone policy for my class, as long as they do it on a wiki.

…more on this later.

bullet points on my first day of teaching

Posted on by
1
  1. Grading Participation Here is my evil|brilliant (depending on your perspective) plan: I’m going to make participation worth 12% of the final grade. Students will get graded on participation 4 times this semester, so each grade is worth a maximum of 3 points. In order to get a grade, a student must solicit 2 brief letters (emails, really) of recommendation from fellow students. And those emails need to contain specific details about how that student has contributed something valuable to the class. What do you think?
  2. Sticky Notes & Flickr In my first class this morning (Senior Seminar) I repeated the sticky-note+flickr process from last semester. This time, I asked students three questions:
    1. Orange sticky: Why did you major in English?
    2. Blue sticky: What do you plan to do after you graduate?
    3. Yellow sticky: If you needed to explain what’s valuable about your undergraduate education (to a potential employer, to a graduate or professional program), what would you say?

    We then stuck all the notes on the wall and discussed the answers while I took pictures. Before they left, students took back their sticky notes, and they’ll develop those initial thoughts as the semester goes on.

  3. Office Hours I came up with 3 possible permutations of offering office hours that work with my schedule, and I’m using a poll on Doodle to have students vote on which permutation works for them. The one with the most votes wins. And, of course, students are always welcome to make an appointment with me outside of office hours.
  4. Live Calendar My homepage has been completely revamped and is now super simple. It does need some style (cascading style, if you will) and I’ll soon add unobtrusive but accessible links to research and service activities, but I have succeeded at stripping it down to the basics: my semester schedule (with links to pages for my classes), a public version of my Google Calendar, and basic contact information. We’ll see how this goes…

tc3.0: definitions, instructions, & publishing schedule

Posted on by
1

Definitions

Teaching Carnival: “[A] periodic collection of blogposts to do with higher education” (Miriam Jones).

Blog carnival: “[A] type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks to other blog articles on the particular topic” (Wikipedia).

Instructions

You can easily have one of your blog posts about teaching in higher education included in an issue of the teaching carnival by doing any or all of the following:

  1. Email the next host directly (see list below) with the address to the permalink of your blog post, and/or
  2. Tag your post in Delicious with teaching-carnival, and/or
  3. Tag your post with Technorati tags.

Publishing schedule

Collaborative brainstorming: Teaching Carnival 3.0

Posted on by
1

If you’ve expressed interest in TC3, then you should have received a message from me that looked a little something like this:

Okay, here we go! Follow this link to share your available dates.

With this blog entry, I’m asking you all to help me brainstorm ways of making TC3 the most valuable resource it can be. Below is a list of my thoughts, some of which are phrased as questions. Your responses and additions will be very helpful:

  1. This project is fundamentally collaborative and open to just about anyone.
  2. This project should have its own website that links to all the individual carnivals as they appear.
  3. The website might also store an archived copy of each of those carnivals.
  4. The website might also be the place where the interviews (see below) are hosted.
  5. The website could provide a forum in which users ask questions of bloggers or seek advice about such things as constructing a syllabus, designing an assignment, or responding to a particular situation in class.
  6. Interviews (or even roundtable discussions) about teaching with well-known and not-so-well-known academics would be great. What’s the best way to go about conducting these? …presenting these?
  7. Should this have a different name, so that it’s taken more seriously by those not already privy to the blogging world? I’m thinking here of such professional entities as committees that make decisions regarding hiring, promotion, & tenure. What would be a more “professional” sounding name?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks!