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We Wrote, You Reacted
Because we love lists so much, we created a second, albeit shorter one: Newsletter topics that prompted the most reader feedback. We have three for you, and if they inspire you to write in with more thoughts, all the better.
First, readers had a lot to say about the idea of replacing an exam with an unusual or creative assignment. That was prompted by this story of a science professor who asked his students to write a children’s book. The assignment builds on two big ideas: getting students engaged in their own learning, and helping them understand a concept by asking them to explain it simply.
Second, teaching evaluations. Those two words are guaranteed to spark intense reactions, and they did. We wrote about one professor’s argument that these evaluations would be more meaningful if colleges waited well beyond the end of the semester to give them, on the idea that sometimes you don’t fully appreciate the impact of a course until you’ve had time to process it. That notion also prompted Dan to do a deeper dive into the topic, based in part on reader observations on the pros and cons of delayed evaluations.
Finally, Dan and Beckie responded to reader feedback on how to balance our coverage of research and teaching. Yes, a discussion of a particular teaching reform could be enhanced with a nod to related research. At the same time, they noted, this is a newsletter, meant to be conversational, and not an academic journal. That got them wondering about how our readers think about research when it comes to their teaching. You were more than happy to chime in.
Collectively, most of this year’s popular newsletter topics paint a picture of instructors who very much want to understand the student experience and learn from it. That marks a shift in how higher education approaches student success, as we’ve noted in much of our teaching coverage over the past few years. The “sink or swim” attitude is fading in higher education, replaced with the belief that teaching and learning are a complex processes that benefit from reflection, research, and continuous innovation.
Sometimes You Need to Listen Before Lecturing
We asked our readers to tell us about an experience that changed the way they teach. James W. Loewen, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Vermont shared this story:
“Teaching a course, ‘Race Relations Through Feature Films,’ I showed the 1988 Alan Parker movie Mississippi Burning. Ostensibly about the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., it becomes a formulaic ‘good cop / bad cop’ picture starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. After we watched it together, I was ready with a 10-minute diatribe deconstructing the film historically, sociologically, and artistically.
“Luckily, just in time, I remembered my practice of asking students to write down their initial reactions in their journals and gave them five minutes to do so. Then I diatribed.
“Later, reading their journal responses, I realized that the movie had considerable power and had conveyed the powerlessness and terror of black life in Mississippi accurately. (I had lived in Mississippi during this era.) So although it got some things wrong, it also got some things right.
“More to the point of my future teaching: I realized how valuable (to me!) it is to learn students’ reactions and interpretations before conveying or imposing my own, whether to a movie, course reading, guest speaker, whatever. Once the teacher has spoken, those reactions are forever changed.”
If you’d like to share a pivotal teaching experience with us, click here. Your story may appear in a future Teaching newsletter.
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us, at dan.berrett@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive your own copy, you can sign up here.
—Beth and Dan