Bethany – Thank you for your post! Throughout the semester, I have really enjoyed hearing about your experiences teaching and learning about all the hands-on activities that you are incorporating. I really would love to sit in on your class sometime. And I definitely think that you are helping your students make positive changes in their worlds.
Author: amyhermundstad
Comment on Presenting the Present State of Writing Statements by amyhermundstad
Thank you for your post. I really appreciate your discussion of the importance of what people are doing now. But for me, it is important for people to demonstrate continued engagement in efforts to advance diversity and inclusion, and this includes past, present, and future efforts. Many times, I have heard stories where one act is intended to represent a commitment to diversity. For example, I am in engineering and I have heard stories of people indicating that since they have a female student in their lab group currently that they are engaged in efforts to advance diversity. This, to me, does not demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion. I hope that people are engaging in discussions and efforts related to diversity (as demonstrated by past and present activities) and that this work continues in the future. So from my perspective, when writing a diversity statement, I want to demonstrate a continuation of efforts that includes past, present, and future activities.
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Comment on Who Knows How to Use a Screw Driver? by amyhermundstad
I really enjoyed your post! It was great!! You bring up so many great points in this post. I would be curious to hear your ideas on how these ideas could be implemented in various educational settings, especially pertaining to your last point of doing things differently.
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Comment on The Racist Highway by amyhermundstad
Thank you for the post! I really enjoyed reading it! Do you remember where you first heard the metaphor? You bring up so many valuable points in this post and one that really resonated with me is the idea that when we are in the majority, we often do not see what it is like from the perspective of someone who does not share that privilege. When this is the case, I think it is important that we active role, take ourselves off autopilot, listen, and learn from those around us.
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Comment on Suppressing Heuristics by amyhermundstad
Thank you for your post! I think it is so important for us as educators to reflect on and challenge assumptions that we make about the students in our classes as those we interact with. As you said, heuristics are born out of experiences, and sometimes our experiences are very limited. But as the video in class showed, there are many dangers to having a single story of others (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story).
Comment on The second album by amyhermundstad
I love this post! I really appreciate the idea of teaching in a variety of different ways while still remaining true to who you are. It is such a great point that teachers teach in a variety of contexts and teach a variety of students. So being adaptable is such a great quality. I am excited to hear more about your second album of teaching and I would love to sit in on one of your classes (I still am super intrigued by the idea of using twister to teach about nutrients and soil particles!).
Comment on I want my voice be heard in class. by amyhermundstad
I really enjoyed reading your post! And I really appreciated the examples that you provided of your mother’s and grandmother’s experiences. What cool examples! As you think about your own teaching voice in a classroom, how might you teach a class in an interesting way and how might you encourage students’ voices to be heard?
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Comment on DISCOVERING YOUR AUTHENTIC TEACHING SELF by amyhermundstad
You have some great reflections which have sparked some really interesting conversations! I think it can be so valuable to reflect on your teaching style even before you formally teach a class. And it sounds like you have some valuable experiences teaching and helping students learn and grow even if those experiences were not formally teaching a class.
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Comment on Disincentivizing Lives by amyhermundstad
I enjoyed reading your post this week! I am curious to hear more about the appropriate uses of grades in a classroom and the use of grades as a tool to help students self-assess and improve. Wouldn’t more qualitative feedback (as opposed to grades) better help students understand their progress and help students improve?
Comment on Being Mindful on McAfee Knob by amyhermundstad
This was a great post! I loved reading about your exploration of mindfulness on your journey to McAfee Knob. It was such a great visual for the learning experiences you describe. I think often times students are in classes and they have no idea why they have to take that class or how it all relates to what they are planning on doing after they get out of the classroom (I never could figure out why I should learn heat and mass transfer). I love your example of ways to bring that context into the learning environment to give students a snapshot of the top.
