Great blog post Khushboo! I like your point that “being a ‘good student’ does not mean not questioning your teacher or your peers but to question, commit mistakes, learn from the mistakes and make new mistakes”. You are absolutely on point.

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Nice post Helen! I liked how you point out the differences between “collecting” and “collecting” the dots. I agree that as much as it is true for every discipline to educate the students with the fundamental concepts, it is also crucial to instill a sense of creativity among the students.

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I am teaching a Social Science intro course that counts as a pathways course and this is one of my biggest struggles! I am trying to make the course content relevant to non-majors and thinking of it in this way is very helpful!

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I have been reflecting on the benefits I’ve gained (both consciously and unconsciously) from this course recently and had it all come to a head today when I was talking with a fellow GTA this afternoon! I have also learned a lot and, potentially more importantly, expanded my conceptions of teaching, learning and the classroom throughout this semester.

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Hi Zellie,

I love your thoughts and this post!

Human Development is geared toward applied human services fields and we highlight empathy and compassion for others in our courses.

I am glad to hear you thoughtfully consider this through the lens of your own experiences!

I also liked this point! I’ve never really thought about introspection in this way, but it struck me as such a Fundamental Truth. Because when we are working on something we care passionately about, we want it to be as good as possible. We (should) want feedback to make it better, even potentially at the risk of losing some “credit” for doing it entirely ourselves, or appearing non-omniscient.
I also think that in order to feel this way, we must be able to ask for help and be humble. Because in asking for/receiving feedback we are acknowledging that other people may be “more right” than us.

Hi Zellie- thank you for your personal connection to this week’s readings when discussing stress, anxiety, and empathy. I agree wholeheartedly that schools should be doing more to address student mental health.

We ask professors to think more holistically about curriculum, so shouldn’t schools think more holistically about student mental health and well-being? You see special programs like the therapy dogs that come to campus during finals week and you wrote about the student counselling services, but neither of those meet the full student needs which can only be partially addressed through a patchwork of programs and healthcare offerings.

Some institutions have decided to develop their own tool-kits for students/trainees in distress. This broader approach will better enable campuses to meet the needs of their student populations, which should improve student interactions, communication, focus, empathy, and everything else that mental health and well-being are related to.

Hey Jake, you bring up a great point. My thinking that by observing students and giving them feedback you are coaching them. I think this is easier to do in a research setting though instead of in a classroom because you need that personal connection and time to observe. Thanks for your comment.

Hey Antonio, I agree that sometimes learning needs to be individual. However, your comment reminds me of “practice makes perfect” where really the saying should be “practice makes habit” (might not be good but hopefully it’s good). I think it then comes down to good mentoring. A good mentor can be hands off but still provide the necessary feedback that helps you succeed and in this case continue to improve as a research or teacher. Thanks for your comment!

Hi Medha- Like you, I found myself in engaged and in agreeance with many of Godin’s points. The first point that you called out has so much potential to change educational access and quality: if students can access SMEs from across the world, that could seriously improve the quality of current lectures. It could also bring down the cost of education by making it possible for a consortium to pay for a speaker and recording the lecture once and updating it yearly.

As an aside: The Economist just had an article about technology in the international grade-school classrooms as a way to mitigate challenges with teacher performance, which may be of interest (https://www.economist.com/international/2018/11/17/in-poor-countries-technology-can-make-big-improvements-to-education).

On the second point that you raised, I must disagree (partially). I worked in civil works engineering and heard from one of the older project managers that the current engineers would literally not be able to design a civil works infrastructure project on paper if they ever needed to. Maybe this will never happen due to technology, but my one concern with doing away with all memorization is the creation of a “garbage in, garbage out” phenomenon whereby students can only create using technology and can’t create without it. One still needs to be able to check their work, so to speak.