Hi Akshay, thanks for you thoughtful feedback! I agree that being a committed learner is one part of being a good educator but is certainly not the only component! I, too, feel some tension about developing my own innovative pedagogy and feeling that traditional methods are largely ineffectual. As graduate students, it seems particularly difficult to devote the time and head space to classroom innovation, but it seems like GEDI is a great place to start! 🙂

I enjoyed your post! I also felt a similar “more easily said than done” response to Sir Robinson’s video (a feeling I get from a lot of TEDtalks, quite honestly). Your connection between grades and raises is very interesting to me. I have a similar tension within my own pedagogy between holding students to strict deadlines for papers while also considering that they are very busy young adults with many courses, clubs, and activities on their plates. I allow at least one late assignment a semester, as long as the student contacts me before the due date. But honestly, depending on the circumstances, I am often more flexible than that, especially if a student lets me know what is going on in their world / what their barriers to success are. So I, too, struggle with the arbitrary nature of educational regimes as it relates to the “real world.”

Hi Kristen, thanks for reading! I have previously served as a laboratory TA in Biology at my undergraduate institution where my entire role was focused on helping students write lab reports and scientific posters. We started with brief summaries of relevant literature that would need to be cited. Next students would draft their hypothesis and experimental designs and other lab groups would provide feedback. Then students journaled in their lab notebooks about their particular methods and any issues that arose during the experiment. So essentially, we “scaffolded” the writing assignments into smaller, more manageable chunks. While I used to grade these on paper, I think a blog would be a great way to go about writing for the sciences! It would also give students the opportunity to see how other classmates / lab groups were thinking through the experiment process, which would be incredibly valuable.

I have really enjoyed peer review with Google Docs! I ask students to make a copy of their draft, share it with me and their peer reviewer. The peer reviewer then leaves comments and makes edits using the “suggesting” mode within google docs. As a reflection to conclude the activity, students examine both their original draft and the version from their peer reviewer with suggestions to consider what changes they will accept or modify as they continue to revise! I often then ask students to share with the whole class at least one valuable suggestion that their peer-reviewer offered in a discussion to conclude the class period.

Thanks for reading! I’ve had a great experience with students using google docs to edit. They also seem to be quite fond of the “suggesting” mode in google docs. That way, students can make a copy of their draft and then compare their original to their peer reviewer’s feedback, allowing them to see the proposed edits as a whole picture!

I enjoyed reading your post, Jake! I am not a gamer so a few of the discussions this week feel a bit esoteric to me. I like the question you pose, however, asking, “What other methods can we use to create truly engaging learning experiences?”

In teaching students how to effectively conduct library research, I have an activity called a “Wild Goose Chase” that sends students through library databases online, offering them specific boolean terms and keyword searches to a particular set of results. It has many times turned into a competitive “race” of sorts, to see who can navigate the most quickly through the library’s infrastructure. I then conclude with a fun discussion about what we may be missing if we only rely on google searches as researchers or if we use different / less effective keywords.

I also construct a jeopardy-style game for my writing students focused on the Academic Phrasebank, a wonderful repository for writing about other sources, developed by British scholars (http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/). Student teams answer, in front of the class, several rounds of multiple choice questions regarding what would be the best turn of phrase to introduce another author’s thesis, or data, or methodology, etc. This game, too seems to increase student engagement!

I think the question you posed helped me think of games differently, not making me feel so “out of the loop” in talking about gaming — thank you for that!

A very thoughtful and well-written post! I have some of the same internal debates about the role / presence of technology in the classroom. Last semester was my first time teaching and I was teaching upperclassmen who honestly were not much younger than me. Initially, I feel like I was too strict with the cell phones and laptops rule, saying I would enforce the lead professor’s rule of not allowing them in class. However, as the semester went on, there were many things, such as in-class group work and peer reviews that required the use of laptops. So by the middle of the semester I adjusted to just saying, would you all close your laptops for the next 10-15 minutes while I give a brief lecture, that seemed to work better; but as you mention even this practice could be exclusionary and damaging to some students.

Hi Heath,
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback! I agree, embracing and integrating disciplinary objectives is quite a challenge. Yes, I find google docs a really productive strategy for in-class peer review. I also ask students to invite me to their google docs which helps me understand and observe their peer review process. Thanks for reading!

Hi Kristen,
I really enjoyed your post and I can relate to your hesitation to blogging and publicizing your research through an internet presence. I like the Tim Hitchcock quote you incorporated! Although I am a doctoral student in Rhetoric & Writing, I love science journalism (like Undark) and podcasts (like Radiolab)! I like the link you included about science blogs and will have to check those out!

Thanks for your kind feedback, Antonio! That is so interesting that you found similar connections in your mission statements. I will be interested to see how many more colleges shift to a more global mission statement in the future. Thanks for reading!

Thank you for such a kind, thoughtful comment! Yes, intellectual curiosity is key! I am excited for our classroom discussion as well, especially with so many “professional learners” in our course!