Author: Khushboo

Discovering one’s Authentic Teaching Self

When I started penning down my thoughts for this post, I imagined myself as a teacher, teaching something I want people to know about, something which I will be able to contribute as a teacher, and providing my students sufficient information so that they can make a decision on whether their like/dislike that particular subject. I think it is important for a teacher to realize that the subject he/she is teaching may not be the favorite subject of the students and so it should not be implied that the students will have the same passion for the subject as the teacher has.

Further, when I began thinking about what kind of teacher I am or want to be. I started to recall all my previous teachers and what I found common was that all the teachers had a more narrative style of teaching, however, their styles were different from each other. Maybe that is the reason I still remember what I learned in those classes and could connect to those lessons in real life scenarios. For the same reason, I would like to imagine myself more as a ‘storyteller’ than a teacher. Though, I realize that it does not work always. But I would like to interact as a storyteller as and when possible.

I would like to share a small instructing experience from my Masters here. Although it is not related to storytelling. I was an instructor in my Masters for a surveying lab of the undergraduate students which was more like an instruction-oriented class where there were set procedures to use equipment and perform the analysis. Most of the activities for this class was conducted in groups and it was a bit tricky to know if each of the group members is involved in conducting the experiment. In every lab class, before I began instructing the students, I used to point out to my students, what is the relevance of the exercise and at the end of the 3-hour lab would randomly pick a person from each group to talk about the fun and the boring part of the exercise. This was just a small action to make them speak up about their experiment and be more involved in the activity. In order to make most group members participate, I would give an extra point to the group, if all the members spoke something. This made them take a little more interest than they would have been. The point I am trying to make through this example is I cared less about their procedures or analysis as it could have been learned by any manual whenever they would need to do it. But it is important for them to understand the objective of the exercise.

In the future, when I would teach, I would try to incorporate the narrative style to deliver what I want the students to know and at the same time make sure that my students should know why they are doing, what they are doing.

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Discovering one’s Authentic Teaching Self

When I started penning down my thoughts for this post, I imagined myself as a teacher, teaching something I want people to know about, something which I will be able to contribute as a teacher, and providing my students sufficient information so that they can make a decision on whether their like/dislike that particular subject. I think it is important for a teacher to realize that the subject he/she is teaching may not be the favorite subject of the students and so it should not be implied that the students will have the same passion for the subject as the teacher has.

Further, when I began thinking about what kind of teacher I am or want to be. I started to recall all my previous teachers and what I found common was that all the teachers had a more narrative style of teaching, however, their styles were different from each other. Maybe that is the reason I still remember what I learned in those classes and could connect to those lessons in real life scenarios. For the same reason, I would like to imagine myself more as a ‘storyteller’ than a teacher. Though, I realize that it does not work always. But I would like to interact as a storyteller as and when possible.

I would like to share a small instructing experience from my Masters here. Although it is not related to storytelling. I was an instructor in my Masters for a surveying lab of the undergraduate students which was more like an instruction-oriented class where there were set procedures to use equipment and perform the analysis. Most of the activities for this class was conducted in groups and it was a bit tricky to know if each of the group members is involved in conducting the experiment. In every lab class, before I began instructing the students, I used to point out to my students, what is the relevance of the exercise and at the end of the 3-hour lab would randomly pick a person from each group to talk about the fun and the boring part of the exercise. This was just a small action to make them speak up about their experiment and be more involved in the activity. In order to make most group members participate, I would give an extra point to the group, if all the members spoke something. This made them take a little more interest than they would have been. The point I am trying to make through this example is I cared less about their procedures or analysis as it could have been learned by any manual whenever they would need to do it. But it is important for them to understand the objective of the exercise.

In the future, when I would teach, I would try to incorporate the narrative style to deliver what I want the students to know and at the same time make sure that my students should know why they are doing, what they are doing.

Network Learning

Networked Learning is gaining attention these days but started becoming prominence from early 1990s. Here, the key term is ‘network’ which means making connection and building them. To my understanding, the process of network learning include making connections not just with people and organizations but with information as well. These connections are necessary to expand one’s knowledge and share their understanding of a topic in their network for people to gain knowledge.  Applications of networked learning ranges from medicine industry to city development. I am PhD student working on development of smart cities in developing nations and a lot of smartness in smart cities is brought by technology. World wide web and access to cheap internet has opened up a number of avenues to increase the efficiency not just in delivering the final product but also in the planning and development phase. Moreover,  web based/app based platforms provide us a medium to collaborate as well as coordinate our efforts to achieve products which are efficient and better than the available products.  there are platforms being designed where the implementers including the municipalities can interact with their peers and get critiques as well as suggestions for improvement, in addition to directing them to resources where the issues can be resolved.  

Network Learning

Networked Learning is gaining attention these days but started becoming prominence from early 1990s. Here, the key term is ‘network’ which means making connection and building them. To my understanding, the process of network learning include making connections not just with people and organizations but with information as well. These connections are necessary to expand one’s knowledge and share their understanding of a topic in their network for people to gain knowledge.  Applications of networked learning ranges from medicine industry to city development.

I am PhD student working on development of smart cities in developing nations and a lot of smartness in smart cities is brought by technology. World wide web and access to cheap internet has opened up a number of avenues to increase the efficiency not just in delivering the final product but also in the planning and development phase. Moreover,  web based/app based platforms provide us a medium to collaborate as well as coordinate our efforts to achieve products which are efficient and better than the available products.  there are platforms being designed where the implementers including the municipalities can interact with their peers and get critiques as well as suggestions for improvement, in addition to directing them to resources where the issues can be resolved.

 

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Network Learning

Networked Learning is gaining attention these days but started becoming prominence from early 1990s. Here, the key term is ‘network’ which means making connection and building them. To my understanding, the process of network learning include making connections not just with people and organizations but with information as well. These connections are necessary to expand one’s knowledge and share their understanding of a topic in their network for people to gain knowledge.  Applications of networked learning ranges from medicine industry to city development.

I am PhD student working on development of smart cities in developing nations and a lot of smartness in smart cities is brought by technology. World wide web and access to cheap internet has opened up a number of avenues to increase the efficiency not just in delivering the final product but also in the planning and development phase. Moreover,  web based/app based platforms provide us a medium to collaborate as well as coordinate our efforts to achieve products which are efficient and better than the available products.  there are platforms being designed where the implementers including the municipalities can interact with their peers and get critiques as well as suggestions for improvement, in addition to directing them to resources where the issues can be resolved.

 

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What I have learned?

This blog is to reflect on what I learnt in this class, not only as a graduate student but as a future academician. I took this course as a requirement class for the Future Professoriate certificate. But this class provided me much more. The best part of the class was discussion sessions, engagement with people from various parts of the world. Although, I belong to School of Public and International Affairs and my department is quite diverse in this regard. But interactions are related to mostly subject specific than subjects like this.

Discussions varied from topics of terms used in higher education to Academic Bullying. Some other interesting topics which we talked about included diversity in education, academic tenure, international education systems, open education, etc. Discussions and engagement with my other colleagues helped in shaping a much different perspective towards people coming from different parts of the world. There were a number of bias and which exist still. However, I have different approach to look at people which may help me to better interact with them.

Especially, I would like to briefly mention about the International Week. The three classes related to International education system introduced me to the education system around the world and my friends provided some really interesting facts about their education system.
Thanks to all for making this class so enjoyable.

How universities should design and manage affirmative action and cultural diversity at the institutional level?

Publicly supported educational institutions are charged with responding to the fact of diversity and with advancing a shared vision of civic political membership (Ben-Porath, 2013). Affirmative action programs encompass more than outreach and recruitment, however, and include efforts to prevent discrimination by eliminating barriers to equal employment opportunity. Some of the guidelines which universities can consider while designing and managing affirmative action (Affirmative action itself has been defined as “any measure, beyond simple termination of a discriminatory practice, adopted to correct or compensate for past or present discrimination or to prevent discrimination from recurring in the future” by U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Statement on Affirmative Action, October 1977.) and culture diversity are:

  • Enhance a supportive environment for diversity including the scholarly dialogue on diversity.
  • Monitor the recruitment of women and minority faculty at the senior levels and faculty at all levels, consistent with the available pool.
  • Continue to recruit, retain and graduate greater numbers of ethnic minority students.
  • Continue to work with the central state community to promote understanding and effectiveness of diversity, and engage communities throughout the state in the dialogue.
  • Involve all levels of administration, most notably the chairs to increase the level of accountability.

Affirmative action therefore means taking positive steps to end discrimination, to prevent its recurrence, and to create new opportunities that were previously denied to minorities and women. It will also assist in higher diversity in terms of culture, races and income groups and therefore provide a wider perspective to the university’s population. This will also be beneficial to inclusively plan strategies for all campus residents. Though affirmative action has been criticized as constituting reverse discrimination, preferential  treatment, stigmatizing to beneficiaries and contravening principles of merit (Maranto, et al. 2009). Provision of equal opportunities to them post their recruitment is equally important and should be given priority.

The introductory session for students, faculty and staff at all levels should be held. This is an important session as the new members can be introduced to various policies and important guidelines as well as assistance measures, they should be aware of. What are the services they are entitled to use and what steps may cause trouble for them.

Most of the international students face linguistic difficulties and the university can arrange for classes which may help in improving their linguistic skills. For example, writing Center at Virginia Tech provides an excellent source for international as well as all others to improvise their writing skills. Another provision can be made by giving freedom and facilities to the faculty, staff and students of various religions (cultures) to carry forward their religious / cultural practices without much hassles.

Sports and international festivals are yet again ways which can increase interaction between various groups on campus. These may also help in better understanding each other’s culture and their by establishing respect for each other.

References

Ben-Porath, S. (2013). Education Justice and Democracy. Editors D.Allen and R. Reich. University of Chicago Press.

Maranto, R., Redding, R. E. and Hess, F. E. (2009). The Politically Correct University – Problem, Scopes, and Reform. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute.

Abolish Tenure!

Originally established in the late 1700s to protect academic freedom at religious schools (which are less than a fifth of the 4,703 U.S. colleges today), tenure has morphed into a guaranteed “job for life,” a benefit no longer enjoyed by any other segment of the U.S. workforce. Even the United Kingdom did away with tenure in the late 1980s when then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher implored the nation’s colleges to become more productive. While not all of academia’s problems can be laid at tenure’s doorstep, tenure has hamstrung colleges’ ability to fulfill their two fundamental missions of advancing knowledge and disseminating it. Also, tenure does gives the freedom to the instructor from having to use technology to revamp the way he/she teaches.(Wetherbe, 2013). I defend the tradition on the account of no other suitable/ pragmatic approach to safeguarding academic freedom.

Tenure offers both procedural and substantive protections. Procedurally, tenure means that a faculty member has continuing employment unless the university initiates an action against the faculty member and succeeds in proving “cause” for termination. It is the university that must begin the proceedings to terminate a tenured faculty member and that must bear the significant burden of proving the justification for its proposed action. Substantively, tenure means that the only specific, narrowly defined circumstances will constitute “cause” sufficient for termination or other adverse employment actions. Although the definition of “cause” varies by university, in general, there must be serious violations of the law or of principles of academic honesty to meet the standard (Chemerinsky, 1997) .

No alternative yet described is likely to succeed in providing both the procedural and the substantive protections accorded by tenure. Those who seek alternatives to tenure do so because of a desire to weaken the current protections accorded to faculty members. Although the motivation behind these reforms is the laudable desire to increase accountability for faculty members, by definition this entails a lessening of the safeguards embodied in the concept of tenure. Thus any alternative to tenure is likely to mean a substantial decrease in the protection afforded faculty members and consequently of academic freedom (O’Neil, 2008). The better approach is to devise ways to improve performance and accountability within the tenure system.

 

References

Chemerinsky, E. (1997). Is Tenure Necessary to Protect Academic Freedom? American Behavioral Scientist

O’Neil, R. (2008). Academic Freedom in the Wired World: Political Extremism, Corporate Power, and the University. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

Wetherbe, J.C. (2013). It’s time for Tenure to lose Tenure. Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2013/03/its-time-for-tenure-to-lose-te

What I have learned?

This blog is to reflect on what I learnt in this class, not only as a graduate student but as a future academician. I took this course as a requirement class for the Future Professoriate certificate. But this class provided me much more. The best part of the class was discussion sessions, engagement with people from various parts of the world. Although, I belong to School of Public and International Affairs and my department is quite diverse in this regard. But interactions are related to mostly subject specific than subjects like this.

Discussions varied from topics of terms used in higher education to Academic Bullying. Some other interesting topics which we talked about included diversity in education, academic tenure, international education systems, open education, etc. Discussions and engagement with my other colleagues helped in shaping a much different perspective towards people coming from different parts of the world. There were a number of bias and which exist still. However, I have different approach to look at people which may help me to better interact with them.

Especially, I would like to briefly mention about the International Week. The three classes related to International education system introduced me to the education system around the world and my friends provided some really interesting facts about their education system.
Thanks to all for making this class so enjoyable.
Uncategorized

What I have learned?

This blog is to reflect on what I learnt in this class, not only as a graduate student but as a future academician. I took this course as a requirement class for the Future Professoriate certificate. But this class provided me much more. The best part of the class was discussion sessions, engagement with people from various parts of the world. Although, I belong to School of Public and International Affairs and my department is quite diverse in this regard. But interactions are related to mostly subject specific than subjects like this.

Discussions varied from topics of terms used in higher education to Academic Bullying. Some other interesting topics which we talked about included diversity in education, academic tenure, international education systems, open education, etc. Discussions and engagement with my other colleagues helped in shaping a much different perspective towards people coming from different parts of the world. There were a number of bias and which exist still. However, I have different approach to look at people which may help me to better interact with them.

Especially, I would like to briefly mention about the International Week. The three classes related to International education system introduced me to the education system around the world and my friends provided some really interesting facts about their education system.
Thanks to all for making this class so enjoyable.
Uncategorized
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