Tomorrow's Professor Blog

A partnership between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University to create a forum for comments and discussion about articles from the Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List and about general issues concerning higher education.

TomProf Home

  • Blog Homepage
  • Send your suggestions to:

Search


Category Archive

Monthly Archive

Full Archive

Archive : October 2007

825. Leading Initiatives for Integrative Learning

October 25, 2007

"Developing the ability to make, recognize, and evaluate connections among disparate concepts, fields, or contexts is what integrative learning is all about. Breadth and depth of learning remain hallmarks of a quality liberal education. Yet, today, there's a growing consensus that breadth and depth are not enough."

Read the full entry for "825. Leading Initiatives for Integrative Learning"

Posted by markep on October 25, 2007

824. 11 Things You Could Start Doing Today for the Benefit of Your Students' Writing

"The spread of the writing process and writing across the curriculum movements means that today's faculty who teach or use writing in their courses understand that it is both a process and discipline-based. Still, our experience with colleagues tells us that teachers continue to look for new strategies to engage student writers and boost their own teaching effectiveness. We've put together a list of practices that are doable and "no-tech," yet each has the potential to transform the ways you assign, discuss, and comment on student work."

Read the full entry for "824. 11 Things You Could Start Doing Today for the Benefit of Your Students' Writing"

Posted by markep on October 25, 2007

823. The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers (review)

October 18, 2007

"Although Schuster and Finkelstein are quite conservative in their statements, they begin their work with "a bold and unqualified assertion: American higher education and the academic profession that serve it are on the edge of an unprecedented restructuring that is changing the face- indeed, even the very meaning-of higher learning" (p. 3)."

Read the full entry for "823. The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers (review)"

Posted by markep on October 18, 2007

822. Coping with the Passive-Aggressive Faculty Member

"One of the justifications frequently made by passive-aggressive faculty members for their unsatisfactory performance is that they are asked to take on too many responsibilities, not assigned tasks that are truly worthy of their talent, or called upon to work in areas where they have relatively little training, experience, and interest. "

Read the full entry for "822. Coping with the Passive-Aggressive Faculty Member"

Posted by markep on October 18, 2007

821. Doing Less Work, Collecting Better Data: Using Capstone Courses to Assess Learning

October 11, 2007

Folks:

The posting below looks at the contributions capstone courses can make to student assessment. It is by Catherine White Berheide, professor of sociology, Skidmore College. The article is from Peer Review, Spring 2007, Vol. 9, No. 2 http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/. Peer Review is a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities [www.aacu.org/peerreview] Copyright © 2007, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Coping with the Passive-Aggressive Faculty Member

Read the full entry for "821. Doing Less Work, Collecting Better Data: Using Capstone Courses to Assess Learning"

Posted by markep on October 11, 2007

820. Back from the Brink: Harvard Gets It Right

"Having studied the history of curricular reform with some care," writes Bok in his annual report, "I can say with confidence that, taken as a whole, the measures just described represent the most comprehensive group of proposals to improve our undergraduate program in more than a hundred years." Not bad for a year in which the same faculty had not long before voted no confidence in President Summers and ultimately forced his resignation.

Read the full entry for "820. Back from the Brink: Harvard Gets It Right"

Posted by markep on October 11, 2007

819. Teaching Early Morning Classes

October 04, 2007

An early morning reduces enrollment and increases both absenteeism and tardiness. With a smaller class, I know a higher proportion of student names, can use essay questions on the examinations, and assign terms papers and projects that I would not consider in a large class.

Read the full entry for "819. Teaching Early Morning Classes"

Posted by markep on October 4, 2007