Professor as an undercover freshman

Dear GEDIs,

Here is the link to High Ed text on the Professor that became undercover student that had some interesting insights and wrote a book "My freshman year". Campus library has the book, if you do not want to buy it.


Best regards,
Milos

Six Tips for Teaching Diversity & A Funny HRC Blog Post

Hello all,
As we will be discussing inclusion and diversity today, I came across this article that might be related.

Six Tips for Teaching Diversity

Also, i would like all of you to read this post from the HRC blog - How internet is inseparable from today's youth - and it's funny, too!!
Most Woeful Grief

See you all!
Rose

I Want to Make Them Squirm

I read this in the Chronicle today; I found it kind of funny and a little bit disappointing. Here is the link :

http://chronicle.com/article/I-Want-to-Make-Them-Squirm/129122/

It is about a adjunct professor who got 2 bad student evaluations. He was angry about it, he figured out who really the students were by their hand writing. He was ready if he saw them again, to give them a piece of his mind. I understand the person was mad and he is in stressful position. Probably he is on a tenure track and is worried that one or two bad evaluations will cost him his job. Here is my answer: I understand he is a human just like the rest of us, he is allowed to be angry, but writing an article about the situation is crossing the line. You are supposed to be an educator, not someone who is ready for revenge (for a comment that someone wrote on evaluation). You should read those evaluation anonymously and not go searching for its owner. Take it as a thing to work on or just an opinion. Hopefully you can try to evaluate yourself and determine if it is true or not. If it is true, change you way of teaching, if it is not, then either continue the same way you have been teaching or change it up a little.
Try not to judge your own students, you are there to teach them, help them learn how to learn. Finding an opportunity to belittle them in a magazine about Higher education is very unprofessional, and proving: you Mr. Fern are maybe not that great of a teacher as you believe you are.

Embarrassed By Your Technology

GEDIs,

Here is an interesting ProfHacker blog post that talks about graduate students owning iPads and being too embarrassed to use them in public.

What do you think? Are there other technologies that might elicit these same emotions?

This is an interesting factor at play as universities move towards increasing their technological capabilities. It makes me wonder if/how this would affect students' off-campus learning.

Adam

Faculty Development Resources

Dear GEDIs,

Looking here and there for various articles and handbooks on higher education, I have ran into this cool link. It has some practical documents related to teaching techniques and student engagement, so check it out sometime.


All the best,
Miloš

We beg you, join the blog

Hello GEDIs,

This is Adam, your TA. Below is a list of potential slacker? GEDIs that have not joined the blog. Either that… or I entered your email wrong because I couldn’t read your handwriting. Either way, it’s not my fault. If you find your name on the list, please join (by accepting the invite) or re-send your Gmail address to urzsmith@vt.edu.

Andrea Swenson

Komal Keck

Yanna Lambrinidou

Sean Diehl

Sang Tak Lee

Monica Kimbell

Kelsey Pieper

John Curtis

Shawn Crawford

Rebecca Halvorson

William Pruitt

Thanks, Adam

Education Nation Summit 2011

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you know (in case you weren't already aware) that this week is the Education Nation Summit in NYC. A lot of video clips and newspots have been featured on the Today show and Nightly News with Brian Williams on NBC this week. This summit involves educators, parents, and leaders in politics, business, and technology in a conversation about the state of our education system. A series of interesting video clips can be found on the Education Nation website.

One I found particularly interesting and relevant to our class was Khan Academy sparks education reform debate. It highlights an online tutorial program for students as well as an active, learning-by-doing applied program in a physics classroom. There was also a cool experiential learning program for high schoolers interested in the environment featured in the Making a Difference spot on Nightly News Monday night.

See you Wednesday!