In the following post, PhD student in sociology Jessica Yorks, discusses the challenges–and assets– first-generations bring to higher education. Based on her personal experiences and conversations with others, she offers advice on how instructors can better support first-generation students while recognizing the value of the perspectives they bring to higher education. For many of us, […]
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Being a Resource for Student Mental Health
By James Ziegler There’s always at least one student who signs up for my classes only to never be heard from again. Maybe they forgot to drop. Maybe I need to update my grade book. With each zero I give out for participation, the question lingers: should I reach out? Early on in my teaching […]
Inclusivity Lessons From a Women’s College
By Emma Bjorngard-Basayne & Kristi Kaeppel Isabel Fields is a first-year student from Smith College intending to major in Women and Gender Studies with a minor in Public Policy. She has her own podcast called She Said, which tackles topics “from menstruation to sex education to reproductive justice” (iTunes description). For our March series on […]
Three Insights From Feminist Pedagogy
By Kristi Kaeppel In honor of International Women’s Day, I wanted to write a post that explored the contributions of feminist pedagogy. As has been said with other “alternative pedagogies” (such as culturally relevant teaching), feminist teaching is not an outlier approach with radical ideas but rather incorporates sound, evidence-based practices. Many of these ideas, […]
Developing Your Own Teaching Lens
As an instructor, I find the concept of lenses valuable. In teaching, lenses help me and the students see material from multiple angles or make connections between disciplines. They bring concepts, events, and people into focus. I first connected them with my teaching through my Digital Media & Design (DMD) colleague, Professor Clarissa Cegilo. Clarissa […]
Instructional Assistants: How Last Term’s Top Students Help this Term Go Better
By Emma Bjorngard-Basayne and Mitch Green It has long seemed to both of us that talented and experienced undergraduate students are a large but mostly untapped source of inspiration, energy, and leadership for their peers. After a student does well in a course, our first, quite reasonable instinct is to encourage her to go […]
Struggling with Authority as a Young TA
By Manuel Arjonilla-Rodríguez Manuel Arjonilla-Rodriguez is a Spanish Instructor and second year master’s student in the Language, Literature, and Cultures department at UConn majoring in Hispanic Literature, Culture, and the Spanish Language. Before coming to the United States, Manuel lived, worked and studied in France, Germany, and Spain (his home country) and completed a BA […]
2017 Teaching Highlights 🎉
While it’s easy to be cynical about the sentimentality and goal-setting that accompanies the end of a year, we believe reflection and self-improvement are always laudable goals and ones that are at the heart of good pedagogy. Before we turn to thinking about ways can improve our teaching practice in 2018, let’s take a moment […]
Teaching for Your Students (And Not Your Employer) When You are Precarious Labor
By Dr. Raechel Tiffe My last year of full-time teaching was the first time I went into planning the semester thinking about my labor verses only thinking about the student experience. Prior to that, I had never considered what it might mean to assign particular projects in particular classes, in relation to other papers in […]
Breaking the Cycle of Knowledge Gaps
By Andrea Suria Thirty minutes into my lab section, I find myself walking from group to group encountering the same question: How do I dilute this chemical? What was supposed to be a simple first step in a lengthy protocol has quickly become a roadblock throughout the room. Even though I reviewed an example problem […]