Kiren Dosanjh Zucker makes a great suggestion in an article on office hours we’re publishing in the March issue of the newsletter. She says that if you grade participation, you might consider letting students “participate” by coming to see you during office hours.

It’s that time of the academic year when enthusiasm for teaching and learning are harder to find. Spring semester or term courses are no longer new. Even though the feedback has clearly indicated that this course won’t be an easy A, many students have yet to buckle down and start studying seriously. The winter drags on ... especially for those of us who are unaccustomed to major snowstorms and way behind due to cancelled classes.

“Teachers shouldn’t expect to make a difference in the life of every student. They don’t and won’t. But making a difference in one life is a powerful motivator. We never forget those students who tell we have, and we are further motivated by those teachers who once made a big difference in our lives.”

I was looking something up and happened on this brief identification of the defining characteristics for problem-based learning (PBL). Not only does it offer a great review, but it reminds us why PBL is such a powerful pedagogical strategy.

There’s something about the unannounced quiz that’s awfully punitive, probably reinforced by the way many instructors use them. Pop quizzes occur when there aren’t many students in class or when the class doesn’t appear to be well-prepared. They do get more students coming to class having done the reading but students are preparing because there may be a quiz—that’s different from daily preparation motivated by the understanding that regular interaction with the material helps learning.

When I took an ungraduate chemistry course a few years back, I loved lab, but I have to admit writing up the lab reports seemed like so much busy work. Each report had specified sections, and the lab manual offered advice on what to put in the sections, depending on the experiment. I remember trying to get them done in a hurry and thinking that I wasn’t learning much by doing them. They seemed more like something the instructor could use to make sure you (and your partners) had actually done the lab.

I strongly believe in reflective practice. In this blog and the newsletter I try to show teachers the value of looking closely at our teaching selves—what we believe and how those beliefs play out as classroom policies and practices. Teachers don’t learn much from experience unless that experience is examined closely, carefully, and with an openess to critique.

Here’s an interesting new word: “courseocentricism,” obviously related to words like ethnocentricism and egocontricism, it’s defined as “a kind of tunnel vision in which we become so used to the confines of our own course that we are oblivious to the fact that our students are taking other courses whose instructors at any moment may be undercutting our most cherished beliefs.” (p. 157)

Steven B. Sample, president of USC, makes an interesting point in a recent online article. Universities, especially the elite research universities, make much of the accomplishments of alumni. University publications showcase what they’ve achieved, and celebratory events are scheduled when they return to campus. “What we do not want anyone to count, by contrast, is the number of our alumni under indictment or in prison. Liars, cheaters, evaders, invaders, wreckers, malfeasors of every stripe—their (typically) white collars sullied and tattered—embarras us.” Sample points out that most of the offenders in the news for financial scandals or personal transgressions went to “good schools.” Despite that, they missed learning some of the most important lessons they should have learned in college. How could that be?