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CFT Offers New Guide: “Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities”
Oct. 21, 2013—In August, the CFT announced a theme for much of our programming this year: Students as Producers. A new guide written by CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick applies this theme to the disciplines in the humanities. “Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities” explores assignments that fulfill three goals: making student knowledge...
The Mindful PhD: How It Works, I
Oct. 17, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director My recent posts have been focused on issues of stress, mostly because I’ve seen the effects on my own life and worry about colleagues, students, and friends. Some of you have asked me to clarify how mindfulness works: what it actually does, how that happens, and what it looks...
The Mindful PhD: Stories of the Slow Professor
Oct. 10, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director Last week, I attended my 10th consecutive conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL)–in many ways, the highlight of my academic year, as it feels very much like ‘going home.’ After five days, though, it’s good to be back in my real home,...
The Mindful PhD: This Embodied PhD
Oct. 8, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director Two weeks ago today, I had a lumpectomy, and October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I’m writing a bonus post this week to celebrate–and to stake a faculty claim in the land of women and men with bodies and emotions and cells. More…. Reposted from The Mindfulness PhD...
The Mindful PhD: Playing with Others
Oct. 1, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director I recently received an email that, in another time, would have tested me. It’s a genre familiar to all of us: several paragraphs registering a complaint, only some of which we have control over, written out of frustration and haste, and expressed in a way that (we think) we...
The Mindful PhD: Being Fully Present in the Classroom
Sep. 25, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director A recent study on students’ laptop use in the classroom has brought a lot of attention to the issue of, well, attention in the classroom. As their title indicates, Sana, Weston, and Cepeda (2013) found that “Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers.” In a...
CFT Offers New Guide: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Sep. 24, 2013—The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL, pronounced “sō-tul” in the US) is a synthesis of teaching, learning, and research in higher education that aims to bring a scholarly lens—the curiosity, the inquiry, the rigor, the disciplinary variety—to what happens in the classroom (brick-and-mortar, virtual, co-curricular, et al.). SoTL involves asking meaningful questions about student...
Last Week’s “T.W.L.” Conversation on Teaching Writing: “Grading Is Teaching”
Sep. 24, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director Scott Juengel (English) talked about “Managing the Paper Load: Grading Writing Efficiently and Effectively” with approximately 30 faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students on September 18. This lunchtime gathering was the second in the “Teaching. Writing. Learning.” series of conversations on teaching writing. Although he’s been at Vanderbilt...
SoTL Spotlight: Special Issue of Teaching & Learning Inquiry
Sep. 19, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director Nancy is the author of a variety of SoTL articles and book chapters, as well as co-editor of two books on signature pedagogies and co-editor of Teaching & Learning Inquiry, the official journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), with the Center for Teaching as its...
The Mindful PhD: Reducing Stress
Sep. 18, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director In recent weeks, I’ve talked with quite a few colleagues–faculty (full-time and part-time) and graduate students–who were nervous about teaching their first class, or their first class on this campus, the first session of a new course, or a new group of students. This concoction of stage fright, imposter...