The Mindful PhD: The Continual Unfolding of Our Work
Mar. 14, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director This week was an especially stressful time of the semester. Some of you are looking forward to spring break, but Vanderbilt’s was at the very beginning of March. The week after break–or, as we often call it, “break”–is hard for instructors and students alike. We see the home stretch in...
A Look at Student Learning Across Campus
Mar. 12, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director Original research by first- and second-year undergraduates conducted within a biology lab course. Original short stories written for a Spanish course. MRI machines built by engineering students in a design course. Video documentaries created by future teachers to explore social and philosophical aspects of education. Handcrafted creations in which theatre...
The Mindful PhD: About Time
Mar. 7, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director This work of mindfulness–in essence, focusing awareness on the present moment–has me noticing more clearly how I experience time. Despite the best efforts of clocks and schedules, time is a subjective, varying, and malleable phenomenon. In October’s “Stories of the Slow Professor,” I wrote about it from the perspective of how...
Students as Producers: Initiatives at Other Universities
Mar. 3, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director Last month, I reported that the 2014 Horizon Report on current trends in educational technology identified as one of its six key trends a shift from students as consumers (of information, of content, of knowledge) to students as creators. From the report: “A shift is taking place in the focus...
Upcoming Faculty Teaching Visit with William Collins on March 20th
Mar. 1, 2014—William Collins Terence E. Adderley Jr. Professor of Economics & Professor of History (by courtesy) and Department Chair ECON 266: Topics in the Economic History of the US Professor Collins is an economic historian whose research concentrates on twentieth-century labor market and urban history. His recent work has studied changes in racial disparities in earnings...
The Mindful PhD: Busy-Shaming
Feb. 28, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director My Women & Gender Studies class talked about “slut shaming” recently, and I’ve since been thinking about another kind of shaming that worries me–and that I want to be careful to avoid. The flurry of popular media discussions of mindfulness (and other topics) have been accompanied by concerns about how...
Student Notetaking for Recall and Understanding: A Lit Review Review
Feb. 27, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director. Cross-posted from Derek’s blog, Agile Learning. I’m giving a talk on sketchnotes in the classroom next week at Indiana University. (I’m following John (Engaging Ideas) Bean in their speakers series, which is just a little bit intimidating.) I’ve been using sketchnotes for my own notetaking practice since 2011, and I’ve...
The Mindful PhD: Opening Our Eyes
Feb. 21, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director In the rhythm of academia, right as we began this semester, we also selected our courses for next year. I decided to revisit my course on monsters. Soon after, a friend gave me a book of original Grimm’s fairy tales–a gruesome treasure! I didn’t expect to stumble onto mindfulness while...
TAing to Thousands: A Graduate Student MOOC Panel, February 24th
Feb. 18, 2014—What is it like to serve as a teaching assistant in a course with thousands of students? On Monday, February 24th, a panel of graduate students will share their experiences serving as teaching staff in Vanderbilt’s massive open online courses (MOOCs) hosted on Coursera. “TAing to Thousands” is scheduled for 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. in...
I’ve Flipped My Classroom. Now What?
Feb. 17, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director “A few years ago if I had said flipped classroom to them, most faculty would have given me a blank stare,” said Derek Bruff, director of the center and a senior lecturer in mathematics. “Now they are coming to us wanting more detail. The speed of that change and the...