‘Teaching Writing’
A Conversation on Student and Faculty Expectations for Writing
Nov. 1, 2011—This is a guest post by Katherine Fusco, assistant director at the Vanderbilt Writing Studio and lecturer in English. On September 27th, the CFT and the Writing Studio co-hosted an event centered on what faculty and students think about writing. When I work with student writers at the Writing Studio, I sometimes find myself beating...
Upcoming Event: A Conversation on Student and Faculty Expectations for Writing
Sep. 20, 2011—Have you registered for A Conversation on Student and Faculty Expectations for Writing? Register now for this Conversation on Teaching. Co-Sponsored by the Writing Studio Time & Date: Tuesday, September 27, 4:10-5:30 Facilitator: Derek Bruff, CFT Acting Director Format: Conversation on Teaching Audience: Faculty, Graduate and Professional Students, Post-docs, and Staff In one class, an instructor...
Teaching about Audience Using Projects for Outside Clients – A Conference Report
Jan. 17, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director Back in November I attended the 30th annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Ohio. I thought I’d share some session highlights with my Vanderbilt colleagues. Here’s the first in a series of posts about the conference. Developing a Signature Pedagogy to Cross the Audience Threshold...
Disciplinary Thinking and Metacognition – A Conference Report
Nov. 29, 2010—By Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director One of the sessions I attended earlier this month at the 2010 POD Network Conference in St. Louis was offered by Matt Kaplan and Deborah Meizlish of the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). The session was titled “Using Metacognition to Foster Students’ Disciplinary...
Cryptography: Nby Bcmnils uhx Gunb iz Wixym uhx Wcjbylm
Nov. 8, 2010—CFT assistant director Derek Bruff is teaching a new first-year writing seminar this fall. The course is titled “Cryptography: The History and Mathematics of Codes and Code-Breaking.” Topics include: military cryptography, like the efforts of British cryptographers at Bletchley Park during World War II to figure out the German Enigma Machine codes; cryptography in popular...
Clickers and the Teaching of Writing
Oct. 20, 2010—CFT assistant director Derek Bruff has written another guest post for the ProfHacker blog hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The post is titled “Using Clickers to Facilitate Peer Review in a Writing Seminar,” and it details one of Derek’s recent experiments with using clickers in his first-year writing seminar. It’s a common practice...
The Value of Silence in Class Discussions
Sep. 27, 2010—Mary M. Reda’s essay, “What’s the Problem with Quiet Students? Anyone? Anyone?” in the Chronicle of Higher Education a couple of weeks ago offers a revealing look at the reasons some students choose not to participate in class discussions. Reda engaged in a yearlong investigation of the quiet students in her composition courses, asking her...
Highlights from Last Week’s Workshop on Digital Writing
Feb. 15, 2010—During last week’s “Digital Writing: Using Social Media to Enhance the Teaching of Writing” workshop, CFT Assistant Director Derek Bruff tweeted some highlights from the panelist remarks and subsequent conversation. For those of you not following the CFT on Twitter, you’ll find Derek’s comments below. Please also visit the online “home base” for the workshop...
Episode 7 – Teaching in a Digital Age
Jun. 30, 2008—In this episode, we’re changing up our format a little. Instead of featuring an interview with a single faculty member, this episode features audio recorded during a February 2008 lunch discussion co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching and the former Vanderbilt Center for Ethics. The discussion was part of our joint Technology, Values, and Teaching...
Episode 3 – An Interview with Michelle Sulikowski
Jan. 24, 2008—In this episode, we feature excerpts from an interview with Michelle Sulikowski, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and Director of Education at the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. In this interview, Michelle describes her use of SafeAssign, a software tool that can detect unoriginal content in student papers. Michelle used SafeAssign in a first-year writing course...