Author Archives: Katy Gieder

Hawaii’s education system

Idyllic paradise? Check Sunshine and rainbows? Check Beautiful beaches? Check Laid back lifestyle? Check And the list goes on……..who wouldn’t want to move to Hawaii?  They say money makes the world go around.  Well not so in Hawaii.  Or at least, you need a lot of it to get anywhere.  Sure you can survive here […] Continue reading

A move toward professional schools closer to home

While driving back from a visit to Canada this weekend, I heard a news story about Canadian provinces switching to more emphasis on professional schools over traditional academic universities.  British Columbia is the latest province to push for more professional training in their educational system.  Recent articles have outlined the large amounts of funds that(…) Continue reading

Posted in GPP14

Comps, prelims, and quals

They are dismally referred to by many a PhD student under varying names.  Canadians students in general dread the COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION, whereas American students tend to fear the PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION, and still other PhD students quiver at the thought of the QUALIFYING EXAMINATION.  Having just survived my prelims as I will call them and in(…) Continue reading

Posted in GPP14

A real world case study example Posting #2

In my last post, I described a case study that I came up for a course in which I gave a guest lecture. Because I have already described the course and case study, I will not rehash those details in this post. Please refer to Posting #1 for those details if interested. This second posting(…) Continue reading

A real world case study example Posting #1

I am guest lecturing for a fellow teacher’s undergraduate  course next week. What a perfect opportunity to apply all the knowledge I have gained about case based teaching! (Thank you GEDI’s, Shelli, and Sarah Karpanty!). This is my first of a series of postings chronicling my experience with actual case based teaching, through which I(…) Continue reading

Rethinking the traditional MATH syllabus

I don’t know about you, but whenever I read any piece about why traditional lecture format classes are outdated, inefficient, inappropriate, etc., I picture myself in a large lecture hall, listening to a professor way down at the front of class writing equations after equation on the board. In essence, when I think bad lecture(…) Continue reading

What is critical thinking anyway?

Reading through Tarantula’s Students or Learners? post the other day got me thinking……about critical thinking. This is a concept that is central to education and yet I rarely see it put into practice among undergraduates. I think part of the reason for that is because critical thinking is an elusive concept. Thinking about how I(…) Continue reading

Roanoke Food Desert

I came across the term “Food Desert” a couple of years ago after reading this article in the Roanoke Times. Having spent a large portion of my life in Montreal, Canada, a city where a convenience store was just a block away and the grocery store not more than a ten minute walk or five(…) Continue reading

The difference between the real world and the virtual world

Just watched Jane McGonigal‘s Gaming Can Make a Better World video. Pretty interesting talk and a novel idea that gaming can improve or even solve some of the world’s biggest issues. But I am skeptical of this idea that online gaming is beneficial on a large “let’s solve the world’s problems” scale. I wish Jane had touched(…) Continue reading

I would like my creative mojo back please

As I was watching the video “New Learners Of The 21st Century” https://video.pbs.org/video/1797357384/, I’m at once inspired and intimidated by the case studies showing new approaches to learning. I suppose the education revolution that these examples showcase is not all new, at least not in my last ten years of education as a university student. Since starting my undergraduate(…) Continue reading