I have always seen myself as a compromiser, as a person who can bring together different perspectives and create harmonious outcomes from seeming chaos. However, as I reflected on this approach following the readings by Freire, I feel this is less virtuous and more of fence-sitting neutrality. I have always seen my use of diplomacy …
Continue reading “If Teaching is a Human Act, I Need a Sea Change”
This blog post is a collaboration between myself and Emily Burns, Jonilda Bahja, Logan Perry, and HokieInstructor. In a post from Hybrid Pedagogy, author Sean Michael Morris writes that “just as the pedagogue will enter a room and rearrange the tables and chairs to suit his purpose, so too will the digital pedagogue happily hack …
For today’s blog post, I wanted to talk about teaching through problem-based learning (PBL). Much of what I have read has emphasized that teaching in a PBL setting can be difficult, and is a skill that takes time to master. As a current PhD student with little in my teaching portfolio, it seemed like a …
Continue reading “Dear Future Self: Beware (and Prepare) for Problem-Based Learning.”
I wanted to start this post by addressing a video I just saw: ‘How microaggressions are like mosquito bites‘. Too often, I find that discussions of ‘sensitive topics’ (or insert your other favorite euphemism) happen in this uncomfortable sort of somber monotone. As if the very nature of these topics somehow necessitates a level of …
Continue reading “Inclusive Pedagogy feat. Offensive Language”
As I read Finding My Teaching Voice by Sarah E. Deel, I was stuck by a couple of similarities between she and I within the first few paragraphs. First, her first teaching responsibility was for three sections of an introductory biology course – I am currently a TA for three sections that are about the …
I was assigned some readings on ‘connected learning’ for class the other day, and I am happy to report that they were not only worthwhile reads, but also short and to the point. This post is focused on one of these readings, a blog post by Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History at the University …
