Further evidence that I'm no longer suffering from chemo-brain: every day I'm coming up with new ideas for workshops and other events to enrich teaching across campus.
This, of course, is part of my job as director of our Center for Teaching Excellence, but I spent my first semester in this job mostly postponing thinking about it, and when I did try to apply some brain cells to the question of what our new CTE should do, my brain cells would lie down for a nice long nap.
Now, though, the brain cells are working overtime, even when I'd like them to take a rest. I've been reading a lot of education research and talking to junior faculty members about their needs, but my latest brainstorm was prompted by a senior colleague's complaint about an assignment that simply didn't live up to expectations. Here's the idea: let's do a workshop (or a series of brown-bag lunches?) called "Can This Assignment Be Saved?" Faculty will be invited to bring in assignments that used to work really well but don't anymore or assignments that seemed like a terrific idea at the time but that fell flat in the classroom. We'll share our failures and offer each other suggestions for improvement, and maybe we'll bid a respectful farewell to assignments that have outlived their usefulness.
That's just one idea. If you don't like it, I've got plenty more.
1 comment:
Please let me know if that works, Bev. We tried that a few years ago, until faculty finally admitted that they were not at all comfortable sharing their "failures"!
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