Call for manuscripts: Academic Exchange Quarterly (due by end of May 2011)



The Fall 2011 issue of Academic Exchange Quarterly is focusing on “Student Perceptions, Beliefs, or Attitudes.”  Articles should consist of approximately 3,000 words, be related to the focus on the enhancement of the learning environment through student perceptions, beliefs, motivations and attitudes, and be submitted no later than the end of May 2011.

Submissions are welcome from researchers, administrators, teacher, graduate students, and trainers working with students of all ages in a learning environment.

You may want to take a look at the detailed call for manuscripts submission procedure if you do decide to submit an article.  More basic, summary information can be gleaned from this professional listserv.

Teacher’s Bookshelf: The Skillful Teacher

Stephen D. Brookfield. The Skillful Teacher. On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. 2nd. Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

If I were asked to recommend one book that I think every faculty member of the college should read, it would be Brookfield’s classic in its second edition, an engagingly written introduction to teaching, which combines a gentle introduction to pedagogical theory with numerous practical suggestions for every teacher—from the newly minted Ph.D. to the seasoned veteran—that will improve performance in the classroom.

From “core assumptions of skillful teaching” and a chapter on how to survive emotionally the onslaughts of our chosen profession, to sections on how to lecture creatively, increase students’ participation in discussion, or respond to resistance, it’s all here.

To my mind, though, the best chapter is the fourth, where Brookfield addresses “what students value in teachers,” asserting that they learn best when credibility and authenticity are held in a state of ”congenial tension” (57).

The attributes that establish credibility include expertise, experience (in one’s field as well as in the classroom), conviction (our sense of the importance that students “get” what we are teaching), and rationale, which Brookfield defines as the ability to “talk out loud the reasons for . . . classroom decisions, course design, and evaluative criteria” (63).

Sections of Brookfield’s  discussion of authenticity may raise some eyebrows.  He claims we must manifest congruence between what we say we will do and what we do; full disclosure (“regularly making public the criteria, expectations, agendas and assumptions that guide [one’s] practice”); responsiveness (convincing students that what you are teaching actually will help them); and personhood (the more controversial part): one’s ability to allow students to know that we are indeed human beings with personal lives outside the classroom (67-71).

Brookfield’s reflections on this final attribute and the problem of balancing self-disclosure and professional boundaries is typical of the book as a whole—nuanced, clear, and brief.

John Lanci
Professor, Religious Studies

Death to the Syllabus!

In light of my recent announcement about the “Wine, Cheese, and . . . Syllabi!” event planned for January 14th, I thought it appropriate that I draw your attention to a recent post on the Tomorrow’s Professor blog:

Death to the Syllabus!

In it, Mano Singham, director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education at Case Western Reserve, writes about his experiments with abandoning what he terms the “controlling syllabus” typically used today:

I have seen long and highly detailed syllabi that carefully lay out rules for attendance, punctuality, extra credit, grades, and penalties for missing deadlines, as well as detailed writing assignment requirements that specify page and word length, spacing, margins, and even font style and size. [. . .] What such syllabi often omit is any mention of learning. They list the assigned readings but not reasons why the subject is worth studying or important or interesting or deep, or the learning strategies that will be used in the course. The typical syllabus gives little indication that the students and teacher are embarking on an exciting learning adventure together, and its tone is more akin to something that might be handed to a prisoner on the first day of incarceration.

“A Vision of Students Today” video

The Digital Ethnography Working Group at Kansas State has been stirring up the blogosphere with this video produced by the students of KSU’s Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class:

A Vision of Students Today

The second part of a three-part series, it might best be viewed after part one: Information R/evolution.

Dr. Michael Wesch, instructor of the course, later added this post in response to the varied — and sometimes hostile — responses the video inspired.

Beloit’s “Mindset List” for Class of 2011 released

If you’d like to check out what the folks at Beloit College have come up with as the gauges for this year’s incoming 18-year-olds, see the “mindset list” here.