Thanksgiving

As you celebrate the holiday with family and friends, I hope that you have much to give thanks for. In the spirit of the season, this pre-Thanksgiving blog asks you to pause a minute and think why you are thankful to be working with the students you teach here at Lincoln.

I know that we more often talk about what we are unhappy with--what Lincoln doesn't do, what our students don't do-- and there is merit in that, since until problems are defined they cannot be solved.  But just for now, let's focus on the positive: what makes you most thankful as you think about your teaching experiences?

My answer, I guess, would be that I am grateful that I almost always leave my classroom and my  students with more energy than I had when I entered, having been challenged,  impressed, confused, enlightened, surprised, confronted, affirmed... the list could go on and on. It's a never-ending learning experience for me, and--frustrating as it can be at times-- it's fun.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may you all, as the Native American saying goes, "give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way."

Faculty Attitudes toward Technology

On Thursday I viewed a webinar discussing the results of a recent Inside Higher Ed survey of faculty attitudes on technology; 2075 faculty and 105 administrators had been surveyed.  (If you would like to view the PowerPoint from the webinar or the webinar itself, you'll find it at https://www.insidehighered.com/audio/2015/11/12/2015-survey-faculty-attitudes-technology )

Four issues stood out for me:

1. When asked “Did use of educational technology lead to improved student outcomes?” only 20% of the faculty and 35% of the administrators said outcomes were improved significantly.  Tenured faculty were somewhat more skeptical than non-tenured but most were in the middle, agreeing that technology somewhat improved student outcomes. The majority of both faculty and administrators felt that the cost was worthwhile.

2. However, when asked “Do for-credit online courses achieve outcomes at least equivalent to in-person courses?” only 17% of the faculty said yes, while 62% administrators said yes.  One of the narrators made the point that it might be that the comparison faculty have in their minds is an idealized picture of a small group of interested, motivated, high-achieving students sitting around a seminar table discussing complex issues rather than, for instance, a big lecture hall in an introductory course.

3. With respect to Plagiarism Detection Software (like Turnitin), most faculty liked it.    The moderator, however, was concerned that students often don’t know what plagiarism is and pointed out that this is something teachers need to address and not just have a false sense of security that if students run their papers through the software they will understand the complicated issue of plagiarism.

4. Finally, there was one issue on which everyone agreed: 93% of faculty said textbooks are priced too high, and 92% thought professors should assign more open educational resources.  Here, the moderator pointed out how much time was needed to find and incorporate open educational resources into a class and, more worrisome, how much time is needed to change those resources as times change, serving as a possible disincentive for course improvement.

What do you think?  Any reaction to any of these points with respect to your own attitudes and your classes here at Lincoln?

Diversity at Lincoln

In advance of our upcoming November 19 faculty brownbag discussion on diversity, I thought I might “flip” the brownbag a bit by asking for some of your preliminary thoughts on the topic.

A quick Google search for "diversity in the college classroom" turns up a vast store of information, mostly from the viewpoint of Majority White Institutions seeking to expand the diversity of their student populations: the top six are tips for inclusive teaching from Vanderbilt, Columbia, Harvard,  Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, rounded out by the AAUP’s “Does Diversity Make a Difference: Three Research Studies on Diversity in College Classrooms.“  

What does it mean to Lincoln, do you think, to have “Diversity and Globalization” as one of our strategic imperatives?  On the conceptual level, how should a more diverse Lincoln look? What kinds of, and how much, diversity should we be aiming for?  Why do we want it?  Bringing the issue down to ground level, how might having a more diverse student body change what we do in our classrooms?  How might it change what we assign as textbooks and readings, the kinds of assignments we make, the way we structure group projects and discussions?   What potential problems should we be aware of and thus prepared for? What will we be able to do better as a result of having a more diverse student body?

Any thoughts on any of those questions?  Any ideas on other important questions to be asking?  Jump in!