Lincoln Excellence Returns

A while back I posed the question “What is Lincoln Excellence?” and encouraged you, dear readers, to chime in by taking a survey that asked “How do you practice excellence in your classroom? Give an example of a practice or teaching technique that you feel promotes excellence in teaching and learning.”  I promised to share the answers, so here I go:

Seven people answered the question and there were a few common themes:

•  Emphasize problem solving and teach students how to think, not what to think
•  Combine some lecture or theory with group work that allows student to solve problems and discuss issues in groups
• Know the students and respect their opinions – teach students how to respect each other’s opinions
• Draw on same reading material and sources that are used at other reputable universities.
• Focus on learning and application rather than route memorization
• Push students to develop and grow by continually questioning everything
• Begin on time, use lessons plans to follow a well-developed syllabus, return assignments promptly 

According to the above list, we are absolutely amazing! I would send my child to a school that advertised the above as their goals for teaching and learning.

In the above list, there is one point that jumps out at me the most: Focus on learning and application rather than route memorization. This intrigues me, not only because I think it is extremely important – and probably the underlying reason why I use a lot of problem solving and discussion in all my classes, but because I think it is the most difficult to do well. It is so easy to ask students to memorize facts and then quiz them on those facts. It is much more difficult to come up with good assignments that includes the memorization, but then goes a step further and helps students find meaning in the memorized facts through real world application that helps them expand their learning and hopefully encourages them to become life-long learners. I would love to hear if anybody out there has figured out how to do this well! 

What is your greatest challenge in achieving teaching and learning excellence?

If you intended to reply to the survey three weeks ago, but let it slip too far down into the abyss of your inbox or to-do list, here is another opportunity: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PJRY9HW

If you prefer to share directly in this blog, please go ahead and add your thoughts on Lincoln Excellence below.

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!