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From: Beckie Supiano
Subject: Teaching: The human work of teaching and learning
This week, I:
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This week, I:
Before I started working on the Learning Lessons series, I talked it out with a few go-to teaching sources. I wanted to know what they thought of the general idea of zooming in on some examples of how professors are engaging their students, as difficult as that work can be. And I wanted to get their thoughts on the pieces I was planning to include.
Those conversations were helpful, and I made some adjustments — including adding a whole article to my planned half dozen — as a result of them.
But one thing I knew very early on in the process was that I wanted the last article to be about sparking joy in the classroom. I’d spoken with Eileen Kogl Camfield, a teaching professor in writing studies and interdisciplinary humanities at the University of California at Merced who has a background in faculty development and student success,
some time back about the book she edited on the subject and had been looking for a way to write about it.
Still, I had a hard time figuring out exactly which example of this approach I wanted to focus on — or what I wanted to leave readers with. I knew that the topic was a little bit tricky — academe is a serious business, and the idea of centering joy is bound to be met with some skepticism, if not a few sneers.
But I’d become convinced there was something important for professors to grapple with here.
I eventually settled on sharing the story of Jamie Moore, a professor of English at the College of the Sequoias. Moore wrote a chapter in Camfield’s book about teaching a class in which students weren’t doing the work, and she is candid about her own anger and the burnout underneath it. While this example took place in 2019 — before the pandemic — I imagine that more professors can relate to it after teaching during and after emergency remote instruction.
Moore also describes the activities she used to bring her classroom community back from the brink, and in the book — which is available for free online — she has turned them into activities that other instructors could borrow for their own teaching.
To me, it captures how profoundly human teaching and learning can be. At a time when many people are trying to sort out what activities, exactly, are distinctly human, I think that is a powerful reminder.
I hope you’ll read the story.
In last week’s issue, Beth wrote about the recent Harvard report on grading. She also appeared on College Matters, The Chronicle’s podcast, to discuss with our colleague Jack Stripling what the report tells us about teaching. If you missed the episode, you can catch up on Apple or Spotify.
Beth also wants to hear from you about your own experiences with grading. Do you think grading is “out of whack,” as one Harvard professor was quoted as saying? Do grades no longer distinguish between excellent and acceptable work? Do modern teaching practices place too much emphasis on effort and completion and not enough on content mastery and skill development?
Write to her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or fill out this Google form to share your thoughts.
For years now, Beth and I have taken turns, usually every other week, writing this newsletter. We’ve had a lot of fun working on it together, even during stretches of time when thinking about college teaching wasn’t particularly pleasant.
So, when I was tapped to change gears at The Chronicle, I was sad to stop collaborating so closely with her.
I’ll also miss all of you, especially those who have written in, whether often or occasionally, to answer a question we’d asked, or share an example, or tell us you think we’d gotten something wrong. Having this ongoing correspondence with readers — feeling like we helped you connect with The Chronicle and each other — has been one of the highlights of my career.
Starting next week, I’ll be working on the Daily Briefing, The Chronicle’s daily news rundown for subscribers, alongside its current writer, Rick Seltzer. One of our goals is to carry some of what works well in Teaching into the mix in the Briefing.
Beth will be handling the Teaching newsletter solo. While I know you’re in good hands, I also hope you’ll send her lots of great information and ideas, because she’ll have a lot of ground to cover between this and the big, landscape-scanning feature stories she writes so well for The Chronicle.
And you’re more than welcome to get in touch with me, too. I’ll always be interested in teaching and learning and hope to write about them sometimes in my new role. If you also read the Briefing, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, too. You can find me, as always, at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com
Thanks for everything, and don’t be a stranger.
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
-Beckie
Learn more at our Teaching newsletter archive page.
