Around the Web

I'm busy leading lots and lots of faculty learning communities, so I'll keep this week's newsletter short and sweet. Here are a few items of interest around the web that I think readers might find interesting.

• ​Behind the Curtain of Higher Education: Faculty Aren't Trained - This Forbes essay by San Francisco Bay University president Nick Ladany has been lighting up my little section of LinkedIn. Ladany points out something that many of us in higher ed know well, that training and support and standards for teaching are not always priorities, especially at research universities. I really liked this part: "Professors are then left to instruct as they see fit, often under the vague umbrella of academic freedom. Imagine if we applied the same approach to training surgeons: study biology, then perform surgeries as you wish, under the guise of 'medical freedom.'" I'm really glad to see this message about whether and how colleagues really value in a venue like Forbes, where it might attract some useful attention.
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  Two caveats, however: One is that Ladany claims there are no "standardized definition[s] of what effective teaching looks like," which is incorrect. See my recent podcast interview with Lindsay Masland for one of many such definitions now in operation in higher ed. My second caveat is what Trey Conaster of the University of Kentucky pointed out in this LinkedIn thread, that were centers for teaching to be given formal oversight roles in teaching as Ladany recommends, that would dramatically change faculty relationships with centers, likely for the worse.
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• ​Dialog(ue)s on Teaching - Stacey Margarita Johnson and Lance Eaton met each other on the "take it or leave it" podcast episode I aired this summer, and they've been corresponding ever since about issues of teaching and learning and technology in higher education. They've taken that correspondence public in a series of posts on their respective blogs, and their conversation is well worth reading. Start with Stacey's post "We Need Less Innovation," then read Lance reply at "innovation vs. Innovation," then read Stacey's latest "We Need More Connection." These posts are so good, and I'm thrilled I played a part in bringing these two amazing people together.
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• New Teaching Hub Collections - Part of my role at the University of Virginia Center for Teaching is serving as an editor for Teaching Hub, a website featuring curated collections of resources on all kinds of teaching and learning topics. I'm excited to share two new Teaching Hub collections: Teaching in Turbulent Times, a set of resources curated by Rick Moore from Washington University in St. Louis featuring strategies for supporting students when events in the world intrude on events in the classroom, and Using Our Non-Content Words from my UVA colleague Lynn Mandeltort about using "instructor talk" to help students feel connected and engage with each other intellectually. Thanks to Rick and Lynn for putting these very useful collections together.

Thanks for reading!

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