Bloom's Sixth

The new Earth, Energy and Environment Center is still a work in progress. Workers in hardhats still move through mostly empty hallways and rooms. Cardboard boxes are strewn about as tables, chairs, computer monitors and other equipment is unpacked, assembled and put into place. The sound of a hammer or drill echoes occasionally. The smell of new carpet, upholstery, paint or wood greets you around every corner. Even amid the clutter and clamor, though, this new complex attached to Lindley Hall looks like the future. Paleocon, an annual event for students in Geology 121: DNA to…

By Doug Ward Authentic assignments can be messy. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, the messiness helps students deepen their critical thinking, improve their decision-making, learn about themselves, and even take more control over their learning. That messiness can be challenging for both students and faculty members, though. For students accustomed to a lecture-and-test format, it means grappling with ambiguity and working through failures. For instructors, it means ceding considerable control to students and devoting time to individual and group problem-solving. My approach to…

By Doug Ward One poster offers to explain the chemistry of the world’s most popular drug. Another teases about the fatty acids that make T-shirts feel soft. Still another promises secrets about the oils used in making the perfect chicken nugget. None of them offers its secrets outright, though. And that’s just how Drew Vartia, a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the chemistry department, wants it. A poster in Malott Hall refers people to information about the chemistry of soap. The posters were created by the 60 students in Honors Chemistry I, which Vartia worked on with Professor…

By Doug Ward It was a simple idea. Bring together a group of faculty members from around campus for guided discussions about diversity and inclusion. Guide them to think deliberately and openly about making their classroom practices and pedagogy more inclusive. Then help them create plans to take what they had learned back to their departments and help colleagues do the same. That’s the approach behind Diversity Scholars, a program that CTE began last year with 11 participants. A second class of 10 began…

A provision in the tax bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday has the potential to upend graduate education. The bill would force graduate students to pay taxes on tuition waivers they routinely receive as part of their appointments. That would raise the cost of graduate education substantially and could easily drive away potential students. Erin Rousseau, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimated that she…

By Doug Ward Mannequins have been a part of health care training for decades. As Matt Lineberry of the Zamierowski Institute for Experiential Learning demonstrated recently, though, those mannequins have become decidedly smarter. Lineberry, director of simulation research, assessment and outcomes at the Zamierowski Institute, spoke with faculty members and graduate students in the educational psychology department in Lawrence, explaining how health care simulation has evolved into highly…

  By Doug Ward When Mark Mort began remaking a 100-level biology course a few years ago, he asked instructors who had taught the class what they thought students needed. “Not surprisingly, the answers were very much content, content, content,” said Mort, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. Then he went to colleagues who taught classes later in the curriculum, courses for which his course, Biology 152, was a prerequisite. He asked what they expected students to know after taking Biology 152, or Principles of Organismal Biology. Their response? Nothing…

By Doug Ward The amount of debt that colleges and universities are taking on is rising even as the number of students in higher education is declining, The Hechinger Report says. It offered these sobering statistics: Public universities have taken on 18 percent more debt in the last five years, and now owe a collective $145 billion. When you add in private universities, the amount rises to $240 billion. On average, 9 percent of…

By Doug Ward The evaluation of teaching generally looks like this: Students hurriedly fill in questionnaires at the end of a semester, evaluating an instructor on a five-point scale. The university compiles the results and provides a summary for each faculty member. The individual scores, often judged against a department mean, determine an instructor’s teaching effectiveness for everything from annual reviews to evaluations for promotion and tenure. That’s a problem. …

By Doug Ward Add another lock to the ivory tower. A majority of college students say it is acceptable to shout down a speaker they disagree with, and 20 percent accept the idea of resorting to violence to keep an undesirable speaker from campus, a poll from the Brookings Institution finds. John Villasenor, a senior fellow at Brookings, conducted the poll to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. The survey contained responses from 1,500 students in 49 states and the District of Columbia. It has a margin of error of 2 to 6 percentage points. The Blue Diamond…