For the last several years, I’ve been trying to incorporate new assignments and activities that encourage students to think of the work they do in my courses as having real impact on their lives outside of the classroom. I’m trying to work against their tendency to sit through a course as if they were a…
Read MoreWhat follows is the conclusion to a three-part series of posts detailing a pedagogical experiment that I tried out for the first time this term, which I call “An Experiment in the Redistribution of Grades” (ERG). You should read all the details of ERG in the original post here, but the basic idea was to give students…
Read MoreWe’re nearing the end of the semester and I’m wrapping up two of the most exciting and intellectually invigorating courses I’ve taught in a long time. One of them was an upper-division undergraduate course entitled “Technology and Human Values” (syllabus here) The other was an intro-level undergrad Ethics course called “Contemporary Moral Issues” (syllabus here),…
Read MoreA few days ago, right-wing blowhard and professional alarmist, Alex Jones (of InfoWars), posted a tweet announcing that “Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War on July 4.” If you lean to the Left and somehow missed the memo about our impending revolution, never fear, because it’s all over the Twitterverse now. On July 2, Amanda Blount…
Read MoreThis is a follow-up to my post last May, in which I explained a new pedagogical device I planned to introduce in my classes this semester. I called it “An Experiment in the Redistribution of Grades” and, as of two weeks ago, the experiment has begun. The basic idea is that I am giving students an opportunity to…
Read MoreWARNING: If you still believe that academia is a meritocracy, that higher ed assessment instruments are useful (or unbiased), that grades motivate students to learn, or that grades accurately reflect students’ performance, this essay is not for you. Now, let’s talk about grades. No matter how fastidious one is about one’s course design, every prof…
Read MoreBack in 2015, Christian Brothers University asked some of its faculty (including me) to share some #WordsofWisdom with the graduating class. So, I made a short video (below), which more or less reiterates what any student who has ever taken a class from me will recognize as Rule #1 from the list of “Dr. J’s…
Read MoreThere isn’t a University-wide Honor Code at my current institution, as there was at my previous one, and I realized the first semester after I moved that it was something I missed. So, I wrote one myself which I have students read and sign in the first week of classes. For what it’s worth, I…
Read MoreI promised my friend and fellow blogger Samir Chopra that I would write something about the recent uptick in conversation about technology in the classroom, the overwhelming majority of which has been condemnatory. Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of technology (even in the classroom), I consider myself a cautious techno-optimist, and so I am…
Read MoreFull disclosure: The title of this post is clickbait. I haven’t actually invited students to flip me the bird this semester. What I have done, however, is invite students to give me some kind of silent and subtle indication– we agreed on a flick of their pen or a slighttly-raised finger– whenever I use a word…
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