Author Archives: Jeffrey W. McClurken

October 9, 2009, 2:00 pm

The Value of 24 Hours in Passing Back Graded Work

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a new teacher was from a senior colleague who listened to me express anxiety about handing back graded papers to my class. She looked at me and said, “Why don’t you just deploy the ‘24-hour rule’?” I looked at her blankly and she explained that she told her students that it was her policy not to discuss their papers/tests/projects with them until 24 hours after they had received them. She insisted it significantly reduced the number of concerned students following her back to her office wanting an explanation for this or that part of their grade.

I tried it and I’ve never looked back. When I pass back assignments, I tell students that I spent time commenting on and evaluating their work and that, therefore, I’d ask that they take 24 hours to try to understand my comments before they come to see me about them. I reassure them…

September 8, 2009, 8:00 am

Advice on Faculty Workload

By Jeffrey W. McClurken

The ProfHacker audience (so far) seems to be made up of people who want to be better, more efficient, more effective in their academic careers. One of the biggest issues that we faculty (new and seasoned, adjunct and long tenured) face is the question of managing our workload. If we care about what we’re doing (and if you’re on this site you must), then we can take on too much. Overloading can affect our ability to teach effectively, to publish, to make academic and institutional deadlines, and to have a (gasp) extra-academic life. [One way to manage the stress that results is to read George's post on managing stress during the semester.]

Along to address the question of academic workload directly is a recent post from Tenured Radical, aka Claire Potter, a professor of History and American Studies at Wesleyan University. The post, entitled “Just Say No (But Not To Me):…

August 17, 2009, 10:00 am

Deploying Students as Tech Mentors

By Jeffrey W. McClurken

Image by flickr user kandyjaxx. (CC-licensed)

One of the common concerns that faculty have when thinking about using digital technologies in the classroom is how much time they would need to spend in training an entire classroom of students on the same tool. This task can be made more complicated given the varying student levels of technical expertise and comfort level with digital tools. Should you walk students through every step of the process of setting up and formatting a blog, perhaps giving up valuable class time in doing so, and knowing that some students already have those skills and may be turned off by that handholding? Or should you just give a broad overview to the class, hoping that students can figure things out on their own? And how do you deal with the 40th question about how to change a blog theme, or format a wiki entry, or add an image to a visual presentation?

Rather than seeing varied student skill and…