Weekend Reading: Labor Day Edition

At the AAUP summer institute this summer, I heard about a chapter that distributed water & brochures to students on move-in day. That’s a clever way to make a friendly connection with students, reminding them, even before the semester starts, that faculty are interested in their success, and it’s a good way to make common cause with students. While that kind of concerted effort might not play on all campuses, it is interesting to think about how it reframes your semester if your first encounter with students is at move-in, rather than in a genii ed class at 8m Monday or Tuesday morning. They can be more open about their excitement and nervousness; you can see them interacting with their family, etc. Especially for those of us who teach first-year experience courses, it might be worthwhile one fall to wander by campus when the students arrive. Inasmuch as those classes try to help students with the transition to campus, it’s an interesting glance at where they’re moving from. (Thanks to Aimee for talking about the FYE piece.)

Here are five links to start off the weekend:

• Erika Hall explains the difference between “Working Hours” and “Available to Meet” in calendar lingo: To a person on deadline, a calendar invitation is a hostile land grab.
• Jodi Dean has a splendid post up about reconceiving her political philosophy courses at various points in her career: This means assigning material I haven’t read or haven’t read in a long time (over 80 chapters of Machiavelli’s Discourses!!) It means using new books–without all my previous underlining. It means going in without typed lectures. It means being open to something new. Part of this is delusional: I can only put myself in their position because I am not in it; I can only disarm myself of lecture notes and familiar texts because of prior experience (my god, I’ve taught Plato’s Republic annually for nearly two decades).
• What might campuses look like if schools cared about education instead of quasi-corporate branding? “The most convincing new university buildings”, says Neary, “are those where students are given real responsibility for managing and supervising the spaces within which they learn, as well as acting as support for other students’ learning. The Learning Grid at the University of Warwick is the most developed form of this new kind of space.” (Via Blamb on Delicious)
• Although Melanie McBride’s focus in this post is on secondary education, she has a great list of questions to spur “planning for inclusion”: Coming into teaching from the field of interactive media, I couldn’t imagine creating a platform without any beta testers or focus groups. And while schools may lack the funds to beta test curriculum we might be able to find a way to develop social sites that allow students and their parents to play a more active role in contributing to a curriculum is more reflective of their needs.
• Dr. Crazy explains why being behind doesn’t spur productivity bursts: Here’s the thing. I’m behind. You’d think that being behind would make a person want to catch up. But you would be wrong. Indeed, being behind makes me think to myself, “Why bother writing? I’m already behind! What’s one more day? One more weekend?” And then I get even more behind. And then I feel bad about myself. It’s really hard to motivate yourself to write when you feel bad about yourself. Maybe I’d feel better if I cleaned the bathroom? And round and round it goes.

And, in this week’s video, Gina Trapani explains “how to take smart meeting notes“:

Or, if you’d prefer like, a Scott Pilgrim/Last Airbender mashup!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

[Image by sienacommunications / Creative Commons licensed.]