Teaching Confrontationally?
One of our most difficult tasks as teachers is confronting our students, challenging their assumptions with new ideas, pushing them to improve their skills, sometimes even correcting inappropriate behavior. These are necessary tasks, essential to a college education, yet most of us would prefer to avoid anything that might be seen as confrontational.
This year's series of development workshops will offer encouragement for teaching confrontationally. We will share ideas with colleagues on how we can effectively improve our own attitudes and abilities while we sharpen our students, their study and research skills, their ideas and opinions, and their understanding of their responsibilities as students, young adults, and Christians.
[Sponsored by: The Teaching Fellows, the Office for Multicultural Affairs, the Hekman Library, the Dean for Research and Scholarship, and CIT's Teaching and Learning Team.]
February 2008:
"Teaching the 'Core' Kid"
February 6, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
You know the type: the student forced to fill a Core Curriculum requirement outside her or his major, who thinks your class is worthless, burdensome, boring, and a waste of time. We recognize their blank faces in the back of the room, the Biology major in the literature class, the English major in the stats class, the Math major in speech. How do we teach these students, who openly admit they are there only for the Core credit? What strategies can we take to engage them in the class, perhaps spark their interest in the subject, and maybe even confront them with the fact that there is more to education than checking off blanks on a transcript?
"How to Become an Outstanding Educator of Hispanic and African-American First-generation College Students"
February 13, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
Using an article by Samuel Betances as a starting point, we hope to have a lively and helpful conversation about the challenges and rewards of diversifying our course offerings. Come to share; come to learn.
"Research
Fluency Instruction: Can we do more?"
3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall | Facilitated by librarian Glenn Remelts
Calvin’s “Student Learning Outcomes” statement says our students will demonstrate skills in sound reasoning and critical thinking. To think critically and to form well-reasoned opinions, students need knowledge of the subject. Knowledge comes through searching the literature on a subject – good, old-fashion library research. How prepared are our students to do research? How well do we teach students the art of research? Who is responsible for this instruction? Can more be done? Come with your success and horror stories. We’ll also discuss models from other colleges.
March 2008:
"Teaching Truth? Building Up Students in the Faith"
March 26, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Commons Lecture Hall
Unlike colleagues in the secular academy, we do believe in "truth" as a vital element of knowledge. But how–and when–do we teach truth? Some avoid that question, protesting that it is hard to define "truth." And others among us simply revel in skewering our students' flawed assumptions and received knowledge. "But, at some point when teaching confrontationally, how do we pass along something firm for our students to hold on to?"
"Wikipedia and Student Research"
March 19, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Hekman Library 305
Faculty members and librarians across the country are becoming concerned with students using Wikipedia as a source in their college research, and are crafting various responses, from banning it entirely from students’ bibliographies to creating assignments that ask students to engage or even contribute to this online source. Our discussion will address why and how we should challenge students in their use of Wikipedia as a source in college-level research. We will also share ideas for using or engaging Wikipedia creatively, so if you have strategies that have been successful in the classroom, please bring them and add to the discussion! Led by librarian Sarah Kolk.
April 2008:
"Foundations for Making Racial Diversity Work"
April 9, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
What are other institutions of higher education doing to make "diversity work"? What can we learn from them, what could they learn from us? This session will include a time of sharing the "big picture" of the office of Multicultural Affairs, a real-time snapshot of what Calvin is doing to support an anti-racist and diversity imitative, and brief presentations of some of the best-practices of other institutions of higher education.
May 2008:
Fall 2007 Sessions:
September 2007:
"Isn't It All Online?” Tackling Student Attitudes Towards Research
September 19, 2007 | 3:30 - 4:45 | Hekman Library 305
How can librarians and faculty work together to help students let go of the misapprehension that all of their research needs can be met with online resources? In addition, how can we impress upon students the inestimable value of our print collections, including our special collections? Is there any point in fighting students’ impulse to avoid completely print books and journals? Join librarian Kathy DeMey for a lively discussion of this topic. We will focus on teaching both in the classroom setting and at the reference desk.
"How
are my colleagues using KnightVision?"
September 26, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
KnightVision has been around long enough for many of us to tell the tales of both success and defeat. This workshop will focus on best practice and lessons learned.
October 2007:
"Teaching Confrontationally: Overturning Everything They Know?"
October 3, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
Students come to college with heads full of ideas. Many of these ideas–gained from parents, pastors, and teachers–will serve them well for years to come. But others, sponged up from all kinds of sources, can cause them to stumble when they reach college. One of our greatest challenges is casting light on these obstacles, confronting our students with compelling new opinions, insightful theories, and incontrovertible evidence.
In this session, colleagues who teach controversial subjects will discuss how they confront first-year students with uncomfortable ideas. Do they pound with an iron fist? Or do they wear a velvet glove? And what do they say when the student responds, "That's not what I learned before"?
"How Biology Refutes Our Racial Myths: A Lecture by Dr. Joseph Graves"
October 10, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr., Dean of University Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences at North Carolina A&T State University, will be lecturing on his book, "The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America" at 3:30 on Wednesday, October 10, 2007.
Graves, who will speak in Room 101 of the Science Building, received his Ph.D. in environmental, evolutionary and systematic biology from Wayne State University in 1988. He has research interests in the evolutionary genetics of postponed aging as well as the biological concepts of race in humans, which his book describes.
He argues that the racial distinctions made in American society actually have no biological basis. In other words, there is no such thing as race, and it is a fallacy to suppose appearance, athleticism or health is affected by race. Graves will present his research October 10th in a talk sponsored by the office of the Dean for Multicultural Affairs at Calvin.
Graves has published his work in more than 50 papers and book chapters and has appeared in six documentary films. He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Arizona Disease Research Commission. In addition to “The Race Myth,” he has also published the book “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium.”
For more information on Dr. Graves’ presentation, contact Razel Jones in the Multicultural Affairs Office at 616.526.8703 or multiculturalaffairs@calvin.edu.
November 2007:
"Questioning Minds in the Making: Teaching Critical Thinking"
November 7, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
In its June 2007 report to the provost, the Critical Thinking Task Force made several recommendations about how the college could better teach critical thinking. Also in June, a workshop of 22 faculty members representing 19 departments discussed the report and ways to apply it across the curriculum. In this panel discussion, members of the task force will present the major findings of the report and the workshop.
"Diversity in Higher Education—Why it Matters: a Lecture by Raymond Gant"
November 14, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
We will be looking at the complications and challenges associated with the championing of diversity and anti-racism.
"ePortfolios for Assessing Student Performance and for Accreditation"
November 28, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
What are ePortfolios? How do we use them and why? Come learn how the Education department has adopted ePortfolios to assist in assessing student performance and to meet accreditation requirements.
December 2007:
"The
Challenge of “Active Learning:” A Case Study from Biology 141"
December 5, 2007 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
In 2006-2007, the Biology Department piloted a learner-centered approach to teaching Biology 141, the introductory course for the biology and biotechnology majors. This approach blends various forms of active learning: collaborative and independent learning, formative and summative assessments, and critical thinking-oriented lectures and class discussions. David Koetje and David DeHeer of the department will describe the goals of the project, the changes made, and the results to date.