Throughout my early college years, I struggled with wanting to know more about the world and its problems and wanting to make a genuinely positive impact on the world. I often felt paralyzed into inaction by my desire to know more. How could I be sure I was doing something meaningful or impactful, or that…
Month: June 2021
Critical Race Theory Panic
As a teacher of history and politics, I’ve been following the news about conservative objections to the teaching about race and racism in history, as well as the ensuing critical race theory panic closely. What is not so clear from the coverage about this topic is what exactly conservative forces mean by critical race theory….
Reflection and Learning
How do we know what we know and what we don’t know? Can we put our knowledge in context? Can we connect it to other things we know? Can we express how our knowledge influences or alters our worldview? How do our views and ideas change and develop? How do we determine when our ideas…
On a Pale Blue Dot
Many people profess to be aware of their smallness in the scheme of existence, but when it comes down it – on a day-to-day basis – people, myself included, get caught up in the details, passions, and conflicts of their everyday lives. In doing so, they embody what Carl Sagan, imagining looking down from space…
Student Views on Grades and Grading
Anyone who has spent time in the classroom has probably given a lot of thought to what a grade represents and anguished over the grading process. Yesterday I wrote about failing in the remote learning context, and briefly discussed grades and grading as part of that. Today I figured I’d go a little deeper into…
Failing Remote Learning
Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I have 22 students in danger of failing the second term. I suspect most of them will make a last-minute push over the next couple of weeks to end the term and move at least into “D” territory, but this is the greatest number of students I’ve ever…
Research in Remote
As student enthusiasm began to wane for full-class lessons towards the end of the academic year, I pivoted in all my classes to end-of-year research projects in the remote context. Although independent (or small group) research and analysis isn’t always the best way to keep students engaged remotely, it presents opportunities for students to follow…