Month: November 2011

Grading: It is personal, actually! — Aimée Morrison

[With her permission, we have reprinted below a posting by Aimée Morrison (Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo) that originally appeared on the Hook & Eye blog.]

Grading is personal. And I’m starting to recognize that, for my students, no matter how I frame my response to their papers (“This paper argues” rather than “You believe”, for example) they take it personally: the grades hurt their feelings, they feel personally slighted. Continue reading Grading: It is personal, actually! — Aimée Morrison

Teaching biology using video games, comic books and tattoos – Michael Pyne

Perhaps one of the most challenging and often overlooked qualities of a great university teacher is their ability to get students excited about their chosen discipline. As a teaching assistant for a fundamental first-year chemical engineering course called Engineering Biology, I take it upon myself to try and draw chemical engineering students toward the bio side of the discipline. I want to show to them that chemical engineering can entail more than polymers and petroleum. Continue reading Teaching biology using video games, comic books and tattoos – Michael Pyne

Reflecting On Our Work — Mark Morton

Donna Ellis and Abdullah S. Al-Salman

I’m proud to work at a teaching centre that strives not only to serve instructors at our own university, but is also happy to share its resources and expertise with staff and instructors from other institutions. A case in point is the meeting that CTE’s Director — Donna Ellis — and I had on November 22 with a delegation from King Saud University. Continue reading Reflecting On Our Work — Mark Morton

Learning is a Social Activity – Katherine Lithgow

After attending one of the Sixth Decade Mid-Cycle Review sessions, I began thinking about some of the comments that were raised during and after the session regarding academic excellence and what that entails. Continue reading Learning is a Social Activity – Katherine Lithgow

Flow as an Optimal State of Learning – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon

A while ago I heard about interesting research in psychology that discusses the state of optimal experience called flow. This fascinating research, pioneered by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high-lee), suggests that the state of flow is characterized by complete mental and physical commitment, clarity of focus, mindfulness and loss of sense of time.  Continue reading Flow as an Optimal State of Learning – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon