Category Archives: literature

How to show students that they matter, inspired by episodes of two of my favourite podcasts

Yesterday I went on a lovely after-work walk with one of my favorite podcasts (check them out, all highly recommended!), and I want to mention two podcast episodes Iistened to recently, through the lens (mixing my metaphors here, but you get the idea) of how to show students that they matter to us as teachers. Continue reading

Currently reading “How well-intentioned white male physicists maintain ignorance of inequity and justify inaction” by Dancy & Hodari (2022)

This article has repeatedly been making waves in my circles over the last couple of months: “How well-intentioned white male physicists maintain ignorance of inequity and justify inaction” by Dancy & Hodari (2022). My take-away in a nutshell: Ignorance is bliss. It’s totally worth a read!

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Reminding myself of “Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do” (Steele, 2011)

As I was gathering my favorite three books on learning and teaching to wave at the participants of our “introduction to teaching and learning” course today, I realized I never summarized one of them: “Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do” (Steele, 2011), which is what I am doing below. (The other two? “Communities of Practice“, and “Small Teaching“)

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Teaching Kugel (1993)’s “how professors develop as teachers”. 

Another article that I just re-read for my teaching next week is Kugel (1993)’s “how professors develop as teachers”. Kugel describes the development of teachers in 6 stages that are very relatable and thus great to discuss, both to identify a current stage for yourself (and possibly teachers you encounter?), to reflect on that, and to get ideas for future developments:

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Currently reading: “Reach everyone, teach everyone: Universal design for learning in higher education” (Behling & Tobin, 2018)

“Reach everyone, teach everyone” — that title caught me right away, and I’m glad I ordered and read the book by Tobin & Behling (2018)! They manage to make Universal Design for Learning feel like a manageable task, and one that can be done one small step at a time, rather than something so huge and overwhelming that it’s better to not even start thinking about it. Here are my notes on what I want to remember from a teacher perspective!

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Currently reading: “Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders” (Sue et al., 2019)

I have another recommended reading for you! I found this really nice framework for disarming microaggressions, both targeted directly towards the perpetrator, but also institutional and societal macroaggressions, in Sue et al. (2019). The article includes a lot of really helpful examples of what this might look like in practice. Below is a summary of the aspects that I want to take from the article to bring into a workshop I’m teaching next month (so I am reading this through a very specific lens for my own context). I definitely recommend to check out the original article to look at great examples of strategies to intervene depending on the objective (if nothing else, browse table 1)!

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Recommended reading: “The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain” by Zakrajsek (2022) (Part 2)

I’m back to browsing the “menu” in my new favorite book, “The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain” by Zakrajsek (2022). If you haven’t read the first blog post about the book, you might want to read that one first for context.

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Recommended reading: “The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain” by Zakrajsek (2022)

I found a new YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!!!-book: “The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain” by Zakrajsek (2022). It is aimed at students and it  might be the most important thing students ever read in school…

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“Supporting students in higher education: proposal for a theoretical framework” Kirsty Dunnett summarizes De Ketele (2014)

Who are you travelling with? A guest post by Kirsty Dunnett.

A summary and some thoughts on:

Supporting students in higher education: proposal for a theoretical framework
By J.-M. De Ketele (Université de Louvain, Belgium)

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