Autumn Recommendations
The autumn is whipping by us, folks. Hope everyone is doing well out there, sipping pumpkin beverages and thinking about costumes and what soup to make next.
BE THE SPARK - Thoughts on Teaching and Learning
Lots has been happening in the world of teaching and learning.
Dare I call an early vibe shift when it comes to AI and teaching? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a thorough, thoughtful report by a distributed group of folks across campus on how MIT (and really, higher education in general) should be changing in the face of generative artificial intelligence. It is worth a read, and while balanced takes a surprisingly critical view of the technology for a school of technology. UC Berkeley Law issued an AI policy that is pretty prohibitive. And everyone is snapping up Annette Vee, Marc Watkins, and Derek Bruff Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching, a book that promises to be much more agnostic about instructor attitudes toward AI than some hyped-up books that came previously. I'm running a faculty book club on it for Simmons University faculty, and I think we're just one of many such book clubs.
And if you want to get a taste of how far this sea change could take us, don't miss the webinar below - I caught an early version of this meeting of the minds at a conference and it is fiery, informative, and inspiring. Register here.
In terms of reading recommendations, Sarah Silverman's book Classroom Mindscapes: An Introduction to Neurodiversity for Educators (previously highlighted in these pages) is finally out and I'm so eager to dig in. In the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, the biologist Bryan Dewsbury pens a passionate defense of inclusive teaching as a revolutionary practice.
If you're looking for webinar recommendations, in early November the marvelous sociologist Chavella Pittman and I are hosting a conversation over at OneHE on what many campuses get wrong about supporting instructor mental health and well-being... and how they can improve. Join us!
Chavella T. Pittman
Sarah Rose Cavanagh
And finally, if you were one of the few people who missed the first of cognitive scientist and author Pooja K. Agarwal's four (free!) webinars on teaching and learning this fall, don't miss the next ones... register for the Zooms at retrievalpractice.org/webinars and sign up for her newsletter at retrievalpractice.org/subscribe for more information.
Wednesday, October 14 at 5:00pm ET: How to help students study smarter (not harder) with research-based study strategies
Tuesday, November 17 at 12:00pm ET: Why forgetting is normal, why it’s good for learning, and how to normalize it in your classroom
Thursday, December 10 at 10:00am ET: How the brain actually works, why we fall for neuromyths, and how to be an informed consumer of neuroscience research
Things I'm Loving at the Moment
Since my own autumn is swallowing me up a bit, a break from format to share some linky links to what is presently occupying me.
On the fiction side of the house, I'm reading Marlon James' The Disappearers and it is as amazing as they all say, but it is also as brutal as they all say. I have to keep putting it down for a bit to recover emotionally. The New York Times review says you don't finish the book so much as it finishes you, and damn is that true.
On the nonfiction side of the house, after attending a Lithuanian mushroom hunting weekend for my own book, I'm finally getting around to reading Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds. It is beautifully written and well-researched but also mushrooms are entirely blowing my mind, y'all. More on this soon probably.
My happiness course is going mostly well - I have a wonderful cohort of students who are being very gracious as I deal with the challenges of a new prep. We're reading about how eating with social others changes how you metabolically process your food, the dark side of happiness (I'm teaching the course, remember?), and about the miraculous power of warm touch. I may or may not have gone on a bit of a rant already about Martin Seligman (if you know you know).
My favorite "wait, this took 10 minutes to cook and is also delicious" recipe is these Halloumi and Sweet Potato Tacos.
Enjoy October, friends. We're so lucky to have it.