Information literacy is crucial to any conceivable profession and to personal decisions ranging from health to finances (plus, I would argue, to forging a collective future on our planet). Yet, it’s getting harder to teach students how to discern credible sources. As a millennial, I’ve observed the Internet evolve into a homogenous marketing tool. A… Read more »
Dr. Abigail Rawleigh, who teaches for IUB’s English Department, has been talking with me about her evolving approach to generative AI. I’ve already learned a lot from her, and I thought other educators would appreciate Dr. Rawleigh’s measured, reflective AI pedagogy, so I interviewed her recently. Can you tell me how your approach to AI… Read more »
When I think of the scads of papers I wrote as an undergrad, I recall hunkering down in my dorm room, alone with my laptop and books. Only my Shakespeare professor took a different approach: she had us write (by hand, in blue books) timed essay exams instead of take-home paper assignments. Although these essays,… Read more »
Can you remember the last project you wrote for a single reader? How about the last one you finished in one draft and with zero input from peers? In papers written for one reader (the instructor) without peer feedback (classmates), learners face an artificial situation. They write to perform—not to communicate, the purpose of most… Read more »
Without reading well, students can’t write well. The two skills cannot be disentangled. Yet, in my writing courses, I’ve often lamented that students don’t seem to be completing or comprehending the reading assignments. Why aren’t they reading? My colleagues Sarah Pedzinksi and Madeleine Gonin lay out five common barriers and some solutions in their post,… Read more »
A few millennia ago, Plato was anxious about a new technology called writing, fearing it would degrade people’s capacity for memory. Writing took hold, of course, despite the philosopher’s qualms. Today, we all accept writing as an indispensable tool for sharing knowledge and expressing the self. But new technologies are shaking up our educational philosophies… Read more »