What I'm Reading This Week #17

This is going to be a quickly-composed post so I can check it, and the associated articles, off my todo list before disappearing for break!

First, I just finished running Allegheny's first Post-Semester Course Reflection session. This was inspired by a question from one of our new faculty about workshops that could help faculty think about what worked well in their courses this semester and how they might refine future versions of these or other courses. To get us started, I put together this webpage, highlighting possible sources of information about their courses, several reflection strategies, and some associated resources. I'll run the session again on January 5, after student evaluation results are out. Attendance today was low, as might be expected at this time of the year, but the feedback was positive, so I think this is a session to keep on our faculty development calendar.

Now, to my list of articles for this week. The first two articles focus on disengagement for faculty and students, respectively. They're both from earlier in the year, but still feel relevant:

• Kevin R. McClure and Alisa Hicklin Fryar. The Great Faculty Disengagement. Chronicle of Higher Education. January 19, 2022.
• Beth McMurtrie. A "Stunning" Level of Student Disconnection. Chronicle of Higher Education. April 5, 2022. 

Next, a counterpoint to the call for innovative approaches to address student disengagement and other issues in higher education:

• Kevin Gannon. Let's Disrupt the Calls for "Disruptive Innovation." Chronicle of Higher Education. October 26, 2022.

The next group of articles contain tips to keep in mind as we prepare our courses for next semester:

• Ashley Flood. Why I Enrolled in Developmental Math. Inside Higher Ed. November 30, 2022. 
• Jennifer Gonzalez. 10 Ways to Give a Better Lecture. Cult of Pedagogy. November 15, 2022. 
• Beth McMurtrie. The Case for Ending the Semester With Review. Chronicle of Higher Education. December 6, 2022. 
• Caroline Mehl and Jonathan Haidt. How to Diffuse a Classroom Conflict: Make It More Complex. Chronicle of Higher Education. November 30, 2022.

And, lastly, an article about what feels like the topic of the moment, AI writing tools:

• Michael Feldstein. I Would Have Cheated in College Using ChatGPT. e-Literate. December 16, 2022.