I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. ~attributed to Etienne de Grellet~
"Be kind to your sibling." "I AM being kind--they're the one being a jerk!" "Be kinder. Be kinder. Be kinder than you think you need to be. Be kinder than you think they deserve." It's a regular interaction in my household. Someone--possible more than one someone--has been a jerk, a meanie, an obnoxious brat. Probably... Continue Reading →
Does it feel like you should have this figured out by now? That because you've made the decisions about how to teach remotely and had a few weeks of it behind you, it should be getting easier? But, somehow, it's not? That's okay. It's not easier for a lot of reasons. Here are a few:... Continue Reading →
This post is part of a series to help you build an online class. If you want to begin at the beginning of the series, start here. A warm relationship with at least one professor is a high leverage practice--one that helps protect vulnerable students from dropping out. Small schools with low teacher to student... Continue Reading →
Need some teaching inspiration? The South Phoenix Oral History Project is a digital oral history of a rich but understudied part of Phoenix--and it began as a student history project at the local community college. If that doesn't get you excited about the relevance of teaching right now, I don't know what will! Dr. Summer... Continue Reading →
In any situation, we have to be attentive to student (and our own) privacy. In a F2F class, we do that by following FERPA rules, asking only questions that are appropriate and related to our students' learning, and closing the classroom door when students are sharing. Online spaces require us to think about privacy differently.... Continue Reading →
Do you like what you read at Any Good Thing or Sixoh6? I try to bring readers compassionate thinking and practical advice about higher ed here and insight about religion, politics, and American culture at Sixoh6. If you like what I'm doing, you might enjoy God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious... Continue Reading →
Whether you have recently pivoted to remote teaching or are thoughtfully crafting an online course for fall or summer, you are probably discovering how difficult online course design and teaching are. Because few professors have taken online courses, we don't have the experience of being online learners. And few of us have training in pedagogy... Continue Reading →
The foundational text of my teaching philosophy is "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus: Notes Towards an Investigation" (1970) by Louis Althusser. As many of us transition to remote teaching, I'm reminded of this passage: I ask the pardon of those teachers who, in dreadful conditions, attempt to turn the few weapons they can find in... Continue Reading →
While we should be thinking about student privacy in all settings, online classes present an entirely different set of challenges, given that students are often working from their homesand that they are using technologies that allow them to be viewed and recorded there. This is particularly challenging this semester, when we are teaching students who... Continue Reading →
One of the lovely and also hardest parts of teaching online is that you often feel like you are teaching one student at a time. Student-faculty interaction can be quite high, and many students open up quite vulnerably in an online setting. Some will use the class as individual coaching--which may work well in a... Continue Reading →
Rebecca Barrett-Fox 