If … 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. ~ Etienne Grellet
I just ran an analysis of my most recently-taught online course and found (again) reminders that how much time students spend in their online classes corresponds to their grade in the course. Now, this comes with several caveats: "How much time spent" isn't a measure of paying attention. A student could login on, turn on... Continue Reading →
Six weeks ago, my local public school resumed classes. The district decides on a week-by-week basis if students will be fully online, in person 2 days a week and online 3, or fully in person. This also varies by elementary, middle, and high school, so you elementary schools will be hybrid next week while the... Continue Reading →
Free access to this FORUM piece--brief think pieces on current issues--ends tomorrow. Check out contributions by Brandon Bayne, Valerie Cooper, Gastón Espinosa, and me, all scholars of religion writing about the impact of the pandemic on higher education broadly. You can download now and read another day if you don't have time today. In my... Continue Reading →
October and March are hard months for educators--too far from the start of the year to be excited by the newness and too far from winter or summer break to find the motivation to finish strong. For many of us, this October came fast. Some of us began school earlier than usual, trying to get... Continue Reading →
Thanks to EdSurge for the opportunity to share my hope that we can build meaningful online communities for our students, communities that, just as their coursework does, helps see themselves as learners together. "[W]e are figuring out how online education can create ties that help students see themselves as members of a community, just like... Continue Reading →
Today's Zoom crash, on the first day for many colleges and public schools (but certainly not the first day of all--we have weeks ahead of us where daily many more people will be trying to learn online), is a reminder that online teaching requires frustration tolerance for technology, which will always fail sometimes. This becomes harder... Continue Reading →
The University of Kansas has either deliberately or through incompetence misled the public about student demand for face-to-face classes during the national COVID crisis. (Just kidding! It doesn't matter in research ethics if the mistake you made the killed people was on purpose or through negligence. You are still responsible.) Insisting that student preferences determine... Continue Reading →
Some of us are just days away from the start of our Fall semester. And whether that is already fully online or hybrid or in-person, it's likely that your classes may end up being fully online. Successful online teaching is very different from successful in-person teaching, and while no one expects a novice to be... Continue Reading →
"Unprecedented." "Unpredictable." "Impossible to anticipate." Those are the excuses we are making for the failures of the US (and state and local) government to respond effectively to the presence of the coronavirus in the US. Above, the newest map from COVID Exit Strategyshows that nearly every state has uncontrolled spread. Only four states show improvement.... Continue Reading →
An unusual turn here at Any Good Thing and a break from my short break online: a letter to my local school board. I live in a state with D+ rating on its COVID handling, in a county with community spread (and death yesterday), and in a region where most counties have rejected our governor's mandate... Continue Reading →