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~
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 →
This post is narrowly focused on my Social Problems course, which I revamped substantially last year in the face of COVID to provide students with more examples of social problems being ameliorated, something we did via service learning pre-COVID that wasn’t possible now. During a time of continual crisis, I found that my students benefited... Continue Reading →
Consistency will help students manage their time and help make sure that nothing (or fewer things) fall through the crack since it limits the changes in a semester full of them.
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 →
This week, I've been writing about the work of teaching a course you didn't design. Sometimes this happens because a department has mandated a rigid syllabus for all sections of a course. Sometimes it's because a faculty member takes leave without much notice, and the class must be taught as it was already planned. And... Continue Reading →
Thirty-seven percent of faculty are over age 55. The fact that so many faculty members can shop at their grocery store during hours restricted to those at high risk of serious illness from COVID means that campuses need to prepare now for faculty who use sick leave. Others will be using the Family First portion... Continue Reading →
It's not online education. It's a return to physical campuses in the fall. And while this is in part practical--When you kill students, retention necessarily falls.--it goes beyond the numbers of dead and lifelong injured that will result from a physical reopening. Reopening campuses is an admission that science, math, logic, moral reasoning, history, and... Continue Reading →
You probably have an In Case of Emergency (ICE) contact in your cell phone--the person to be called if you have a heart attack on the street, the number accessible even if your phone is locked. You need one for Fall 2020 teaching. It's possible that you, as a teacher, will become ill in the... 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 →
Are you an extrovert who used to enjoy face-to-face meetings but now find yourself exhausted after a day of video meetings? Wondering why they take so much more out of you than do typical F2F efforts? Have you started showing up, logging on, and tuning out? Considered just running a loop of yourself looking like you... Continue Reading →
Rebecca Barrett-Fox 