UM Today

It's back to the weekly grind, and I can't say that I'm sorry for it.  Too much free time = anxiety (for me), so having the work schedule back in place is keeping my mind occupied for now. 

In the daily email from the university, UM Today, was the following description of a workshop I was considering:

Dear Colleagues,

The Centre for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (CTLE) would like to cordially invite you to take part in the CTLE Fall Workshop on "Making a Difference in My Class - Active Learning and Technology" with XXXX. Teaching and learning can and should be both fun and interesting. However, many pedagogic methods that work for one class do not necessarily work for another. An exception to this is active learning. Active learning is when students are mentally and physically engaged in learning in and/or outside the class. In this workshop, different active learning methods are presented. Examples include round-robin calling, in class demonstrations, group work, and discussions and even tossing things during class.

I love the description of "tossing things" during class.  It's quite funny to me that the teaching enhancement workshops that tout "Active Learning" actually pull ideas from my days of elementary school teaching.  I'm not sure if this is a step forward or backward.  And one of my Reinhardt professors told us if we ever did "Round Robin" reading in our classrooms, her ghost would haunt us.  Just saying...