For those who don’t know – POD is the association for Centers for Teaching and Learning. For better or worse, I have been co-chairing their Special Interest Group for Teaching with Technology for the last 3 years, with a series of webinars over the last year. Finally got off this during this round (I think).

Sometimes I find this conference a bit on the touchy feely side, but there are always a couple of really good sessions and workshops that make me sit up and think.

Teaching with Texts: Practices to Promote More Effective Reading

run by Dominic Voge and Hugh Kesson, Princeton University. They showed off ideaboardz.com, talked about modeling how reading works and using a graphic organizer.

Infusing our Learning Environments with Playful Active-Learning Games

Timothy Schaffer and Victoria Mondelli, NYU. Talked about a range of gaming approaches and used the idea of a gaming to get to everything (Roulette Wheel), but it felt contrived because the choices disappeared. But there was some discussion of escape rooms, role playing, puzzles, quests.

Another presentation focused on rigor – and the challenges with that particular term as it often suggests a deficit model (there is only so much to go around, so not everyone can excel in a class, someone has to fail). Key is to create challenging materials and then provide the structure so that students can be successful. Part of that means being clear and transparent in setting expectations and what it will take to be successful – so, harking back to TILT principles of not only saying what needs to be done but also why and how.. Two reading mentioned: Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia and Dysfunctional Illusions of Rigor: Lessons from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

I think those texts are probably aligned with Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto and tie in nicely with Carleton’s conversations around ungrading.