One of the most well-known professional development parables is the story of a rookie lumberjack who is a phenom when first let loose in the forest. Many trees fall but as the days add up, the new lumberjack cuts fewer and fewer trees. Frustrations mount and our lumberjack considers quitting. Only when a seasoned colleague…
Author: David Potash
Learning Science?!?
Foretelling the future is impossible. But measured predictions, from smart and informed people, using good data, hard work and solid evidence, can be possible and reliable. A good example is Robert S. Feldman‘s Learning Science: Theory, Research, & Practice. Making claims about higher education and technology is inherently risky (Did anyone anticipate Zoom? Remember the…
Communities of Practice – New Models for New Times
This summer, amid social distancing and the challenges of remote work, between zooms, more zooms and the occasional conference call, I joined Dr. Jabari Bodrick of the University of South Carolina as a co-facilitator in a Campus Compact’s Community of Practice. It was interesting, offering direct insights and a provocative lens for reflection, worthy of…
Ginzel on Choosing Leadership
“Leadership is a choice.” Professor Linda Ginzel of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business begins her book, Choosing Leadership: A Workbook, with that deceptively simple sentence. It’s a powerful claim, an assertion that carries with it expectations and consequences. Leadership, she asserts, is a “skill that needs to be constantly practiced and developed.”…
Good Grading, Good Grades
Several colleges and universities have changed spring semester grading processes in response to the pandemic and our collective shifts to distance learning. The debates and decisions about grading prompted me to return to one of my all-time favorite higher education books, Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment, by Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson…
Spaces and Schools
Educational work is now remote. As we social distance, protecting our students and each other, interaction is mediated by screens and phones. This is our new normal. The loss of face-to-face, of being at my college, has made me think – and rethink – the value and importance of being in a shared physical space…
An Economist’s Call for Equality
Economists, I think, often tend to have a different way of looking at things. They ask particular sorts of questions and often arrive at different kinds of answers than us non-economists. For us, economic work often can seem to take place in a world unto itself. Sometimes, though, what economists argue and and call out…