| Last, but not least, we finish our summer book group takeaways with two interesting reads.
Pedagogy of Kindness by Catherine Denial
- Kindness is not “niceness”; it is intentionally building and maintaining classroom practices that fully acknowledge and see students and help them build foundations for success.
- It’s possible to convey kindness through the tone of your syllabus.
- Oral exams can be a way to meet students where they are.
- Consider creating semester-long groups to help students support one another for class notes or studying.
The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game by C. Thi Nguyen
- The book explores metrics and scoring systems and how they capture, and fail to capture, aspects of the world constraining and enabling decisions and actions. They shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. The benefits of metrics include that they are scalable, accessible, applicable, and transferable.
- Framing academic goals for students separately from grading is important because it’s challenging for students to see learning separately from points awarded. Being intentional about rewarding progress is part of effective teaching.
- The concept of “value capture” helps us think about the ways that our own goals and values can be co-opted by that which is measurable on a broad scale.
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