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| Many of our CfLT conversations last year explored the growing importance of helping students to understand and embrace the value of the learning they’re doing in our classes. In this week’s read, Christina M. Schmidt of Cornell University explains what happens when faculty start by asking themselves, “Five years from now, what do you hope a former student carries forward from your course, beyond content knowledge?” |
CfLT Newsletter
The posts below are from the CfLT newsletter which includes curated, research-based digital resources to support ongoing faculty development and pedagogical engagement. As of August 2025, CfLT Director Karen Spierling oversees the content. Posts from July 2020-May 2025 were compiled by previous Director Lew Ludwig.
There and Back Again: Why I Don’t Ask My Students to Use AI
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| In this recent essay for the Math Association of America, Denison math professor Lew Ludwig shares his reflection on why, even though he has spent the past “four years leading workshops, running trainings, writing a book about” teaching with AI, he still does not “build a single assignment around it” in his math courses. |
I Let My Students Watch Me Struggle With a Masterpiece
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| Sharing our own curiosity and learning mindsets with our students is a fundamental part of engaging and effective teaching. As Matt Dinan writes, “If you expect your students to choose books, ideas and genuine learning over shortcuts and distraction, you must be a bit courageous, too. Return to the basics. Cut through the haze of abstraction, the webs of scholarly terminology, the pretense of professionalization, and attempt to recover the basic human experiences that can move us. |
Thinking Through Your Syllabus Design
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Getting Past Perfection
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| I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of August—moving ourselves from summer schedules and priorities back to the rhythms of the semester. For me, August inevitably involves reminding myself that perfection is not a thing in teaching or course design. Every class involves some element of experimentation and uncertainty. No matter how a course worked before, something will be different this time. |
Grading and Assessment
Here are some resources about grading and assessment:
- Two Truths and a Lie as a Formative Assessment by Stephen Chew
- AI-Resistant Assessments: A Practical Guide for Teachers by Med Kharbach
- 4 Ways to Better Grade Team Projects by Lauren Vicker & Tim Franz
- Test Analysis Worksheet Encourages Student Metacognition by Ashley Mowreader
- Use of Exam Wrapper Metacognitive Strategy to Promote Student Self-assessment of Learning by Kristen Sethares & Marilyn Asselin
- What I Learned from Giving 71 Oral Exams in 12 Days by Jason Linn
- The Value of Structured Think-Aloud Methodologies in the Age of AI by Rachel Ebner
- AI Is Not Replacing Learning- It’s Exposing Where Learning Was Thin to Begin With by Xinyao Yi
- How Are We Grading Now?
10 Studies Every Teacher Should Know About
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| The Edutopia website comes through again with the science of learning in a nutshell: 10 key studies on 5 teaching strategies. While part of the article is pitched to K-12 teachers, the strategies and science behind them all have relevance in our Denison classrooms. Whether you’re looking for affirmation that your approach is evidence-based or want some new ideas to mull over this summer, this quick review is clear and invaluable. |
Synthetic Socrates, Teaching Assistant
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| WAIT. Before you scoff at the title of this article, let me tell you why we’re sharing it. In this essay on his philosophy class at ASU, Jimmy Licon shares the way that he has combined some AI-based assignments with redesigned in-class writing and oral exercises. His AI assignments are carefully thought out to give students practice developing their own thinking and critiquing someone else’s arguments. |
Being curious, not judgmental
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| Someone in my house just finished their semester at OSU and is celebrating by watching the first 3 seasons of “Ted Lasso” for the umpteenth time. The other day I took a break from grading to watch my favorite scene from season 1, when Ted gives a folksy comeuppance to the insufferable Rupert, beating him at darts and teaching him to “Be curious, not judgmental.” |
Grading for Growth!
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| This update of David Clark and Robert Talbert’s 2021 essay on what “rigor” means (and doesn’t mean) in our grading practices provides a useful summary of the principles underlying the discussion at last Thursday’s Teaching Matters discussion on “How are We Grading Now?”
Clark and Talbert say: “Here is, ultimately, the problem: Rigor is a wildly overloaded word. |