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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.
Productive Friction: What Universities Must Protect in the Age of AI
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| The ineffectiveness of “frictionless learning” is a recurring theme in current conversations at Denison and across higher ed. In this short essay, Vladimir Bratic explains how his concerns about frictionless learning are shaping his classroom strategies.
“Throughout history, humans invented technology in order to eliminate excess frictions which made life difficult and unproductive. The washing machine is an example of such a tool and today nobody looks back on washing clothes in the river with nostalgia. |
3 Ways to Liven Up Your Lectures
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| The role of lectures in our liberal arts classrooms varies from one class level, discipline, and faculty member to another. But what we all have in common is that when we do use a lecture format, we want and need our students to be visibly engaged in that learning process and contributing to the energy of the class. |
Uncommon Sense Teaching
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One of the best parts of teaching at Denison is finding time to think through ideas with colleagues. In June, we had 55 faculty join book groups for some summer learning together. Over the next weeks, we’ll share some of participants’ key takeaways from each group. This week’s book is, Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, and Terrence Sejnowski. |
What’s Worth Teaching? Say It Loud
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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?” |
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:
- The Return of the Oral Exam by Beth McMurtrie
- Assessing Student Learning with Oral Exams by Horane Diatta-Holgate and Melissa Scheve
- 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?