Sept 30

The Future of the Lecture 

Jay Parini & Barbara Hofer
The lecture has a long history in the academy.  In recent years, there has been increasing criticism of the lecture as a mode of instruction.  This Academic Roundtable will explore the virtues and limitations of the lecture.   Jay Parini of English and American Literatures and Barbara Hofer of Psychology will offer opening reflections on the topic, and a discussion will follow.

Location: Harmon Reading Room, Garden Level of the Davis Family Library.

Oct 28

Grading

Don Wyatt & Jane Chaplin

To many faculty, grading is a necessary burden that accompanies the more invigorating dimensions of teaching.  Grading’s secure place in the academy, however, often forestalls sustained discussion of its purpose and operation.  This Academic Roundtable, which will be facilitated by Don Wyatt of the History Department and Jane Chaplin of the Classics Department, will explore the following questions:  How does grading best promote student learning?  What are strategies for discussing grades with disgruntled or disappointed students? Can grades be used for both process and product in the same course?  Should we be concerned about grade inflation?  And is there an art to grading?

Dec 9

Rethinking the Digital Experience and the Terms of Digital

Will Thomas, University of Nebraska

Please join us on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 in the Center for Teaching, Learning & Research, LIB 225, at 12:15 PM.

How do we structure our classrooms and pedagogies around the open web, how do we work at smaller scales, how do we develop a more community-based (reciprocal) approach to the digital for our students?   Will Thomas, Chair of the Department of History at the University of Nebraska and Faculty Fellow of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities and the John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities, will lead a discussion of these questions.

Lunch will be available starting at noon.  Please RSVP to dbernier@middlebury.edu by Friday, Dec. 5, 2014.

The Academic Roundtable is co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Research and the Library.