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Higher Education Observer

After 40 years of work in higher education,this blog shares my thoughts and links on undergraduate education. I write from a Christian worldview, centrist conservative political stance, and background in the liberal arts and social sciences.Peruse the archives and www.barbaragrahamtucker.com. The page author is solely responsible for the content, and the content does not necessarily reflect the views or mission of my employer or any organization with which I am affiliated.

Was Jesus the Model Teacher?

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January 27, 2011

Reference to my other blog:
http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher.html

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Morning News, July 14: The Day After

July 14, 2024

Many of us are glued to, or at least checking frequently, media accounts of the shooting last night. Donald Trump is very fortunate, and I hope he sees the spiritual reality of this incident--his life was spared--and lives in gratitude. He is not "lucky," he was saved from death or significant brain injury. It's hard not to predict this propels him to the White House, but just as no one expected the back lash toward Biden about his debate performance or this shooting, we cannot assume the future. And of course, the incident will be investigated for a long time to come; the fact a sniper was even there is pretty disturbing. On the "Twitters" there were some funny memes about how the media's coverage. One large outlet I was checking last night, even with the very clear Fox News footage of gunshots and blood, wrote as a headline, "Secret Service interrupts Trump Rally." You can't make this stuff up. I'll let the chattering classes interpr...

Traumatized Students--But what about professors and staff?

July 16, 2020

I have received countless emails since March about COVID about any number of issues. Many are from vendors wanting to sell some software, platform, textbooks, or seminar/workshop about higher education at this time. And yes, we are hurting. A couple of days this week I attended a REMOTE SUMMIT from a well known institution that has a mighty (and I mean mighty) online education program to complement its "brick and mortar" curriculum. One of the speakers in these (blessedly) short sessions was quite passionate about social justice in the classroom and at this time. I appreciated her passion and spirit, but she was quite fluent in buzzwords: interrogate, decolonize, re-imagining, empowerment, deconstruct, co-create, intersectional, safety, community. All of these are either words I would not use or would have divergent meanings for than this speaker. But one of the terms I've hear a great deal and scratch my head over is "trauma-informed pedagogy." Whose tra...

Post #6, Reflections on Teaching this semester: Rigor

January 29, 2023

I used to think rigor meant a lot of work. That means I have to grade it, and sometimes it does become busy work and excessive. I require short discussion posts about certain assignments, and I warn them to keep it to two sentences. "You don't want to write more and I don't want to read it." They get the point. Rigor means justifiable high standards, communicated clearly, with consequences but also access to needed resources. Justifiable high standards: Writing should be reader-ready. I teach writing, so superficial mistakes are unacceptable. There are abundant tools to avoid it. Communicated clearly: Transparency in teaching and learning is a valuable practice. Look it up. But don't, like me, overexplain. With consequences: See my Revise and Resubmit post earlier. Access to needed resources: How I define equity. It is unfair to assign a task that not everyone has the tools to complete-- if they put the effort in. I believe in the meritocracy of...