This Week for Graduate Students: Syllabus from Scratch Workshop
Upcoming Event
Syllabus from Scratch
Are you drafting a syllabus? Whether the syllabus is for the Teaching Scholars program, the academic job market, or a dream course in the future, join us to begin designing an effective syllabus from scratch. During the Syllabus from Scratch workshop, participants will learn about the elements of an effective syllabus, define course learning goals, and discuss assessments and grading that will promote student learning in their course.
Date: Wednesday, December 16
Time: 3:00 PM–5:00 PM
Planning for Spring 2021
Teaching Online Support
As you plan for the spring semester in this unprecedented and demanding year, the CTL offers a broad range of resources that you can continually draw on. Connect to guidance for using tools like CourseWorks, Zoom, Panopto, Gradescope, and more; learn about pedagogical approaches for increasing accessibility, inclusivity, and active learning online; or access self-paced courses geared to instructors and TAs who are teaching online for the first time.
Anti-Racism Pedagogy in Action: First Steps
“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify it and describe it–and then dismantle it.” –Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (2019)
This resource aims to guide the Columbia teaching community into discussions about anti-racist pedagogies and teaching practices. Classrooms serve as microcosms of the larger society, and the resources offered here, while focused on pedagogical practices, support broader commitments to anti-racist actions in higher education.
This resource centers on citing the experts in this field, synthesizing their work to encourage further research and, most importantly, amplifying the voices of those who have been doing this work for decades.
New Podcast Episode: Dead Ideas in Grading with Jenny Davidson
On March 20, 2020, days after Columbia University transitioned to fully remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenny Davidson, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, published an article in The Washington Post titled “Forget distance learning. Just give every student an automatic A.”
In this episode of the Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning podcast, Professor Davidson further discusses why she chose to give all of her students an A in Spring 2020, and why, even outside of a pandemic setting, she has long been resistant to the conventional practices of grading.