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“May inadvertently penalize students for positive behaviors”: The trouble with Perusall’s algorithmic grading
Note: This post is based on a Twitter thread that I posted back in August 2021. Since there has recently been a lot of further discussion about the drawbacks of how edtech products track and surveil students, including to give them computer generated grades, I though I would turn the thread into a blog post…
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On the term “inclusive teaching”: Where did it come from and how has it changed?
Note: This work is in progress and I am open to feedback/suggestions on it. Peruse the “upcoming events” or even just the website of any contemporary teaching and learning center at a North American college or university and you are sure to find something related to “inclusive teaching.” I started learning about inclusive teaching as…
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When a remote proctoring company offers teaching advice
Even though the overall state of the educational technology industry is grim, I still believe that there are technologies that while not perfect, do support learning. They can allow students to collaborate, help organize materials, or provide platforms for discussion and creation. Remote proctoring is not one of these technologies, in my opinion. Its sole…
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Which side are you on? Radical Teaching and Learning support work after the pandemic
The following was actually an article proposal that didn’t get accepted, but I have been sharing it and have gotten a bit of positive feedback, so I am going to leave it up here as a blog post. Note: This article idea came to me shortly after most higher education institutions returned to in-person teaching,…
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A feminist perspective on the “where” of online learning
I recently asked my students to reflect on their experiences in an online asynchronous course. The prompts (I’ll admit) were nothing very original: What did you get out of the course? Favorite and least favorite modules? What would you change for the next time the course is taught? One student began her reflection with a…
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Why are academic accommodations positioned as “situationally sanctioned cheating?”
If you review a typical college-level syllabus, you will often find one or more standardized statements that describe institutional policies on certain issues. More recently, these “syllabus statements” have evolved to include helpful or supportive information for students such as “basic needs” statements or campus mental health resources. However, in my experience the two most…
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Is it possible to ban remote proctoring?
This post is co-authored by and jointly published with Autumm Caines. The harms of remote proctoring have been so extensively documented that some educational institutions have now instituted formal recommendations or policies against using remote proctoring. But, is it possible to ban remote proctoring on campus? We have found that even when these decisions are…
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Syllabus basic needs statements and instructional flexibility
The practice of including a basic needs statement on a syllabus which directs students to affordable and free food, housing assistance, and health services is rightly gaining more widespread attention. Many colleges and universities now provide sample language that instructors can incorporate into their syllabi and some instructors will go further to say that if…
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Critical labor literacy is the “future faculty development” we need now
By the time that I left my most recent job in graduate student and post-doc teaching development for my current one (working with tenure track and non-tenure track faculty), I had a bad taste in my mouth about some of the trends in so-called “future faculty” development. Recently encountering the term “critical labor literacy,” coined…
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Pedagogy Can’t Solve Everything: Student Debt and Educational Development
“I put my absolute best foot forward in the classroom, but sometimes I just wonder if the amount of debt they are taking on could ever be worth it,” a biology instructor recently told me. I am often struck by how present financial issues are in conversations that are on the surface about pedagogical practice,…
Sarah E. Silverman
Open and free higher education
Sarah E. Silverman 