The Center for Teaching and Learning's Fall Teach and Tells

The Center For Teaching and Learning Welcomes Lecturer Raghav Rao for "Mess Making and Fragmentary Writing"

On October 30th, 2024, the Center for Teaching and Learning welcomed Lecturer Raghav Rao to present "Mess Mess Making and Fragmentary Writing." In his workshop, Roa outlined how he teachers writing in his undergraduate course on HBO's critically acclaimed series, The Wire. Students write freely about each episode, noting things that stood out or did not make sense to them. As they advance through the course, they revise these fragments into longer pieces of writing. Rao consults with each student to identify connections and insights among their fragments. This process helps students transform their original fragments into more sophisticated analysis that they can incorporate in more substantive writing assignments, including course required reseach essays.

As the presentation came to an end, participants discussed how Rao's approach addresses common issues that faculty often have when encouraging students to write. His method incentivizes students' creativity and agency, putting them in a position to respond to course material in an active and engaged manner. By beginning with the smallest components of a written text, student eventually create the building blocks for more advanced writing assignments. As a result, they feel less pressure when completing high-stakes writing assignments. This discourages students from using generative AI to complete written assignments since it removes a major obstacle that can motivate a student to use such technology in the first place.

The Center for Teaching and Learning Hosts Professor Adelheid Mers to present, "The Braid"

On November 18th, 2024, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the John M. Flaxman Library welcomed Professor Adelheid Mers. Leading a workshop on her project, "The Braid," Mers discussed how the "metamodeling adventure" evolved from conversations with artists about their work. From these conversations, Mers identified three key activities that all artists perform:

The three lobes of the Braid diagram were labeled Make, Mediate, and Manage. Used as prompts, the labels facilitate conversation about personal arts ecologies. Artists and other cultural producers work with diagram templates that serve to prompt conversations about scenarios in the arts and culture. 

Faculty and staff participants gathered around the Braid as she presented the materials required to complete the exercise. Each of us stood next to one of the three lobes and brainstormed how our work represented or modeled the particular term. We then wrote down our thoughts on dry erase cards.

Once complete, we collected what each of us wrote and discussed connections, differences, and opportunities for further discussion. The group noted how effective the Braid could be for faculty or departments to analyze their work. We noted how the Braid could facilitate new ways to collaborate or share ideas with students, particularly when working with them to name or elucidate what they need to accomplish their personal course goals or objectives. 

 The Center for Teaching and Learning hopes to obtain its own copy of the Braid so that it can use the exercise with faculty in the future.