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Tag Archives: Pedagogy
The End of Homework?
By Liz McColloch, French Faculty
The End of Homework?
As St. Mark’s anticipates our new schedule for next year, the question has come up repeatedly: How will we manage homework with only three class meetings a week? This question, in combination with our increased focused on collaborative work, has led us to think carefully about evening hours and how our students spend their time outside of class. For me, the answer lies in redeveloping our understanding of homework rather than the further restructuring of our schedule or manipulation of old curricula into a new timeframe. How do we make the most of our time, be it in or out of class? Have we moved beyond the concept of homework as we have traditionally known it? (more…)
Schooling, Inquiry, and the Promise of the “St. Mark’s Saturdays” Program
By Nat Waters, Associate Dean of Academics
Schooling, Inquiry, and the Promise of the “St. Mark’s Saturdays” Program
One of the more transformative developments in my teaching practice in recent years has been the addition in each of my courses of essential questions — formulations that, in the words of Understanding by Design author Grant Wiggins, inspire, “deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions.”
In that same spirit, I’d like to offer an essential question for this LEO piece on the exciting new developments in the St. Mark’s Saturdays program. Begin by thinking of your own high school experience, whether that is as immediate as May 2015, or farther removed than you would care to admit, even in close company:
“Which of the many academic lessons that comprise your high school experience are most memorable, most enduring, and most valuable to life and work in the ‘real world’?” (more…)
Chalk Talk: My RANT on “Old” and “New” Pedagogy
By Adam Jewell, History Faculty
Chalk Talk: My RANT on “Old” and “New” Pedagogy
Ahhhh the smell of those white board markers, I love them, I just love them. If they do anything, they, at the very least, keep us from getting chalk all over us and having students ingest chalk dust like some sort of appetizer. It is my nostalgia for chalk that leads me to ponder something that keeps coming back to me like some sort of bad meal at every restaurant my wife and I ever go to. It is the practice of “chalk and talk” instruction. As the name entails, it is a practice as old as chalk, and well slate; I will confess I have no clue which came into use first. To be more exact, it is also as old as whenever one human sat and talked to another about something one of them was either curious about or “knew” more about. In essence, “chalk and talk” is a representation of the “old style” of teaching. (more…)
The S-Word: Meaningful Implementation of Sustainability as a Theme in Curricula
By Lindsey Lohwater, Science Faculty
The S-Word: Meaningful Implementation of Sustainability as a Theme in Curricula
For some, sustainability is a buzzword – a current trend in both popular and educational culture. However, viewing this topic as just the next trend does it a disservice. We are all familiar with those trends that promise to elevate our teaching and help us churn out those elusive well-rounded, critical-thinkers that will change the future of our nation and world. Most of those trends inevitably fizzle out. We cannot allow sustainability to do the same. Inherent in the concept of sustainability (defined as able to last or continue for a long time[1]) is the understanding that it deserves to be methodically infused into our curricula with the (more…)
Falling Forward: Defining “Innovation”
By Jennifer Vermillion, Director of The Center for Innovation and Learning
Failing Forward: “Defining Innovation”
How do you know if something is innovative? If I asked you to name three things that exemplify innovation, what comes to mind? Innovation is certainly a prevalent topic these days. Universities have started offering degrees in innovation. A quick Amazon search for the term yields 1,158 books about innovation published in the last ninety days alone. Here at St. Mark’s, we have an entire center dedicated to innovation in teaching and learning. Innovation is essential for addressing complex social, environmental and economic challenges, but without careful reflection and discussion, the term can feel vague and even trendy. So how do we define and value innovation at St. Mark’s? (more…)
My Presentism RANT
By Adam Jewell, History Faculty
My Presentism RANT
An immediate disclaimer: I am a flawed human; we all are. I am, however, probably flawed more than most. I attended six different colleges and have two degrees (one of them is NOT a doctorate). I routinely annoy every human I interact with, especially my poor wife. I very nearly cause severe (inadvertent) bodily harm to my son each and every day, but we laugh and shake it off so I assume all is well. In short, I mess up this game of life each and every day and therefore try to not pass any judgments (moral or otherwise) upon anyone. With that in mind, seriously, we all have a pretty damn good life. However, from what we all often say and hear on a daily basis, one would think we are living a life akin to Depression Era America or perhaps worse. I refer to this phenomenon as my own version of “presentism.” My idea strays from the normal definition of the term. Simply put, “presentism” in my discipline is interpreting the past through the moral concepts and lens of the present. Instead, I argue that a more tangible form of “presentism” exists (more…)
The Pillars of Herakles: At the Bridge Between Europe and Africa
By Stephen Hebert, Religion Faculty
For his tenth labor, the lion-skin-wearing, club-wielding, Greek hero Herakles fetches a bunch of cattle belonging to Geryon, a monster living on an island beyond the far western end of the Mediterranean. Geryon is a fearsome creature, so fearsome that centuries later, Dante Alighieri will depict him in the Inferno as a flying manticore who embodies fraud. In order to reach this great mythical beast, Herakles must go beyond the edge of the known world, past where “Europe meets Libya,” in the words of Apollodorus. To get there, Herakles splits a mountain in two, creating a strait between Europe and Africa now known as the Strait of (more…)
Oh….Chem: The Power of a Narrative in an Advanced Science Course
By Michael Wirtz, Assistant Head of School/Science Faculty
“Negative finds the positive.” I use this phrase often. If you did not know me, you might think I was a pessimist. In fact, I am quite the opposite: I am a teacher and I believe that optimism lies at the core of any good teacher. I share this phrase, “negative finds the positive,” in my attempt to distill the complexities of organic chemistry[1] into something sticky for my students. While most chemistry students experience limited amounts of organic chemistry in high school, it is a discipline featured prominently in my Advanced Chemistry course at St. Mark’s. In fact, organic chemistry is critical to (more…)
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