Graduate Teaching Blog Post Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (5 minute read) Q:I've heard that starting class by asking students to discuss an image can help get students talking, even in a non-arts based course. What are your suggestions for teaching with images? A: In almost every conversation that I’ve heard about “opening up ..read more

Graduate Teaching Blog Post Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (5 minute read) This post is a follow-up to my entry last week, where I introduced two quick approaches to teaching with images in ways that will get students talking and thinking about your course content in a new way. In this post, I’d ..read more

Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (2 minute read) Research shows that assigning students to work in small groups can enhance learning (and introduce variety, which can help reenergize a long summer term class!), but how can you structure the activity to keep students engaged and on task?  In our Graduate Student Teaching blog ..read more

Including Diverse Role Models in STEM Curricula Contributed by Bryanne McDonough In most areas of the STEM workforce, racial minorities, people with disabilities, and women are still underrepresented [1,2]. As college educators, we have a critical role to play in retaining and encouraging underrepresented students in STEM. One way to accomplish this ..read more

  This semester, five wonderful graduate students are helping the CTL to provide support to the graduate student teaching community at BU. Graduate Assistants Federica Bocchi (Philosophy), Maya Chakravorty (Classical Studies), and Maria Valadez Ingersoll (Cellular and Molecular Biology) joined us this month, and Graduate Associates Phillippa Pitts (History of Art ..read more

Contributed by Federica Bocchi, PhD Candidate in Philosophy of Science (5-minute read) In her previous blog post, Maya discussed the tension between recognizing the importance of grammatical accuracy in writing assignments and acknowledging the disadvantages this practice could induce, especially in non-native English speakers. As a multilingual learner and instructor, I would ..read more

As a graduate fellow with BU’s Writing Program, I had the pleasure of attending the workshop “Putting Grammar Back In: Linguistically-Responsive Writing Instruction”, hosted by Master Lecturers Christina Michaud and Marisa Milanese earlier this semester. The aim was to talk about grammar and language instruction in the writing classroom, with a focus on inclusivity and accessibility. While we primarily discussed approaches to teaching first-generation students, the points and observations made were also certainly applicable to multilingual writers, and indeed all BU students ..read more

Like Maya, I would like to clarify my positionality, which may explain my investment in this issue. Before becoming a grad student in philosophy, I worked as an instructor of Italian for refugees and other immigrants in my hometown, in Northern Italy. Then I became fully aware of the psychological burden of communicating in a foreign language. I could appreciate a tension between the urge and necessity to articulate sophisticated thoughts and the rushed pace at which one ought to learn these skills. This experience informed my opinion about how much grammar can and should matter to a learner's ..read more

Seeing a disconnect between class performance in your sections versus the first major test of the semester can be disheartening for even the most seasoned instructors. Surely, if they’re acing the pop quizzes ..read more

In almost every conversation that I’ve heard about “opening up a good discussion” and “encouraging students to speak more,” someone suggests discussing an image. Usually it is because, in their words, “there are no wrong answers.” But—as anyone who has optimistically put up an image and heard only crickets in response knows—there do seem to be wrong questions.  ..read more