Category Archives: Designing and Facilitating Discussions

Joyful Tidings #30: The Return of the Mailbag

image of open mail bag

The last few editions of Joyful Tidings have generated some interesting and illuminating responses . I am struck by the different cool ways people share. Some folks offer long reflections, some short. Some send me an email and some post to the blog. But everyone always contributes something interesting, something worth reflecting on, something that advances the conversation.

Keep reading this amazing post ->

Joyful Tidings #29 Active Learning and the Flipped Classroom

Marti Using Active Learning

In this message, I offer an extended look at the work one of our colleagues has been doing with active learning in her classrooms. I hope some of you will share your experiences with similar types of approaches (either as a teacher or a student) by responding to this email or visiting our Joyful Teaching blog (by the way, because it has so many images and is rather long, this message may well be easier to read on the blog).

Keep reading this amazing post ->

Joyful Tidings #27 Return of Discussions: Zoom Conversation and Jill Malone

I have two resources to share with you: 1) a video of our first Zoom Conversation: Discussing Discussions and 2) an amazing email about discussions I received from our wonderful colleague Jill Malone. If you have time for nothing else in this email today, please watch the video Jill included in her email — I am reasonably confident it will make you happy.

Conversation #1: Discussing Discussions

https://youtu.be/vYL_anCQd9I

We videotaped our first live Zoom Conversation about discussion strategies. You can view it here (and count your time for flex) or you can visit this resource in Canvas (on’t forget to enroll in our PDP canvas site on your way). Curry Mitchell and Lisa Lane have some very creative and effective insights into discussions to share with you; I hope you will visit with them when you have time.

Keep reading this amazing post ->

Joyful Tidings #26: Discussing Discussions

Greetings Friends:

I come to you today in yet another pathetically transparent attempt to encourage us all to chat a bit about teaching and learning at our college.

I know, I know, it is week eight! What is wrong with me!

But week eight is just the right time for some rejuvenation — just the right time to bring that pulse of energy back into our onsite or online classes with a new discussion technique for your bag of tricks.

You may even find yourself injecting discussion leadership strategies into some of your meetings (they worked for me when I was on jury duty).

And every one of us — staff and faculty — has experienced discussions both enthralling and stultifying. We all have opinions, ideas, and tips to share.

Not surprisingly, we are not alone in our interest in this topic. And during this week-long celebration of discussion (wait…what?!), I will be sharing web sites, and books, and other tools we can use to sharpen, expand, reinvent, renew, restore, recalibrate and otherwise transform our discussion skill set.

Continue reading this amazing post ->