Monday, September 30, 2013

Concerned about the job market? We're putting together a session (or two) on that! In the meantime, check out "Staying Positive" about the transferable skills of a Ph.D.:

"The fact remains that universities and colleges are still admitting graduate students to study history and are still training them to read, research, and write to a very high standard. Graduate students still get teaching experience, we still learn how to organize our time effectively, how to argue cogently and coherently and to condense vast amounts of information into digestible bites fit for any palate. We also learn to speak foreign languages."

HAPPY HOUR, Oct. 8th @ 4PM


Please join us for the next Teaching and Learning event and our first happy hour of the season on Oct. 8th at 4:00 pm! We'll be hearing from Dr. Randall Styers on professional development, from matters of credential-building as Ph.D. students to the challenges of being on the job market.

As a Duke alum and UNC professor (Religious Studies), Dr. Styers has first-hand experience with Ph.D. work at Duke and has become well-acquainted with a number of academic institutions; he has successfully mentored many doctoral students in their development into professional members of the field.  Bring your questions, your anxieties and your selves and we'll bring the beer and wine!

Please fill out the doodle poll to RSVP by Friday, Oct. 4th. http://doodle.com/4dprn9k5ravhedht

Friday, February 1, 2013

Teaching & Learning 2013: Writing in the Religion Classroom Series



Have you ever been daunted by a stack of student essays, frustrated with assigning grades or struggled with giving feedback in a way that helps students but doesn’t hurt your hand? Or have you been disappointed, dejected and disheartened when students fail to follow what seem like basic directions, miss obvious points and major arguments, or seem to amble aimlessly from point to point? As RA’s, TA’s, preceptors and new and aspiring teachers, student writing has often been at the core of our classroom experience. This spring, the Teaching and Learning sessions will examine the vital and often underexamined role of writing in Religion classrooms and beyond in a four-part series organized together with the Thompson Writing Program. Join us as we discuss the role of writing in the classroom, crafting writing assignments, grading and feedback, and the role of the TA.

Session #1 - Writing in the Religion classroom - The Big Picture (Panel Discussion)
Panel discussion with GPR faculty and Dr. Cary Moskovitz, director of Duke’s Writing in the Disciplines program. Panelists will discuss the role student writing plays in their teaching—its effectiveness for student learning, the goals they have for students’ writing skills, and the course goals that writing helps students meet, with a particular emphasis on writing as a pedagogical tool in the Religion classroom. This session will feature extra time for Q&A and discussion with and among members of the panel.

Session #2 - Crafting Effective Assignments for Student Writing (Workshop)
Research on the teaching of writing has shown that how instructors articulate writing tasks can have a large impact on what students do and what they learn. Topics for this session include describing expectations, specifying an audience and genre, helping students select a meaningful writing project, and staging the writing process. Syllabi and assignments from Religion courses will be examined and discussed by the group; contact Julie or Sean if you have a document you’d like to incorporate into the workshop.

Session #3 - Grading Student Writing/Efficient and Effective Feedback for Student Writing (Workshop)
Grading student writing can be a frustrating and time consuming affair. This session offers advice on approaches to grading and designing context-appropriate guidelines and rubrics as ways to make giving feedback more efficient for you and more likely to help students do better writing in the future. Again, student papers from Duke Religion courses will be used for group examination and discussion; contact us if you would like to include a student text from one of your courses.

Session #4 -Student Writing and the Role of the T.A. (Panel Discussion)
As RA/TA/Preceptors, we are often asked to grade and provide feedback on writing assignments that we have never completed ourselves, have not designed, and have never used in a classroom before. This session will be devoted to navigating this unique role, including how to clarify expectations and implement best practices for the Professor/T.A./Student triangle. GPR faculty will share their perspectives on the purposes and roles served by GPR students in the classroom with an emphasis on facilitating, grading and providing feedback on student writing.