HSS Classroom Collaborative

We invite all instructors of HSS courses to join us for the final HSS Classroom Collaborative meeting of the academic year, when we will talk about the role assigned reading plays in our teaching. Our other meetings have begun with designated speakers sharing successful teaching practices, but for this meeting, we will use the full hour for free-ranging conversation among the entire group. We imagine that discussing one another's answers to some of the questions below would be of broad interest:

• What kinds of texts do you ask students to read in your class? Why are they reading them?
• In your experience, how much assigned reading is the right amount, and how much is too much? How do you know?
• What carrots and sticks do you use to get students to complete assigned reading?
• What do you do in a class meeting that is to be focused on discussion of a text if it becomes obvious that few students did the reading?
• How much do you prepare students for their encounter with an assigned text? How much time is spent in the meeting before the reading is due explaining what they will be reading, why, how to read it, etc.?
• Each discipline values different kinds of texts and uses them for different purposes. What values does your field have? Do you talk to students about what it means to read like an economist/historian/philosopher/etc.?
• Have you noticed that any aspects of students' abilities to read have changed during the course of your teaching career? How do you understand those changes, and how have you responded to them?
• What changes do you anticipate the advent of generative AI may have on our goals for student reading?
• What other observations would you like to share on this topic? What questions do you want to pose to the group.

We will conclude the meeting by spending some time talking about the possible continuance of this series next year and what topics/approaches participants might hope to feature.

Lunch will be provided to those who RVSP (by sending an email to Fran Tise at [email protected]). Please consider joining us for lunch and conversation.

The Classroom Collaborative series is organized and hosted by the HSS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. These informal events create opportunities for HSS instructors to learn from one another's successes and challenges in teaching.