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The Common Good: A Syllabus

This summer, I taught my first section of Intellectual Heritage, the program I have directed since 2017. IH offers 2 courses, required of all students at Temple: The Good Life and The Common Good. I taught The Common Good in Summer 1, a 6-week intensive session that was taught online due to COVID-19. Image of the Code of Hammurabi I taught the course asynchronously, which is standard practice in IH. Asynchronous courses, when correctly designed, provide the best opportunity for student engagement and retention. Recognizing that many students are living at home where they may either be competing with family members for internet access, or they may not have it at all, the asynchronous format allows them to complete assignments and discussions at times and places that suit them. I had students who did their work from their dining rooms, and students who did their work while at their jobs (usually because that was their best internet access point). The Pillow Book by Sei Shônag
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Student Becomes the Teacher: Student Dashboard

As a new student, I now see more options when I log in to TUPortal, Temple's primary online interface for students, staff, and faculty. Admissions, Costs and Aid, and Student Tools are the new tabs (my courses if for the courses I teach, at least at the moment). Admissions: Student Tools Costs and Aid
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Teacher Becomes the Student: Textbooks

Temple's bookstore website makes it easy to pull up all of your textbooks at once and see the total cost, as long as the professor submits their text requests. The good news for me is that I have the same text for both classes. The bad news is that it costs $178. As a member of the Temple Textbook Affordability Task Force, this is interesting information. Language acquisition is hard and I don't blame an instructor for choosing the best text despite the cost, but I do think a wider community needs to examine alternatives.
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Teacher Becomes the Student: Enrollment Email

Received this email today about my courses for the summer. One thought that occurs to me is that I might want to share this same information on my course Canvas sites. ---------------------------- Dear Dustin,  Our records indicate that you may be in the process of building your schedule for an upcoming term.  Please refer to the policies noted below that apply to your enrollment at Temple University. FERPA:  Confidentiality of academic records is maintained by the University according to federal law, The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974.  You may allow your  parent(s) or guardian(s)  access to view your academic records and other information via  Proxy Access . You may use Self-Service Banner to add, drop or withdraw a course.  If this option is not available to you, you must contact your advisor.  As with all matters related to your academic success at Temple University, you should discuss enrollment concerns with your advisor.  Policy: 02.10.14-  Ad
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Teacher Becomes the Student: Intro

After 15 years of working at Temple, I'm finally about to use my tuition benefit. I was traveling in Mexico for spring break and thinking about what a great place Mexico City would be for retirement. My only anxiety stemmed from not being able to speak and understand the language. It finally dawned on me, I have free access to language training and there are no consequences for doing poorly. I could fail the class, but still learn more than I know now, and it would be worth it. So, I'm signed up for Spanish 1 in Summer 1 and Spanish 2 in Summer 2. I'm going to use this blog to chronicle what I learn about being a student at Temple. In 15 years of teaching, I've never been able to see the systems from the students' perspective. This won't be about lessons learned, but instead about how institutions and systems work. Expect a lot of screenshots of bureaucratic systems at work!
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10 Pro-Tips to Guide you Through the Semester

1. Use the 3-column backwards-design system for creating your course. Identify your forward-looking measurable course objectives . "By the end of the semester, students should be able to...." " Forward-looking " means focusing on how students will use this learning after the semester ends. That may mean in their future careers, in their lives as citizens, or simply in the next course of a sequence. But it should not be internal to the class. "Successfully write a term paper" is not a forward-looking goal. A forward-looking revision would be "communicate arguments with evidence to different types of audience." Identify the assignments and other mechanisms that help you to assess whether and how the course objectives have been achieved for each student. Too often, course goals name outcomes that simply cannot be measured. Similarly, a lot of assignments exist for generating a grade without any alignment to the objectives. Alignment means tha
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