Revisioning the Classroom for Joyful Learning II

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Moderator: Kirsten Helmer

Can We Make Grace the Norm in Our Classrooms?

Miloš Savić, University of Oklahoma

Candice Price, Smith College

Recently we have been questioning the way that people perceive the relationship between students and instructors in the classroom, especially in mathematics. There is such an adversarial relationship that even sharing our career choices with strangers leads to groans and stories of trauma. We believe this is what happens in a classroom without grace. So when we add grace the opposite should happen, right? During our time together, we hope to discuss with you the ways that grace can be incorporated into the classroom and why many people think it is radical. We invite everyone to join us ready to reflect on the ways that they can make grace the norm in their classrooms and spaces.

Engaging Math-Anxious First Years

Calvin Cochran, Wellesley College

For over 25 years, Wellesley College has housed a Quantitative Reasoning (QR) program tasked with ensuring that Wellesley College students are proficient in the use of mathematical, logical, and statistical problem-solving tools needed in today's increasingly quantitative world. As part of this effort, entering students are required to take a QR Assessment which gauges their skills in these areas. A small percentage of students do not satisfy this assessment and are required to take QR 140: Introduction to Quantitative Reasoning in their first year at the college. As one might expect, these students are more likely to experience math-anxiety, imposter syndrome, and (initially) frustration with themselves and the QR requirement. It is a challenging course in which to inspire joy even in normal times. Nevertheless, I have observed student delight and excitement over my four years of teaching the course. In this talk I will share some of my strategies for engaging and encouraging this vulnerable group of first-year students. Chief amongst these are a de-emphasis on grades in favor of learning, frequent and relevant real-life applications, and continuous signaling of my earnest excitement to be in the space with them. These strategies help students forget their fear of making mistakes and motivate them to give their (often) least favorite subject and themselves another chance.

Integrating Student Experiences into the Classroom: A Meta-Reflective Opportunity

Fatih Cetin, University of Massachusetts Amherst

How to create an inclusive classroom environment? What type of pedagogical strategies and tools leads to the mutually amplifying interaction of joy to teach and joy to learn? These questions animated a great deal of deliberation among academics and professionals to enhance teaching/learning effectiveness in the college classroom. In this brief presentation, I seek to offer my responses to these questions which will be based on the integration of student experiences into the classroom through the deployment of two separate but complementary strategies to do so. The first one is concerned with encouraging students to reflect on varying human experiences and conditions which would allow them to familiarize themselves with what scholarship is and better make sense of structures, forces, and institutions shaping how we and others live and act in the world. And the second one is more about prompting students to reflect on how they linguistically communicate their own experiences and how this was shaped by the unfolding of various social, political, and scholarly power processes. I will concretize these two strategies with practical examples and resources that I heavily benefited from during my teaching.