Embedded Files
Welcome to Season 4: Facing Failure
Season 4 is a direct outgrowth from Episode 6 of Season 3, our episode on failure. This season, we journey to what we might see as the underworld of higher education: failure. In this season of Instructional Ecology, we explore the nature, definition, reception, response to and place of failure and its powerful shock waves and ripples in the context of higher education in general and our college in particular. We find that we can't talk about student success effectively without also talking about and understanding failure as we strive to meet our goals. This season will also feature a series of stories of failure from the lives of faculty and staff to encourage the practice of sharing our stories in our communities. Join us to descend into the depths and return with new wisdom, perspective and ideas for a new way of engaging with failure as individuals and as an institution. We hope more seasons about failure will follow as our college grows into these new conversations.
New Conversations
New Conversations
Welcome to Season 4 of Instructional Ecology!
In this first episode of the new season, we stand at the gates of the underworld of higher education: failure. We kick off the season with our guiding questions and hopes for this season.
We'll be once again moving around the college to better understand the place of failure in higher education and how we might better respond to students experiencing it. We'll have a look at the plan for the season with both topical interviews and storytelling from the lives of faculty and staff at the college.
Our guest is Mary Helen Hendrix, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, and a learning expert. She'll ground us in her hopes for our season growing out of her perspective on how excellence, success and failure are all intertwined.
Join us as we once again ask our instructional community to tell its stories and reveal the work going on all around us as we explore, deeper into the web of our instructional community.
Listen to Episode 1
Listen to Episode 1
Stream the episode here or listen through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
"Failure as Intermediate Steps"
"Failure as Intermediate Steps"
In our conversation, Mary Helen talks about the teaching of Southwestern University president Edward Burger, who uses failure as a central metric and accomplishment in his Math classes. Here's a short video introducing Dr. Burger and the glimpse into how he thinks about failure.
Our Guides: Ursula K. LeGuin and the Essence of Possibility
Our Guides: Ursula K. LeGuin and the Essence of Possibility
In this season, we're using a few authors, thinkers and professors to help guide us in small ways alongside the voices from our community. In our first episode, have a light touch from novelist and essayist Ursula K. LeGuin.
LeGuin is one of America's foundational writers of speculative fiction. Her work has been called fantasy or science fiction but really all of it speculates about how life could or would be different if things were different from how they were when she was writing.
All of her work, and there is a wide range of kinds of writing and themes over her long career, engages with opening up possibilities. When we bring her into our conversations, she urges us to keep imagining and thinking creatively about what's possible. As we embark on a season that inquires into the roots of failure and how we could change to help our students change, her voice and perspective could be valuable.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse