Microform Was Ahead Of Its Time (I still hate it)

In the midst of all the career-hunting I've been doing (networking, career counselling, job-searching and job applications), I've been making time to tweak my thesis and turn it into a book manuscript. Fortunately, I chose to write my dissertation as something more book-like than other people seem to think is possible, so I have relatively few things to do before I can submit to a publisher. One of them is using microform - the worst research tool available to historians - to solve a research question posed by my defence committee.

Teaching Tip #4: Maintaining Sanity While Grading

Given the slow news day on Friday, it might be time for a return of the Teaching Tip.

For those who missed it, a York University Teaching Assistant was caught making disparaging remarks about students on Facebook and then apologized. Various people were sought for comment, or perhaps merely invented, since there is the standard union line (TAs are overworked), the standard entitled undergraduate (I demand better customer service and an ego-stroke), the standard disgruntled graduate student (it's not just TAs, it's Professors and Deans too), the standard department line (we accept the TA's apology and have full faith in her abilities - meaning the TA is either getting a pedagogical and PR refresher or will be shifted to non-teaching duties in the future) and no comment from the TA in question.

Teaching Tip #2: Critical Reading for History (of Science)

Here is the long-awaited second Teaching Tip. Hopefully it is not too late in the term to create your own lesson plan around this tip.

There are two complaints that cross the lips of university educators more often than others. The first is that students are unprepared for class each week. The second is that students are unprepared for university when they leave high school. I think the two are related.