Category: Analysis
Teaching about plagiarism (or not)
Tyll Zybura | 22 Jun 2020 | 2 comments
As teachers, we need to frame plagiarism as a technical problem, not a moral one. Learning how to avoid plagiarism is an integral part of learning what academic writing is about. In fact, once students understand how and why to write as scholars, plagiarism will become a non-issue.
Teaching into the void: Musings on online teaching during a pandemic
Jessica Koch | 2 Jun 2020 | 1 comment
Working from home has its perks but teaching can become quite a frustrating, lonely experience when asynchronous teaching is involved.
Killing curiosity: why exams harm scholarship and education
Tyll Zybura | 21 Apr 2020
Teaching is about establishing and sustaining connection between curious minds to create and to share ideas and knowledge. Exams are about generating distance and social barriers to safeguard privilege. They are harmful to students and harmful to scholarship.
Podcast: The Ph.D. as traumatic experience
Katharina Pietsch | 25 Mar 2020 | 1 comment
In this episode of the Unconditional Teaching Podcast, Tyll and I talk to Jessica about her experience of writing and defending her Ph.D. thesis and the severe strain it put on her mental health.
Learning with the freedom to make mistakes
Katharina Pietsch, with contributions by Tyll Zybura | 3 Mar 2020
In higher education, mistakes are seen as something that needs to be punished. This article argues that ‘making mistakes’ is a vital part of learning and that learning needs the freedom to make mistakes to be healthy.
The discourse of wasted potential – a critique
Jessica Koch | 14 Jan 2020 | 2 comments
The discourse of wasted potential is omnipresent but it may be a harmful way of speaking about ourselves, relating to others, and thinking about our or others' accomplishments.
The poisonous perfectionist vs the constructive critic
Tyll Zybura | 27 Oct 2019
Perfectionism is a fear-based attitude towards failure that inhibits learning and encourages self-sabotage. We can fight it by strengthening the inner constructive critic to focus on processes of revision and improvement.