​I’ve just wrapped up my third year as an assistant professor. Can you believe it? I almost can’t. I work at William Peace University in Raleigh, NC. We’re in the heart of downtown; campus is a gorgeous tree-filled oasis. It’s a small school; about 800 students, which was the size of my high school. Over the last few years, I’ve had some good and some less than desirable experiences. I thought I would take a moment to reflect on my time at WPU thus far and generate a list of pros and cons of working at a small, private liberal arts university.

​Privilege is something that can be hard to see especially for those who are privileged. One way it can be concretely demonstrated is through a mobile making activity from Lawrence (1998). I was able to be a participant in this activity at a workshop held by Dr. Viji Sathy (If you’re ever able to attend one of her workshops, I highly recommend!). The activity goes something like this: Each group (4 or 5 people max) gets a bag with supplies and they are tasked with creating a mobile surrounding some theme. The catch is that not all the groups have the same supplies creating different social classes or privilege statuses.

Hi y'all! Long time no chat! ​This semester has possibly been the weirdest I have experienced for more reasons than one, and it’s not even over yet! Obviously, the coronavirus pandemic is one of them, but to give more context, let’s rewind a bit, shall we?

​In my Cognitive Psychology course, the “big” project is writing a research proposal. I was told at the beginning of this semester that this assignment had never been previously assigned, which surprised me. As an undergraduate psychology student, I wrote these quite frequently for my upper level electives. Nonetheless, I decided to go where no person has gone before at WPU. 

Last year I heard about Loom for the first time when I attended ACT. I gave a brief description of the program in a previous post. Essentially, Loom is a program accompanied by an online platform that instructors can use to create videos. Videos are recorded either using the browser plugin or desktop app and are stored and shared using the online platform. 

​Keeping on top of your busy schedule can be stressful at times! This blog has definitely touched on this topic before. Our tech guru, Jenel, has discussed strategies and tools she uses to keep organized and maximize her productivity. Her posts can be found here, here, and here, and they are definitely worth the read! 

​This semester, I’ve put the task upon myself to give my students a variety of ways that they are engaging with course material and subsequently being assessed. This means I’ve create a lot of new projects. The easiest way to convey what you want the students to do for these assignments is to give them a detailed description but also a rubric. A rubric is a “document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor” (Reddy & Andrade, 2010, p. 435). Most folks (myself included) probably already knew that.