Changing teaching was the top topic of our most popular articles in October.
At the top of our monthly Top 5 list was a look at how professors are restarting oral exams to address concerns that students can now use ChatGPT and other ai tools to cheat on essays. . And the list included an interview with a Nobel laureate about his research to improve science education; a set of reader responses to our coverage of the “math wars”; and a look at what prevents teachers from adopting educational technology. Also on the list is an essay by a professor who took on a leadership position at age 26 and reflects on the lack of support during the shift.
1. As ai chatbots rise, more educators are turning to oral exams, with a high-tech twist: the rise of ChatGPT has left educators scrambling to find alternatives to written essays. Some are reviving a classical approach once common in medieval universities: the oral examination. Can technology help make your delivery less time-consuming?
2. How teaching should change, according to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist: Since winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001, Carl Wieman has devoted most of his energies to trying to improve teaching. That has led him to promote active learning and look for better ways to evaluate teaching. Will the ideas catch on?
3. Readers Respond: Does Fixing the Leaky STEM Pipeline Require Calculus to Adapt?: With student math scores declining and “math wars” waged over instruction this year, EdSurge headed to Harvard to observe to instructors at work trying to update the calculus curriculum. They argue that his methods will prevent more students from being expelled from STEM. But that was just the beginning of the conversation. He finds out what readers said, for and against that idea.
4. Catapulting teachers into school leadership positions too early comes at a cost: Elevating young teachers into school leadership positions without adequate support can be risky, writes Lindsey Fuller, executive director of The Teaching Well. Fuller knows this very well because at the age of 26 she was promoted from teacher to administrator without guidance or training. When teachers are promoted to leadership positions, Fuller says, they need support to do their jobs effectively.
5. What is really stopping teachers from adopting educational technology?: What is stopping teachers from adopting educational technology tools and technology-based teaching? That was the question that drove a project designed to better understand the gap between teaching practices and the use of technology. Two researchers share what they learned about how educational technology can be used more effectively in teaching, the barriers to its adoption, and the tools that can best help teachers change their practices.
