March 29, 2024

Stommel Quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, senior lecturer of digital studies, was recently quoted in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “A Teacher’s New Year’s Resolution: Stop Fixating on the Data,” which encourages teachers to lessen the focus on objective measures, rather than learning itself.

Stommel discusses scaffolding, which the author defines as “a popular teaching practice in which faculty members provide support and assistance for students as they initially try to carry out a task or activity, and then gradually reduce that assistance.” The author then shares a recent tweet by Stommel, who said, “We’ve taken for granted that scaffolding is necessarily good. Any pedagogical approach should be looked at with one eyebrow raised. Especially one as widely accepted as instructional scaffolding. Scaffolding should be done with students, not before they’ve arrived on the scene.” Read more. 

Stommel Interviewed by Chronicle of Higher Ed on his ‘Start by Trusting Students’ Philosophy

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, senior lecturer in digital studies, was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “Forget Grades and Turnitin. Start Trusting Students.” In it, he talks about his #4wordpedagogy, “Start by trusting students.”

“There’s a lot of talk in faculty development about best practices. But every teacher teaches at a different institution, they teach different students, they’re a different body in the classroom, and so the idea of best practices seems flawed to me,” Stommel said to the Chronicle. “Instead I think about best philosophies. That’s really where ‘start by trusting students’ came from. That looks different for different teachers in different classrooms, but it is a place to put your foot as you enter a classroom.” Read more. 

Forget Grades and Turnitin. Start Trusting Students. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Stommel Interviewed by PBS on How Students Should Communicate with Professors

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, senior lecturer in digital studies, was quoted in an article on PBS.com entitled, “Don’t email like you text, and other tips for writing to a professor.” Stommel cautioned against using a one-size-fits-all approach for teacher-student communication. “Stommel … warned against advocating broadly ‘for one specific way students should address teachers.’ The relationships between teachers and students are ‘idiosyncratic and influenced by the pedagogical approach of individual teachers, the institutions where they work and the specific courses they teach,’ he said. ‘And teachers from marginalized communities have different challenges than those with more privilege. There is no one and no easy solution.'” Read more. 

 

Don’t email like you text, and other tips for writing to a professor (PBS.com)

Stommel Quoted in Chronicle of Higher Education Article

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Learning

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies

Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies Jesse Stommel was interviewed for a Chronicle of Higher Education article on a company called RaiseMe that is offering students “microscholarships,” small credits towards their bill in exchange for completing tasks such as meeting with academic advisors or getting involved on campus. The article said while some colleges and universities are embracing the program, some faculty members like Stommel are a little more skeptical.

“Stommel likes that RaiseMe gives students ‘very visible and clear goalposts’ for what they should do, he said. But he worries that solutions like microscholarships can obscure the bigger student-success problems for colleges: The financial-aid system is broken, Stommel said, and students need a lot more high-touch, human support. ‘It feels a little like ‘There’s an app for that,'” he said. ‘There’s an app for retaining students — and it’s more complicated than that.'” Read more. 

 

Stommel Comments on Cellphones in Classrooms, Teacher-Student Communication

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies

Jesse Stommel, Senior Lecturer in Digital Studies, commented in several national media outlets on students’ use of cellphones in classrooms. “It’s better to help students figure out how to manage distractions instead of trying to eliminate it,” said Stommel to NBC News. He believes that schools shouldn’t ban the devices from classrooms. “It’s better to harness it and help make it productive.”

Read more. 

“What I’m particularly opposed to are blanket device bans that fail to recognize that different humans learn in different ways at different times,” Stommel said in another interview with Yahoo news.

Read more. 

Stommel also spoke to Inside Higher Ed about email communication between students and teachers:

Stommel “warned against advocating broadly ‘for one specific way students should address teachers.’ The relationships between teachers and students are ‘idiosyncratic and influenced by the pedagogical approach of individual teachers, the institutions where they work and the specific courses they teach,’ he said. “And teachers from marginalized communities have different challenges than those with more privilege. There is no one and no easy solution.’ ”

Read more. 

Teaching Goes High-Tech With International Lab at UMW

Digital Pedagogy Lab 2019When Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel created Digital Pedagogy Lab, or DPL for short, they imagined it would be a permanent fixture wherever they were teaching. Now the UMW educators think of it as a roadshow. Shortly after its inception, they began traveling the globe, bringing the lab to tech-savvy teachers and those who […]

UNESCO explores digital tech and games for ‘more peaceful and sustainable societies’ (Venturebeat.com)

Grades Can Hinder Learning. What Should Professors Use Instead? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)