Back to School: New Duty

Today was my first official day with faculty in the role of department chair. In preparation for the meeting, we all read Henri Picciotto's '"Nothing Works" posting. I did not have an organized agenda planned but rather hoped that we could simply have a discussion about what works for us, what doesn't and how the article might influence different approaches. The conversation meandered away from the initial topic, but it flowed nicely. Some comments and that came out and are worth noting included:

• Fear of "giving up control" of the class to students. This came up in the context of discovery learning vs. direct instruction.
• How do we provide safe, ie non-graded, opportunities for students to fail?
• Amount of time to cover material by direct instruction compared to the amount of time well-developed discovery learning requires.
• Using homework as a safe place to practice and fail.
• Developing persistence needed to complete multi-step problems and make additional attempts if the first attempt fails.
• Is getting THE answer goal of math?
• When does this idea get instilled in students? 
• Is it true in life that the right answer is the goal?
• What about giving problem and answer and students have to explain or show the process (ala @Busynessgirl)?

Many of these ideas will help me focus discussions in future meetings. I am feeling blessed to have a faculty that seems open to having these conversations, genuinely wanting to do the best job they can.

Thanks to the Tweeps who were discussing this article; it provided a good starting point for our discussion.