Author: Jane Bise

Lately, the question of how to manage time in class effectively has come up frequently in my consultations. What do we prioritize during class time–and how do we fit that into the three hours or so we have each week in class with our students? To paraphrase Mary Oliver, what are we going to do with those few wild and precious hours? The answer to that question will vary wildly from class to class and professor to professor, but I thought I’d share some questions that I find helpful when I’m facing that quandary myself.

• What are the most important learning outcomes for my students this week/this semester?
• What parts of learning require class time versus what can be done outside of class?
• What kinds of activities will push students to think critically?
• What chances will students have to practice what they are learning?
• What ways will my course support students to learn from each other in community?

And, of course, we’re always happy to meet with you for a one-on-one consultation to talk this (or anything else) over—and help you prepare for your final assignments.

Keep reading here.

The spookiest week of the year is upon us! We hope you will join us for the last of the Battling the Semester Scaries Series of Morning Blend this week in the South Meeting Room of Dhall from 8:45 to 9:15 a.m., featuring The Participation Séance: Summoning Life Into the Classroom. We also invite you to stop by the Hub anytime on Thursday or Friday to pick up a Tips and Treats bag filled with candy and a teaching tip! Also, now’s the perfect time to talk to your students about having a healthy Halloween, if you have not already. Have a great, spooky week!

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With both the holidays and final exams looming over the horizon, I’ve been thinking a lot about the pleasures of being in good company. As a recent graduate who has returned to campus, I am constantly being reminded of how much of my work is shaped simply by the joys of being with others in the labs and classrooms, in the Faculty Hub, and in the hidden corners of campus we come to know intimately over the course of our (many) days here.

In that direction, the Faculty Hub invites you to join us at our ongoing Dhall breakfast gatherings: Morning Blend on Wednesdays and the Building AI Literacy FLC on Fridays. As feminist scholar Donna Haraway reminds us, ‘company’ finds its roots in the Latin cum panis, or ‘with bread,’ or, more likely for the rest of us, ‘with coffee.’ So, while our to-do lists grow longer and the daylight gets shorter, we nevertheless look forward to gathering with you in the upcoming months.

Keep reading here.

First, we hope you enjoyed the break! Fall weather is finally here (for now, at least—who knows), and so is the spooky season, so no one’s going to bother you for marathoning Tales from the Crypt again or openly eating a bag of candy you bought “too soon” for Halloween night. Hopefully, the brief break offered some reprieve from midterm grading and a pause before it’s time to prep for the close-but-not-so-close-but-kind-of-close-to-ending part of the semester.

Now that you’re back on campus, come by the Faculty Hub to talk shop and share any plans you have for final project designs or class activities that keep the energy up beyond seasonal chocolate and perennial Pixy Stix (or banana Runts, because they’re the best).

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One of the most valuable moments in a semester comes when you pause and ask students how things are going. Mid-semester feedback provides real-time insight into what’s working well and where small adjustments could make a significant difference. Our facilitated course assessment service makes this process simple and supportive: students share feedback in a structured way, you receive a clear summary of their perspectives, and you can respond while there’s still plenty of time left in the semester. It’s a low-stakes, high-reward way to strengthen your teaching and your students’ learning.

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If you happen to be counting, we’ve just hit week 6 of the semester–and we’re closing in on midterm (already!). While you’re likely starting to feel a bit in the weeds as the midterm assignments begin to roll in, you may have also been inspired by last Friday’s mini-symposium to find ways to keep your scholarly agenda moving forward even in the heat of the semester. If so, I hope you’ll join our October UR Writing Challenge, which starts this Wednesday. For the entire month of October, we’ll support each other as we integrate regular writing practice into our busy semester. There will be three writing retreats (October 1, 10, and 30) during the month of the Challenge, and some exciting prizes for participants.

Even if you don’t have time for the Writing Challenge this semester, please do consider joining us for a retreat, exploring the on-campus writing resources to help support your scholarship, or visiting the community pages of the NCFDD for additional support. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (kmaynard@richmond.edu) for a chat!

See what else is going on here.

I thought this week it would be interesting to see Week 5 from a student’s perspective. So I asked Sarah Symons, our Student Communications and Events Assistant, how she was feeling at this point in the semester. Sarah is a double major in Leadership Studies and Political Science and has worked with us since 2023. Here’s what she had to say…

The first quarter of the semester has already come to a close! The initial weeks of school were filled with cheerful hellos to friends I hadn’t seen since May, swapping stories from summer jobs and trips. If you’re anything like me, those weeks also involved building a color-coded spreadsheet of every assignment I have this semester. As we enter the second quarter, it’s time to start crossing things off a never-ending to-do list. Papers, presentations, and exams creep closer, and that senior thesis I’ve been thinking about since syllabus day? The first outline is due next week. But while the schoolwork piles up, so do the memories with friends. Anticipation over Parents’ Weekend looms; office hours are frantically scheduled; and coffee becomes a student’s best friend.

Read more about this week in the Hub here.

Welcome to Week 4! If you are like me, the beginning-of-term butterflies and rush of all that needs to be done to lay the groundwork for the semester have finally started to subside. Perhaps you are starting to fall into a more settled class routine, are collecting your first major assignments, and beginning to get to know more about who your students are and about the unique personalities and needs of each of your class sections. It is about this time that I celebrate the small wins – as of last Thursday, I know all my students’ names (!) and everyone turned in their first essay draft (!!) – but I also tend to begin seeing areas where my students might benefit from a small change to my course schedule or an adjustment to my usual teaching approach.

Whether you are looking for someone to celebrate those first small wins with or to help you think through an emerging challenge or dynamic in one of your courses, the Faculty Hub is here to support you! We hope you’ll join us at an upcoming event, schedule a one-on-one consultation with us, or just stop by the Faculty Hub to chat informally about how the semester is going. We look forward to crossing paths with you soon!

Read more here.

I’ve only been skydiving once, right after finishing undergrad. I took away two things: (1) jumping out of a plane is the best feeling on the planet (and I’d likely do it again, if anyone else shares an interest in this bonkers thing that is somehow legal), and (2) it’s nothing like how sitcoms portray it. There’s no conversation at the door of the plane, no dramatic “Are you sure you really want to do this??” moment. As the instructor warned me, once you’re up there, the only way out is to jump. The fall is loud and intense, and then suddenly you’re gliding in the most serene calm you’ve ever experienced.

That’s what Week 3 of the semester feels like to me. The jump has already happened, the rush is real, and things might feel chaotic. It’s also when teaching starts to open into something steadier and so rewarding. We’re in it now, but we’re also in it together, so come by the Faculty Hub to talk through both the chaos and the calm with us.

Keep reading here…

We find ourselves at a peculiar crossroads. AI offers us the most powerful efficiency tool in history—one that is already reshaping the world our students will inherit. Many of us feel we have a responsibility to help them understand and navigate these tools. And yet, here lies the tension: teaching and learning resist efficiency. Real learning demands attention, struggle, and time. No algorithm can shortcut the neural pathways forged when a student wrestles with a difficult concept.

So how do we meet this moment? We do what academics do best: we experiment. We engage thoughtfully and critically. We invite students into honest conversations about when AI helps and when it hinders. We test new assessment strategies. We stay alert to unexpected opportunities. Above all, we stay curious.

That’s our approach in the Faculty Hub. We’re exploring—together—what education looks like when we hold two truths at once. Our students need to understand these powerful new tools, and they still need to master the slow, inefficient, and irreplaceable art of learning itself.

Curious? Keep reading.