A #tlconf14 Inspired Friday

On May 16, 2014, in Conferences, Laughs, We Made It: It's Friday, by gregorynpaziuk

The GATA Network had a blast this week at #tlconf14, the Eighth Annual Windsor-Oakland Conference on Teaching and Learning. Some of you Networkers were there with us, and others followed along on Twitter. If you were neither of the above, you can live vicariously through our links in this week’s We Made It: It’s Friday, which all came from discussions at #tlconf14.

  • We sat in on two great sessions about mentoring undergraduate students: “Graduate Students as Mentors to Enhance Undergraduate Performance”, presented by K. Miles from Wayne State, and “Mentors in an Undergraduate Psychology Course”, presented by some UWindsor folks looking at how undergrads can help mentor other undergrads. Both conversations reminded us  of a great piece from @RachelHerzlBetz at GradHacker for grad students looking to mentor their peers, entitled “How to be the Mentor You Always Wanted“.
  • Some of us also braved the more philosophical sessions. We’re talking namely about M.K. Potter’s “The Will to Empowerment: A Nietzschean Approach to Learning”, which mainly talked about the impossibility of knowing anything at all. Sort of. But it also opened our eyes to some of the wider applications of Nietzschean wisdom, which naturally led us to “15 Examples of Nietzsche Inspiring Comedy“.
  • It never fails that the majority of conference goers at teaching and learning events such as these are stumped, or frazzled, or tongue-tied when asked “What do you do?” Even among their peers, academics often have a hard time explaining their own title or work. That reminded us of a funny link shared by Network chum @copystar called “Librarian Title Generator“.  Try explaining some of the titles that thing spits out.

Happy long weekend!