‘mindfulness’
the mindful phd: 2013 top 10
dec. 19, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i just realized this will be my last entry for 2013. as my social media feeds fill up with top 10 lists, i thought i’d pause at the end of the year and offer my own. since my blog is still fairly new (this is just my 18th post),...
the mindful phd: difficult discussions
dec. 13, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director several recent campus conversations have focused on facilitating difficult discussions with students in and out of class. i’ve long taught multicultural american literature and women’s studies courses, so i appreciate how hard it is to effectively navigate these moments. as i prepare my syllabus for next semester, i’ve been...
the mindful phd: inspiration, creativity, & new ideas
dec. 4, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director in “the science of inspiration” (2013), eric ravenscraft highlights the neuroscientific view of inspiration, epiphanies, and “‘a-ha’ moments”: “when you make a new connection between two ideas, it’s not just a metaphor. your brain is literally restructuring itself to accommodate new processes…. [t]he more ‘plastic’ your brain is, the...
the mindful phd: labyrinths & learning
nov. 20, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i’ve been reading everything i find about mindfulness, but i’m eager for more evidence-based work on its effects on learning in the college classroom. as my previous posts indicate, recent years have seen a lot of scientific research (especially in neuroscience and psychology) pointing to the psychological and physiological...
the mindful phd: reading like bruce lee
nov. 14, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i teach literature. my students read a lot, and i want them to read well—closely, carefully, attentively. i’ve always heard that the best readers were read to when they were young and then read voraciously when they were growing up. this makes great sense to me, but it also...
the mindful phd: how it works, iv
nov. 6, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director there are few silver bullets in teaching and learning, but a handful of strategies are so grounded in evidence that i sometimes feel like shouting from rooftops. one is metacognition.* another is how students view their own intelligence. carol dweck describes it as having either a “fixed mindset” (believing...
the mindful phd: how it works, iii
oct. 31, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director a man riding a horse approaches a man standing by the side of the road. the bystander asks where the rider is going, and the rider responds, “‘i don’t know. ask the horse’” (tan, 2012, p. 104). chade-meng tan tells this story to illustrate the notion of emotional regulation,...
the mindful phd: how it works, ii
oct. 24, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i was thrilled when i learned the term “proprioception,” or our ability to sense the body and its movements in relation to the environment around us. i was deep into yoga at the time, and it gave me language (clunky, but useful) for something i found myself thinking about...
the mindful phd: how it works, i
oct. 17, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director my recent posts have been focused on issues of stress, mostly because i’ve seen the effects on my own life and worry about colleagues, students, and friends. some of you have asked me to clarify how mindfulness works: what it actually does, how that happens, and what it looks...
the mindful phd: stories of the slow professor
oct. 10, 2013—by nancy chick, cft assistant director last week, i attended my 10th consecutive conference of the international society for the scholarship of teaching and learning (issotl)–in many ways, the highlight of my academic year, as it feels very much like ‘going home.’ after five days, though, it’s good to be back in my real home,...