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January 01, 1970

Molly Bassett

About Molly Bassett

Dr. Molly Bassett is an Associate Professor and Chair in Religious Studies at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on concepts of deity and the creation of god-bodies in Aztec and modern Nahua religions. She published The Fate of Earthly Things in 2015. Molly has been involved with the Wabash Center since 2011, when she joined a pre-tenure workshop. Her research in the 2014-2015 Study of Teaching and Learning Colloquy led to a publication on crafting multiple-choice exams that test for critical thinking, and in 2016 she joined the editorial board of Teaching Theology and Religion. Molly has been on the steering committee for the Teaching Religion unit of the AAR since 2012, and she began co-chairing the unit in 2015. Most recently, she received a small project grant from Wabash to explore the applied liberal arts in the study of religions. She lives in Atlanta with her spouse, Mike, two children, Jennings and Dory, and two dogs, Chance and Owen. When they’re not walking the dogs, you can find them playing cars on the kitchen floor, reading the Belly Button Book, or riding bikes.

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Comments

  1. What a great idea. Is your podcast available? I look forward to hearing what your students think of the podcast project. I would like to find a way to make writing seem more fresh to them, less of a chore or something they view as unhappy busy work.

    I found the note taking link very interesting, too. Several of my students rarely take notes and it’s not clear to me why. Since they come to class and seem generally interested, I wonder if they don’t write notes because they prefer typing and don’t want to carry their computer or whether they have eidetic memories or are just depending on the outlines I post after class to our content server. I don’t want them to take notes just because it would make me feel better but I hadn’t thought seriously about how I might help them take better notes.

    Thanks for these blog posts. I enjoy reading them and learning from you.

  2. Hi Laura! Thanks for your comment. The podcasts are up, and there’ll be a link to them in my next post.

    About note taking — a few years ago a colleague from our teaching center observed me teach, and he commented about how only a few of the students were taking notes. He took note taking as a sign of engaged listening, and it is. I think that lots of students don’t know how to take notes. What’s worth writing down? (And I imagine in their heads that question is often linked to what’s on the final exam/paper, etc.) What format would work well? Kind of like we talk about how to communicate expertise (content) to students, the skills that go along with acquiring expertise don’t come naturally to many of my students. Have you seen Carolyn’s annotated text assignment? That’s a great way to get students to start thinking about note taking while they’re reading.

    I’m so glad you’re out there reading the blog : ) Thanks!

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