Inadequate preparation, unrealistic expectations, and increased workload can create undue stress on faculty members making the transition to department chair or other levels of administration. All too often new administrators are left to fend for themselves when it comes to discovering and developing the skills they need to succeed in their new position.

I’m still thinking about participation ... even more convinced of the point in the previous blog ... we need to be asking questions that do a better job of engaging students’ interests. I’ve also been thinking about how I don’t often prepare questions. I tend to ask when something comes to mind, as the session is unfolding. When I prepare, I work on the content. I review the material, think about how to structure the content, and try to generate good examples, but I don’t prepare questions, especially questions that aim to tap whatever interests learners might have in the topic. I need to start working on questions like that.

What is the best way to train and support a beginning online faculty member? At some colleges, the only option is on site training held on the campus over a day, a weekend, or a period of days during the summer. These on-site workshops, while potentially very effective, commit the faculty members to time, travel, and often inflexible scheduling. However, Berkeley College, with campuses in New York and New Jersey, has designed an online faculty workshop and set of training and support tools to complement its other professional development offerings.

1. Create a classroom environment that from the first day sets ground rules for discussion and makes it clear that all students are included in the work of the class. Make sure you make all students feel connected to each other, the class, and the topic, and establish strong expectations about the content and manner of communication.

“What can a teacher do ... to encourage students to take a deep approach to learning? Hanging in the front office of the Research Academy for University Learning at Montclair is an old poster from the 1930s. It’s one of those Depression era placards encouraging schoolchildren to develop good habits. A little boy is tugging at a large yellow question mark, hooking a book labeled ‘knowledge.’ The caption reads: ‘Ask Questions. Sometimes the only way you can capture Mr. Knowledge is with a question mark.’ A bit stilted and old fashioned, the poster nevertheless captures something we’ve known for a long time. People are most likely to learn deeply when they are trying to answer their own questions or solve their own problems.

What obligations do faculty members have to their institutions beyond their disciplines and departments? It’s a question that is sure to get a lot of play as higher education institutions deal with the pressures brought about by increased scrutiny from outside constituents and other factors such as changing student demographics and a shift from a faculty-focused to a learner-focused orientation.

Online education programs are known for their convenience, but they’ve also developed a reputation for poor student retention rates. So when someone who oversees an online education program that maintains a 92 percent completion rate speaks, people tend to listen.

In 2000, the college of education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) introduced an electronic portfolio system for its students. The goal was to get students to understand their own learning by requiring them to create these portfolios that highlight their work. Building on that success, the university is in the process of implementing myMAPP, (Mapping Academic Performance through ePorfolios), an electronic portfolio system that integrates student, faculty, staff, department, college, and campus performance measures.

We’ve visited this topic before: the quality of feedback students provide on those end-of-course ratings. Many students fail to take the evaluation process seriously because, unless they plan on taking another course with that professor, the feedback will provide little benefit to them even if, by chance, the professor decides to act on it.