CURRENT ARTICLE • July 16

Disciplinary Perspectives on Teaching and Learning

A recent meeting on facilitating change in the science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines reminded me just how much our disciplinary homes frame our views of the pedagogical world. About 45 faculty, some educational researchers and a few administrators were convened to consider instructional change, why so little of has occurred in these disciplines
(in all disciplines, as far as I’m concerned), and whether there might be better change models.

Read more ›

OTHER RECENT ARTICLES

Student Learning Outcomes Initiative

By: Rob Kelly

In 1989 the administration at Central Arizona College made a decision to move toward a competency-based curriculum for all of its courses and certificate and degree programs—a wise decision given all the changes taking place within the community college’s district and within higher education in general, says Linda Heiland, CAC’s associate vice president for institutional effectiveness and chief academic officer.

Read More ›

Two Universities’ Global Learning Initiatives

By: Rob Kelly

Marquette University

Read More ›

Effective Classroom Management: A Helpful Handout for Students

Sometimes we (or our colleagues) don’t always deliver material in ways that expedite note-taking. We may not be able to take class time for a session on note-taking but all of us can probably find time to distribute a handout that students might find helpful. Consider this classroom management strategy, a slightly condensed and modified version of material that appears in the reference below. These are research-based recommendations.

Read More ›

Electronic Portfolios for Faculty Evaluation

By: Rob Kelly

Tina Ashford, assistant professor of information technology, was among the first faculty members at Macon State College to use an electronic portfolio to support her bid for tenure. Although the portfolio’s format wasn’t a factor in her tenure bid, she found that it offered several advantages over the traditional paper-based format that might make it attractive both to individual faculty members and tenure and promotion committees.

Read More ›

Performance Appraisal Interviews as a Tool to Improve Faculty Work

By: Rob Kelly

The primary cost associated with an academic department is personnel. Personnel can include secretarial and support staff, but is typically dominated by faculty. In fact, as much as 95 percent of a department’s budget can be tied directly to faculty costs. This means that department heads and chairs have little room to negotiate around faculty and must instead face challenges directly. Compounding the chair’s ability to create change is the reality of academic freedom and tenure, both of which can immobilize progress and growth.

Read More ›

Instructional Design: Moving Toward a Less Structure, More Learning-Centered Environment

Do these differences seem semantic? To Jean Ramsey and Dale Fitzgibbons (reference below) they typify three modes of teaching, each located at a different place on a continuum. In the traditional mode, teachers pass on knowledge. Ramsey and Fitzgibbons note that most teachers have moved beyond this conception to a point on the continuum where they find themselves doing activities, exercises, leading discussions, and otherwise working to engage and involve students. But they observe that most learner-centered teaching still rests on teacher-initiated techniques. They see a place on the continuum beyond this, a place that simply puts the teacher among the students. “We’re here to learn together and you (the students) are as much a source of our learning as I (the teacher).” (p. 337) This “being” with students creates a kind of ultimate learning community.

Read More ›

Plusses and Wishes

At a recent conference of faculty who teach public administration, Janet Mills shared a great way of getting positive (as in constructive) feedback from students. She calls her system “Plusses and Wishes” and it works like this. Each class has a Feedback Coordinator (one of several different roles assumed by students) who distributes blank Plusses and Wishes forms to students. They are filled out at the end of every class.

Read More ›

Blogs: An Asynchronous Learning Trend

By: Rob Kelly

Alex Halavais, assistant professor of communication and graduate director of informatics at the University at Buffalo, has incorporated blogs in his courses to encourage students to think beyond a single course, to integrate their learning across the curriculum, and to provide opportunities for feedback as students' work evolves. Halavais has written a chapter on this topic for the forthcoming book International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments (Kluwer Academic Publishers). Online Classroom recently spoke with Halavais the evolving pedagogical uses of blogs.

Read More ›

Improving Lectures

“Is The Teaching Professor anti-lecture?” the sharply worded e-mail queried. “No, we aren’t,” I replied, “We’re anti poor lectures … just like we’re against group work that doesn’t work and any other instructional approach poorly executed.”

Read More ›