Education Commons^™

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 1999, New England Faculty Development Consortium

NEFDC Exchange

Contents

Developing New and Junior Faculty Careers - Mary Deane Sorcinelli. University of Massachusetts, Amherst

From the President - Susan J. Pasquale, Harvard Medical School

2nd Annual NEFDC Faculty Development Roundup May 26, 1999 Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire

Review: Two very different books of teaching cases - Jeffrey Halprin, Nichols College

Board of Directors

Anglo (Mis)Understandings Of Latino Newcomers: A North Georgia Case Study, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper examines how Anglos in a small north Georgia city imagined, or conceptualized, Hispanics during the late 1990s as thousands of Spanish-speaking immigrant newcomers transformed the community’s demography. Based on two years of ethnographic research, the paper outlines the local play of several macro-social dynamics, such as businesses’ externalization of indirect costs, the ethnic segmentation of the work force, the use of sojourner labor, and the role of mediating institutions. The paper uses these dynamics to explain the emergence and sustenance of what Suárez-Orozco (1998) calls the “pro-immigration” and “anti-immigration scripts” and illustrates how these can be used to …

Book Review - On The Border Of Opportunity: Education, Community, And Language At The U.S.–Mexico Line, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

On the Border of Opportunity is a good, important, but limited book. Marleen Pugach describes the links between school and community that she, her two school-aged children, and a graduate assistant encountered during a seven-month stint in a New Mexico border town (pseudonymously called Havens). She extensively considers how binationalism was and could have been promoted in the local schools and how such promotion could distinguish the education on offer there. Pugach seems unsure whether to characterize Havens as an exemplary binational, inclusive community or whether to present a critique of Havens by chronicling what it could be but was …

1999-00 Unopa Executive Board Minutes

UNOPA Minutes

No abstract provided.

Critical Thinking Requires Critical Questioning, Karen J. Thoms

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Just what is a critical thinker? According to Richard Paul (1990), a critical thinker is someone who is able to think well and fair mindedly about his or her own beliefs and viewpoints as well as those which are diametrically opposed. The critical thinker does not just think about these beliefs and viewpoints, but explores and appreciates their adequacy, cohesion, and reasonableness. Attitudes and passions are included. To become a critical thinker is not to be the same person you are now, but only with better abilities; it is to become a different person (page iii).

Critical thinking is expected …

Are We Going To Cyberspace, Or Is This Just Another Trip To Abilene?, William K. Jackson

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The costs of technology are high, and the options for its use are varied. In order to avoid arriving at a technological Abilene, we must continually ask and answer the question "what ought we do with technology?" and not "what can we do with technology?" Purpose must lead deployment. Otherwise, we risk expending great efforts and scarce resources to produce the educational equivalent of "Thank you for calling, press 1 if you. . ."

Interdisciplinary Teaching And Learning, Deborah Dezure

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Interdisciplinary initiatives are proliferating throughout higher education at an unprecedented rate (Edwards, 1996; Gaff and Ratcliff, 1997; Klein, 1996). They can be found in general education, replacing and augmenting distribution requirements; in emerging disciplines, such as cultural and gender studies, environmental studies, and neuroscience; in new curricular designs, such as learning communities, capstone courses, and service learning; and in the new pedagogies, such as collaborative learning, discovery and problembased learning, and the use of technology, particularly the Internet for instruction.

If we want our students to engage in complex intellectual tasks to integrate the insights of different disciplines, then lets …

Learning Outside The Box: Making Connections Between Co-Curricular Activities And The Curriculum, Myra S. Wilhite, Elizabeth A. Banset

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Students have much to gain from the integration of co-curricular activities into the curriculum. In out-of-class experiences, students tend to take greater responsibility for their own learning; they learn from one another as well as their instructors. In addition, cocurricular activities promote personal growth, physical and mental health, academic achievement, social and cultural awareness, and help students formulate short- and long-range goals.

Successful co-curricular programs encourage the development of friendships, a sense of belonging, enhanced intellectual awareness, improved academic performance, an appreciation of different perspectives, and close interaction with faculty and staff members who really care about students.

Listening In The Classroom: A Two-Way Street, Elisa Carbone

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Listening to our students creates a supportive environment in which students feel respected. If students feel respected and valued, they will be less afraid to ask questions, express opinions, and share insights; and they will be more likely to listen to each other during discussions. This is an environment conducive to the enhancement of learning.

It is well worth taking the time to teach students how to improve their listening habits. Let them know about the differential between thought speed and speech speed. Encourage them to do mental summaries of your lecture while you re speaking. Have them act out …

The Nature Of Expertise: Implication For Teachers And Teaching, Ronald A. Smith, Richard G. Tiberius

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

How do teachers become experts at teaching-at helping their students become experts? In a culture dependent on high performance, teachers need to understand the nature of the expertise that their students want to acquire as well as the nature of their own expertise. How we view expertise determines the goals we set for our students, as well as the standards we use to inform and measure our own development as experts in teaching.

The Uses Of Uncertainty In The College Classroom, Virginia S. Lee

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Psychological research has corroborated the importance of uncertainty to learning at the psychophysiological level. Recent studies in brain dynamics have demonstrated that the brain manifests an inherent variability that increases with the presentation of new stimuli. This psychophysiological uncertainty plays a significant catalytic role in learning, It opens up the organism to experience, causing it to investigate the environment with enhanced receptivity, preparing it for different behavioral actions, and facilitating the central processing and encoding of information received from such renewed exploration. Searching, exploring, and trial-and-error behaviors indicate psychophysiological uncertainty and accompany the appearance of reorganization, stability, and progressive development …

Class In The Classroom, Lee Warren

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Class is an often invisible form of difference. Yet it is there all the time, affecting how and what students learn at every turn. It pervades the values and the purposes of colleges and universities. It contributes to determining the courses offered and the books read and discussed. Still, it is a diversity issue rarely acknowledged.