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Bibliography, Volume 27 (2009)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Ethical Guidelines For Educational Developers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Ethical guidelines for educational developers, prepared by Mintz, Smith, and Warren, January 1999. Revised March 1999, September 1999, and March 2000.

About The Authors, Volume 27 (2009)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

About the editors and authors of volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Acknowledgments, Volume 27 (2009), Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Acknowledgments for volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Linda B. Nilson of Clemson University.

Editor's Introduction: The Educational Developer As Magician, Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

After so many changes in the academy, faculty and educational developers face challenges that require magic to meet. Faculty members are supposed to perform the magic, and we educational developers are expected to teach them how. The trick is to teach more in the same amount of time to disinterested and unprepared students, under the conditions of larger classes, less authority, and lower rewards. College and university faculty are under attack for failing short, and educational developers are next in line to feel the heat. Perhaps we should start defending our faculties, explaining our challenges, and publicizing our efforts and …

Experiential Lessons In The Practice Of Faculty Development, Ed Neal, Iola Peed-Neal

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The practice of faculty development, as distinct from its theoretical and empirical principles, must largely be learned experientially, through an often painful process of trial and error. In this chapter, we offer some of the lessons we have learned in our combined total of sixty-four years as faculty developers, in hopes that others might benefit from our experience.

Maturation Of Organizational Development In Higher Education, Gail F. Latta

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Organizational development (OD) is fundamentally about increasing institutional capacity for change. Organizational culture is a pivotal variable mediating the success of institutional change initiatives. Faculty and OD professionals are poised to address the need for increased understanding of organizational culture and change in higher education institutions. This chapter presents a conceptual guide to theories of change and cultural analysis that inform OD practice. Distinctions between content and process theories of change, as well as normative and idiomatic approaches to cultural analysis, are reviewed with respect to their utility for facilitating change in the academy. Implications for the maturation of OD …

Ten Ways To Use A Relational Database At A Faculty Development Center, A. Jane Birch, Tara Gray

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Providing quality support to faculty requires attention to administrative details and event logistics. As professionals, we must also assess the impact of our work and be prepared to report to those who will judge its worth and allocate resources. To do this we need current, accurate data that are easy to access and easy to use. We also need a simple way to manage faculty development activities and evaluate the outcomes. The best technology for achieving these goals is a relational database. This chapter describes ten ways a relational database can be used to support faculty developers in their various …

Magicians Of The Golden State: The Csu Center Director Disappearing Acts, Cynthia Desrochers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The California State University (CSU) Teaching and Learning Center directors perform daily feats of magic, often culminating in one particularly dramatic trick at the end of the academic year—their own disappearing acts. This chapter traces the history of the center director position in the CSU system, reports where directors go when they leave the position after only a few years, and proposes how frequent turnover might be reversed through organizational factors aimed at promoting retention of these Magicians of the Golden State.

Practical Tools To Help Faculty Use Learner–Centered Approaches, Phyllis Blumberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Instructors often resist dramatic changes in their teaching, and learner-centered approaches are not intuitive for most instructors. They need tools to help them adopt these approaches. This chapter describes four tools—1) a list of components of Weimer’s five practices of learner-centered teaching, 2) reflection questions to prepare instructors to determine the learner-centered status of their courses, 3) self-assessment rubrics, and 4) a Planning for Transformation form—to help instructors change their teaching. Taken together, these tools form a comprehensive system with which to plan for change. This system encourages and assists instructors to make incremental changes toward using learner-centered approaches in …

Romancing The Muse: Faculty Writing Institutes As Professional Development, Elizabeth Ambos, Mark Wiley, Terre H. Allen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Conclusion
Given the tremendous success of the SWIs, we intend to continue to offer them for the foreseeable future, maintaining the features that faculty value most: space, sustenance, and editorial, statistical, and coaching assistance. But we will also make changes based on faculty feedback gathered during the final day’s luncheon debriefing and from the written evaluations. In addition, we intend to conduct formal research on the Institutes’ long-term effects on faculty productivity, satisfaction with scholarly work, and faculty retention. Important questions remain. For example, what is the return on investment in these Institutes, in terms of faculty productivity, career advancement, …

Leadership For Learning: A New Faculty Development Model, Jane V. Nelson, Audrey M. Kleinsasser

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The authors provide examples of a model that develops faculty leaders for learning in all institutions that prize research. The examples come from seven university-wide initiatives, which were sponsored by the institutions faculty development center. The initiatives spanned a nearly ten-year period. Based on four conceptual groundings—scholarship of teaching and learning principles, educational renewal, the production of social capital through soft projects, and horizontal structures—the model has the power to transform faculty into leaders. Elements of the model include a call to participate, a diverse cohort of participants, commitment to providing resources, conference center planners, and peer review and assessment. …

Searching For Meaning On College Campuses: Creating Programs To Nurture The Spirit, Donna M. Qualters, Beverly Dolinsky, Michael Woodnick

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Discussing spirituality on a secular college campus can be risky. Yet faculty and students have expressed a need to explore meaning in their lives and work. This chapter describes one university’s year-long efforts to develop a social web of activities around spirituality and meaning in community members’ lives. We describe the process of determining needs and the resulting programs. But more important, we share lessons learned, including advice on creating the climate for spiritually oriented programming to gain acceptance and be viewed as an enhancement to campus life.

Defeating The Developer's Dilemma: An Online Tool For Individual Consultations, Michele Dipietro, Susan A. Ambrose, Michael Bridges, Anne Fay, Marsha C. Lovett, Mari Kamala Norman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter introduces an online consultation tool that helps resolve the tension that developers often experience in consultations between offering quick fixes and providing in-depth but time-consuming conceptual understanding. The tool that the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence has developed provides instructors with concrete teaching strategies to address common teaching problems, while also educating them about the pedagogical principles informing those strategies. The tool can be used to enhance traditional face-to-face consultations or, by itself, to reach a wider faculty audience, including adjunct and off site faculty.

Lessons Learned From Developing A Learning–Focused Classroom Observation Form: Learning-Focused Observation Form, Steven K. Jones, Kenneth S. Sagendorf, D. Brent Morris, David Stockburger, Evelyn T. Patterson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At the United States Air Force Academy, we are attempting to go through a cultural transformation, making an overt shift toward a more learning-focused paradigm. In this chapter, we describe the nature of this transformation, as well as why we have chosen to move in this direction. We also describe one specific initiative we have undertaken: the development of a new learning-focused classroom observation form. We conclude by sharing a baker’s dozen lessons we have learned about classroom observation, effective teaching, and faculty development in general as a result of having developed this form.

Reported Long–Term Value And Effects Of Teaching Center Consultations, Wayne Jacobson, Donald H. Wulff, Stacy Grooters, Phillip M. Edwards, Karen Freisem

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We regularly ask clients for feedback on their recent consultations with Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) staff, but in the past we have not systematically assessed our longer-term contributions to the teaching of our clients. We recently surveyed faculty and teaching assistants who consulted with CIDR one to five years ago and found that many former clients highly valued CIDR’s contribution to the development of their teaching. However, some of the most highly valued benefits they identified were not limited to what they did each day in class. This chapter identifies benefits of consulting with a teaching center …

Promoting The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning At Community Colleges: Insights From Two Learning Communities, Stanford T. Goto, Andrei Cerqueira Davis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a powerful vehicle for professional development. Faculty make their teaching public as they investigate phenomena in their classes. This process encourages sustained discussions of teaching. In conducting SoTL, community college faculty face substantial hurdles: heavy workloads, few institutional supports, no employment rewards, perceived irrelevance, and weak peer networks. Can these challenges be overcome within existing institutional structures? This chapter explores this question by examining how SoTL is pursued in two learning communities. Evidence from these institutional case studies suggests that SoTL programs are viable in community colleges, despite major challenges.

Starting And Sustaining Successful Faculty Development Programs At Small Colleges, Michael Reder, Kim M. Mooney, Richard A. Holgren, Paul J. Kuerbis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter complements a recent chapter in To Improve the Academy by Mooney and Reder (2008) that discusses the distinctive features and challenges of faculty development at small and liberal arts colleges. As a continuation and expansion of that more conceptual discussion, we aim to convey practical strategies for relatively new faculty developers at small institutions with incipient programs. The suggestions offered in this chapter are grounded in our experiences as faculty developers at liberal arts colleges and developed through numerous national conference presentations and conversations with colleagues in the field over the past decade. Although our recommendations are particularly …

Establishing External, Blind Peer Review Of Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning Within The Disciplines, Cheryl A. Stevens, Erik Rosegard

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Colleges and universities face growing pressure to reward multiple forms of scholarship in order to align their missions with faculty roles and rewards. This chapter proposes that disciplinary societies develop templates, processes, and criteria for external, blind peer review of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in order to provide a reliable and valid way to judge the quality of faculty SoTL work. Although SoTL requires support from faculty development programs and other interdisciplinary SoTL forums, it will continue to be viewed as evidence of teaching excellence rather than scholarship until discipline-based external, blind peer-review processes are established.

Learning–Centered Evaluation Of Teaching, Trav D. Johnson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Over the past decade, institutions of higher education have placed increased emphasis on promoting student learning. This emphasis has influenced thinking about teaching, course design, and faculty development, but it has had little effect on the evaluation of teaching. In other words, the evaluation of teaching remains focused on instruction (that is, teacher performance and course characteristics) rather than on student learning. Learning-centered evaluation of teaching provides a viable way to emphasize student learning in the evaluation process. This approach uses principles of program evaluation and emphasizes learning goals, learning activities, learning assessments, and learning outcomes in the evaluation of …

Meeting New Faculty At The Intersection: Personal And Professional Support Points The Way, Ann Riley

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers can play a significant role in increasing the retention of new faculty. This chapter presents a study conducted at a public research university that reveals that first-year faculty need personal, relational, and professional support. However, the importance of each type of support shifts during this first year, suggesting that faculty development efforts aimed toward new faculty should adjust accordingly. This study uses a sequential mixed-method design and is grounded in adult development theory, which views new faculty as adult learners in a career-life transition and faculty developers as adult educators.

When Mentoring Is The Medium: Lessons Learned From A Faculty Development Initiative, Jung H. Yun, Mary Deane Sorcinelli

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Campuses across the country are investing considerable time, effort, and expense to replenish their faculty ranks with a new generation of scholars. How can mentoring help these new faculty juggle the many demands of surviving and thriving in academia? And how can institutions frame mentoring as a broader faculty development initiative in which faculty at all stages of the academic career can teach and learn from each other? This chapter addresses these questions by sharing the goals, design, and lessons learned from the Mutual Mentoring Initiative at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Preparing Advocates For Faculty Development: Expanding The Meaning Of “Growing Our Own”, Deborah S. Meizlish, Mary C. Wright

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Discussions about preparing newcomers for faculty development focus almost exclusively on the staffing needs of teaching centers. Unfortunately, this emphasis significantly narrows what it means to prepare people for the field. Instead, we suggest that successful preparation has two elements: preparation of talented individuals for formal positions in the field and preparation of knowledgeable advocates or allies. As evidence, we present results from a survey of our center’s graduate teaching consultants, documenting how their work shaped their future connections to faculty development. Our results challenge centers to consider how their programming can “grow” both professionals in and advocates for faculty …

Teaching Learning Processes—To Students And Teachers, Pamela E. Barnett, Linda C. Hodges

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Our teaching and learning center serves faculty and graduate students as teachers and undergraduates as learners. Here we share the experiences of graduate student facilitators whom we trained to lead problem-solving skills workshops for undergraduates. Our aim was to help these graduate students see themselves as teachers of disciplinary thinking as much as of disciplinary content. However, they also began to reexamine their teaching beliefs and practices, recognize and respond to the needs of novice learners, and become more conscious of the demands of learning their disciplines. We offer this program as a model for developing future facuity.

Effects Of Mentoring Preservice Teachers On Inservice Teachers In Professional Development School Environments, Marianne Pratschler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Colleges and universities collaborte with P-12 public schools in professional development school (PDS) partnerships to improve teacher training, provide professional development for inservice teachers, improve student achievement, and promote action research. Most research has been done on advantages for preservice teachers and for students in classrooms. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand inservice teachers' mentoring experiences in order for a local college to support and enrich the professional lives of inservice teachers. Research questions addressed inservice teachers' perceptions regarding mentoring interactions, effects on their own classroom practices, and professional growth. The purposeful sample was comprised of …

Latina Sorority Involvement And The College Experience: Social And Academic Impact, Darilis Garcia-Mcmillian

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Membership in a Latina-based sorority communicates messages to sisters as well as the university community. These messages usually reflected the goals and principles of the organization which is often what attracts women to join. Once they are part of the sorority their affiliation impacts their college experience. This study looks at the effect Greek membership has on participants' social and academic lives. Through narrative analysis the women's responses were examined to understand their perceptions of how joining Delta Tau Lambda Sorority impacted their college experience. The human and rhetorical agency of members was examined through their survey responses. Their experiences …

Social Construction Of Knowledge In A Semiformal, Long -Term Learning Environment: A Qualitative Study, Alycia Harris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Social learning plays a critical role in cognitive apprenticeship, community of practice, and knowledge production theories. Gunawardena's interaction analysis model, which provides a means of evaluating discourse for social construction of knowledge, is comprised of five phases: (a) sharing and comparing, (b) disagreement, (c) negotiation and co-construction of new knowledge, (d) testing of knew knowledge, and (e) use or phrasing of new knowledge. There is a paucity of research that has empirically explored social construction of knowledge, especially in an extended semiformal asynchronous graduate learning experience. This study explored two research questions: whether social construction of knowledge took place, and …

Career Pathways And Demographic Profiles Of University Presidents In The U.S.: 2000-2008, Lourdes Sanchez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the career paths and profiles of contemporary university presidents. The study provided a broad perspective in terms of what institutions and governing boards are looking for when searching for a new president. It also helped to know the trends in those accepting these positions, namely education, career path, gender, and age. I I used the following questions to guide the focus of this study:

* RQ1. What are the demographic characteristics of current university presidents (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, and geography)?

* RQ2. What academic and …

Measuring College Student Satisfaction: A Multi-Year Study Of The Factors Leading To Persistence, Felice D. Billups

NERA Conference Proceedings 2008

Using Tinto's (1987) social integration theory as a framework, this study measured student satisfaction in six transformative areas: educational experience, skills development, faculty interaction, personal growth, sense of community, and overall expectations. Emerging as a strategic planning process priority, this project sought to identify those areas where students succeeded or were at risk. Employing a three-phase mixed methods approach, this descriptive, longitudinal study was conducted from 1990-2004 at a highly selective specialized college and assisted college administrators in developing or modifying programs that would enhance student satisfaction to ensure degree completion.

Anxiety And Depression As Comorbid Factors In Drinking Behaviors Of Undergraduate College Students Attending An Urban Private University In The Northeastern United States, Charles J. Vohs, Robert K. Gable, Cynthia V.L. Ward, Ronald L. Martel, Joseph Barresi, Dameian Slocumb

Higher Education

High-risk drinking is the number one public health concern on college campuses (Berkowitz, 2003; Kapner, 2003; Wechsler, 2002). To date, high-risk drinking prevention programs have met with limited success (Kapner, 2003).

This study examined differences among four drinking behavior groups: non-drinkers [(ND), (n = 128)], low-risk drinkers [(LRD), (n = 252)], high-risk drinkers [(HRD), (n = 272)], and frequent high-risk drinkers [(FHRD), (n = 290)] with respect to anxiety and depression for male (n = 457) and female (n = 485) undergraduates (N = 942) attending an urban private university in the northeastern United States; and, the perceptions of two …