Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

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.

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. . ."

Volume 12, Number 01, Don Forrester Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 12, Number 01 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Volume 11, Number 02, Lana Wachniak Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 11, Number 02 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Problem-Based Learning: Preparing Students To Succeed In The 21st Century, Barbara J. Duch, Deborah E. Allen, Harold B. White Iii

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

College graduates who can think critically, solve complex problems, communicate clearly, and work effectively in teams will be prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. Problem-based learning (PBL) helps students develop these crucial skills.

Keys To Using Learning Groups Effectively, Larry K. Michaelsen

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Irrespective of such factors as subject matter and class size, small group work can produce positive motivational and learning outcomes. The key is appropriately managing the variables discussed in this essay.

Adding Online Computer Methods To Your Repertoire Of Teaching Strategies, Nancy A. Diamond

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

On-line teaching methods offer interesting strategies for teaching whatever you already want to teach. This essay describes a broad range of on-line methods and details the elements necessary for their optimal use.

Relating Student Experience To Courses And The Curriculum, Virginia S. Lee

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

This essay offers a rationale for incorporating students’ personal experience into the curriculum and techniques for doing so to facilitate both cognitive and affective curricular objectives.

The Critical Match Between Motivation To Learn And Motivation To Teach, Ronald Teeples, Harvey Wichman

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Student motives to learn cannot be effectively understood as something independent of prevailing pedagogies, which are shaped by motives to teach. The authors discuss bringing these two aspects of motivation into closer congruence.

Developing A Philosophy Of Teaching Statement, Nancy Van Note Chism

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Suggestions are presented for preparing a statement about one’s philosophy of teaching in relationship to the preparation of a teaching portfolio. Included are ideas on developing several common components of such statements.

Writing To Learn, Judith Kalman, Calvin Kalman

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The authors explain a technique that discourages the viewing of material as an agglomeration of disembodied facts and fosters students’ awareness of the concepts underlying the topics being discussed.

Volume 11, Number 01, Lana Wachniak Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 11, Number 01 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Academic Civility Begins In The Classroom, Roger G. Baldwin

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Values and traditions supporting academic civility are learned in the classroom. This essay discusses the role of the college professor in promoting civil discourse and nurturing overall academic civility.

Volume 10, Number 02, Lana Wachniak Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 10, Number 02 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Leading The Seminar: Graduate And Undergraduate, Edward Neal

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

This essay provides a framework for planning and leading effective seminars and addresses the differences between graduate and undergraduate seminar instruction.

Simulating, Experiencing, And Changing Biased Teaching Behaviors, Laura L. B. Border

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Increased awareness of biased teaching behaviors and effects on students can motivate instructors to become conscious of and change their own biased teaching patterns. Nonbiased teaching is subsequently reinforced and students performance enhanced.

Metaphors We Teach By: Understanding Ourselves As Teachers And Learners, Mary Ann Bowman

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Our metaphors of teaching and learning express our views of the roles of teachers and students. Becoming conscious of our own metaphors is an important first step to self-awareness and positive change.

The Phenomenon Of Large Classes And Practical Suggestions For Teaching Them, Frank Gillespie

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Large classes are a phenomenon of higher education today. However, large does not preclude providing an effective teaching and learning environment. The environment can be analyzed, good teaching can be modeled, and practical strategies offered.

Challenges In Using Technology For The Improvement Of Undergraduate Education, G. Roger Sell

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

We may believe that access to more information will improve undergraduate education, but students conceptual foundations and critical thinking skills are essential for using information technologies and constructing knowledge.

Volume 10, Number 01, Lana Wachniak Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 10, Number 01 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Cracks In The Ivory Tower: Conflict Management In The Classroom -- And Beyond, Susan A. Holton

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The very nature of the classroom with its power imbalance and differing expectations can engender conflict. What are the warning signs, and what might we do manage the inevitable conflict?

Teaching And Values: What Values Will We Take Into The 21st Century?, Kathleen Mcgrory

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Our values drive our decision-making about a range of everyday concerns as professionals. This essay identifies some current values being addressed in scholarly inquiry and attempts to predict the role of values inquiry in curriculum and teaching in the 21st century.

The American Professoriate In Transition, Ronald D. Simpson, Thomas G. Dyer

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

After a brief review of the history of the American professoriate, major trends for the future, the lives and work of today’s faculty members will be discussed in terms of forces influencing the direction of higher education in our society.

Volume 09, Number 02, Richard F. Welch Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 09, Number 02 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Integrating Research And Undergraduate Teaching, Anne Bezuidenhout

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

I would like to describe some of the benefits and difficulties I have encountered in my attempt to integrate my research and teaching in an introductory logic course. My introductory logic students work in groups on semester-long research projects. The research that these students are involved in belongs to the scholarship of integration, rather than the scholarship of discovery (Boyer, 1990). It is highly unlikely that most instructors will ever teach a student who will break new ground in their field. However, what most students can begin to do is to think about what role one body of knowledge or …

Transactional Analysis Of The Creative Process, Donna Glee Williams

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Teachers of the creative process understand intuitively that different types of students need different types of teaching. The art students who splash paint with abandon over miles of canvas but have no interest in craftsmanship or self-evaluation need a different sort of intervention than the young artists who are so bullied by their own self-criticism that they can hardly bear to make a mark. The music students who by dint of excessive practice produce music-box accuracy--completely without fire--need a different sort of help than their sloppy but passionate colleagues. Our task as instructors is to understand our students’ needs and …

Honoring The Process For Honoring Teaching, Laurie Richlin, Brenda Manning

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Few ideas are as appealing on the surface as encouraging professors to gather and reflect on materials that best represent their teaching excellence. Indeed, developing a teaching portfolio, or dossier, has become a popular faculty development activity in many departments and on many campuses. To create a portfolio, faculty select syllabi, tests, student work, and student evaluations about one or more courses, and add a reflective statement, usually called a teaching philosophy, about their teaching goals. In almost all cases, reports from the field state that professors find reaffirming the teaching portfolio process and the opportunity to reflect on their …

Never In A Class By Themselves: An Examination Of Behaviors Affecting The Student-Professor Relationship, David J. Walsh, Mary Jo Maffei

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

We conducted a survey designed to assess the extent to which students and faculty viewed particular professor behaviors as enhancing or detracting from the student-professorrelationship. It was necessary to develop our own survey instrument, because although there are scales assessing related concepts such as immediacy, there is, to our knowledge, no existing instrument capturing the student-professor relationship broadly construed and with specific, behavioral items. Importantly, our survey instrument asks respondents for their views on the consequence of particular behaviors for the student-professor relationship, and not for a rating of professors in terms of the frequency with which they actually display …

Active Learning Beyond The Classroom, Edward Neal

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Attending class is akin to regular religious observance: The ritual or sermon is less important for what it teaches directly than for its motivational impact on what believers do between services. Lowman, 1984, page 165

Even carrying a full course load, students spend a relatively small proportion of each week in class, typically about 15 hours, and research has shown that most undergraduates spend only a few hours a week studying outside of class. How do they occupy their time? According to a national survey of college students (Boyer, 1987), almost 30 percent of full-time students work 21 or more …