Other Education Commons^™

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.

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.

Saying Yes To Freestyle Volunteering: Doubting And Believing, Judy Lightfoot

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

My formerly academic interest in Peter Elbow's work developed fresh relevance a few years ago after a member of my family was diagnosed with schizophrenia. To volunteer "outside the box" with individuals who suffer from mental illness or homelessness, I needed a skeptic's doubt as well as an enthusiast :S belief But the first step was believing.

Reflections From A Grateful Guest Edit, Peter Elbow

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Jaepl, Vol. 15, Winter 2009-2010, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Peter Elbow - Reflections from a Grateful Guest Editor

Sheridan Blau - Believing and Doubting as Hermeneutic Metbod: Reading and Teaching Paradue Lost

Tim Doherty - Lessons from tbe Believing Game

Anne Ellen Geller - The Difficulty of Believing in Writing Across the Curriculum

Shelly Sheats Harkness, Catherine Pullin Lane, Sue Mau, Amber Brass - The Believing Game in Mathematics: Stories in a Discipline of Doubt

Judy Lightfoot - Saying Yes to Freestyle Volunteering: Doubting and Believing

Clyde Moneyhun - Believing, Doubting, Deciding, Acting

Irene Papoulis - A Refiection on Habitual Belief and Habitual Doubt

Stephanie Paterson - Friday …

The Difficulty Of Believing In Writing Across The Curriculum, Anne Ellen Geller

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

What would happen if we tried to consider writing-acrossthe- curriculum work through the lens of Peter Elbows methodological believing? If we were to believe that every faculty person in the university is a writer, thinks about writing, and teaches writing in his or her own way, what virtues would we find that doubting leads us to disqualify?

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editor's Message.

Believing And Doubting As Hermeneutic Method: Reading And Teaching Paradise Lost, Sheridan Blau

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Using a variation on Peter Elbow's believing game, I help students discover the degree to which Milton in Paradise Lost succeeds in his explicit attempt to justify God's ways to man and in that success also offers us an account of human happiness and misery that is psychologically sophisticated, spiritually illuminating, entirely rational, and supremely wise as a guide to living a humanly satisfying life. Such an approach to Paradise Lost also fosters an experience of the text through which many students undergo a modern version of the spiritual transformation and enlightenment that Milton explicitly aimed to make possible for …

Before Belief: Embodiment And The “Trying Game”, Donna Strickland

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I use my experience of teaching "Mindful Writing" to reflect on the pre-cognitive act of "trying out" new ideas. It seems that there's an important piece of the believing game that happens before the cognitive act of belief and that involves the body as much as the mind.

Reviews, Julie J. Nichols, Charles Suhor, Edward Sullivan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Julie J. Nichols - Meaning and The Evolution of Consciousness: A Retrospective on the Writing of Owen Barfield

Charles Suhor - The Great Transfonnation: The Beginnings of Our Religious Traditions

Charles Suhor - The Chalice and the Blade

Edward Sullivan - The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

Believing, Doubting, Deciding, Acting, Clyde Moneyhun

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I used Peter Elbow's believing and doubting games and cooked up two games of my own, to structure a first-year writing class aimed at teaching students to read and reason critically. The first new game has been hinted at by Elbow himself: the deciding game, in which students used their exercises in believing and doubting to make up their minds about a topic. The second new game, which my students called the living game, asked them to extend their intellectual decisions into the world and take or recommend actions based on them. This was all enacted through a series of …

Friday Writes: An Exercise In The Believing Game, Stephanie Paterson

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I introduce the basic principles for the practice of proprioceptive writing and describe the experience and outcomes of incorporating this ungraded writing into three undergraduate compostion classes. I offer this as a case study of a writer, teacher, and reflective practitioner emboldened by Peter Elbow's believing game, and I point out some of the intellectual and pedagogical discoveries that emerged in my fourteen-week experiment.

Connecting, Helen Walker, Andrew Statum, Vic Kryston, Jie Li, Dominique Zino, Joonna Smitherman Trapp

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Connecting - Helen Walker

Andrew Statum - The Question

Vic Kryston -Conflict Resolution

Jie Li - Teaching with Accent

Dominique Zino - Space

Joonna Smitherman Trapp - Composition Class 7:45 AM

Lessons From The Believing Game, Tim Doherty

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

My essay reflects on different lessons I have learned in using the believing game to promote deliberative dialogue in first-year writing courses. I have learned that it helps not to be in a hurry: spending enough preparation time with students thinking about belief itself, listening to students' stories and sense of attachment to beliefs, and playing the game repeatedly. I also explore the believing game as a mode of play, especially the fruitful way that role-play can be integrated into the believing game.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

The Believing Game In Mathematics: Stories In A Discipline Of Doubt, Shelly Sheats Harkness, Catherin Pullin Lane, Sue Mau, Amber Brass

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Many people view mathematics as a discipline of certainty and rigidity. Answers are either right or wrong, and, when they are wrong, it is easy to play the doubting game. We invite readers into our mathematics classrooms as we story our attempts to play the believing game. We provide a lens into how we suspended our own logic, assumptions, and interpretations until we first tried to "unpack, " understand, and honor our students' logic, assumptions, and interpreta· tions. Within our individual stories, elements of tension, surprise, and wonder emerged as collective themes.

A Reflection On Habitual Belief And Habitual Doubt, Irene Papoulis

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Some people are habitual "believers" while others are habitual "doubters." I' m a believer, but doubting others helps me believe myself I explore the idea that examining our individual habitual relationships with believing and doubting helps us think better and relate better to others and to ourselves.

A Highly Incomplete Bibliography, Peter Elbow

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I’m nervous to include this because I’ve not read a lot of these books and articles, and the whole thing is so inadequate for such a large topic. Many are titles I’ve jotted down for when I “have time.” But the list also includes a few suggestions from the authors in this issue, though this list mostly doesn’t duplicate the valuable Works Cited sections they’ve put with each of their essays. I’m risking the amateur quality of this enterprise in hopes that it can help others to pursue an important issue. (At the end, I’ve listed my various essays about …

Scientific Inquiry In Agricultural Education Teacher Preparation: A Look At Teacher Educators’ Perceptions, Darla French, Mark Balschweid

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The specific objectives of this study were to identify the attitudes of U.S. agricultural education teacher educators toward using scientific inquiry as an instructional method and to determine their level of comfort and awareness with new information and teaching methodologies in science. A mailed survey was sent to all agricultural education teacher preparation institutions in the United States. One-half of the respondents who indicated that they presented scientific inquiry to their pre-service teachers during the methods of teaching course indicated they were very comfortable with teaching technical agriculture content, while one in eight said they were very comfortable with teaching …

Understanding Middle School Students' Perspectives Regarding Physical Activity And Fitness, Susan Yesalonia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research confirms inactivity increases in adolescence and that unfit youth are at risk of acquiring cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, or other significant physical disorders later in life. Thus, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experience of chronically inactive children who were exposed to an exercise intervention program. The specific focus of the research was to better understand the essential educational needs of the participants and the effective elements of the program, Moving for Fun (MFF), a 7-week after-school fitness intervention program designed to modify chronic inactivity. Open-ended interviews and 3 observations were conducted with 8 middle …

Science Versus Religion: Protestant Dominance And Cultural Discrimination In Public Schools, Melissa Marie Brock

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research offers a critical analysis of the current controversy concerning religion. The study explores the establishment of the public school system under Protestant dominance and use of this dominance to assert authority over minority groups. Legislation and court action have created a position of opposing policy; placing science as the opposite of religion, and Atheists and Christian activists are using curriculum as an ideological battle field. Currently, since 9/11, religious discrimination and hate crimes are on the rise. In order to investigate this controversy, this study explores literature, published surveys, and government documents. The American public school systems are …

A Study Of Seton Hall University And The Attributes Of Organizational Adaptation Employed In Fashioning Its Catholic Identity And Mission In The Post-Vatican Ii Era (1966-2006), Nicholas F. Mazza

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis is the first fully developed and published study of Seton Hall University. It specifically examines the organizational structures of Seton Hall University over a forty year period in light of the tumultuous changes in the Catholic Church and Catholic academia post-Vatican 11. Of particular importance is change that influenced the Catholic identity and mission of the university. The author examines the central problems arising from the changes influenced by the actions of the Vatican Council as well as the concerns expressed by Catholic academic, namely, academic freedom and the issues of higher education governance. These two factors spearheaded …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.