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About The Authors, Volume 26 (2008) Jan 2008

About The Authors, Volume 26 (2008)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

About the editors and authors of volume 26 (2008) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.


Stereotype Threat And Ten Things We Can Do To Remove The Threat In The Air, Franklin A. Tuitt, Lois Reddick Jan 2008

Stereotype Threat And Ten Things We Can Do To Remove The Threat In The Air, Franklin A. Tuitt, Lois Reddick

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The purpose of this chapter is to present an overview of the literature related to stereotype threat in an effort to provide faculty members and instructional developers with a better understanding of what the phenomenon is and what can be done about it in college classroom settings. To this end, we reviewed several of the major studies published on the subject between 1995 and 2005 and compiled a list of strategies that reflected both the major empirical findings on stereotype threat and our own research and experiences with faculty and students in college settings. Given the enormity of the subject, …


Faculty Development At Small And Liberal Arts Colleges, Kim M. Mooney, Michael Reder Jan 2008

Faculty Development At Small And Liberal Arts Colleges, Kim M. Mooney, Michael Reder

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The notable growth of faculty development programs and centers at small institutions warrants attention before their next stages of growth. We aim to capture and convey the central issues coalescing around the professionalization of teaching and learning activities and the work of faculty developers at small colleges. While this descriptive review draws direct comparisons to other types of institutions, particularly large research and comprehensive universities that serve as the norm for our profession’s faculty development practices, its main purpose is to address the distinctive characteristics of professional development at small colleges in general and liberal arts colleges in particular. Toward …


Credibility And Effectiveness In Context: An Exploration Of The Importance Of Faculty Status For Faculty Developers, Bonnie B. Mullinix Jan 2008

Credibility And Effectiveness In Context: An Exploration Of The Importance Of Faculty Status For Faculty Developers, Bonnie B. Mullinix

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study documents an emerging profile of the faculty status of faculty developers as solicited, compiled, and interactively interpreted with faculty developer practitioners. It used integrated (mixed) methodology and participatory research strategies to gather data and it shares descriptive statistical information on the various positions held by faculty developer respondents; qualitatively analyzed impressions of the importance of faculty status to their credibility and effectiveness as faculty developers; and information regarding respondents’ institutional contexts. Findings are further disaggregated across institutional contexts and sex to explore trends, differential perceptions, and other emergent issues as identified by participant researchers.


Team Mentoring: An Alternative Way To Mentor New Faculty, Tara Gray, A. Jane Birch Jan 2008

Team Mentoring: An Alternative Way To Mentor New Faculty, Tara Gray, A. Jane Birch

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Traditional mentoring programs usually have no mechanism for Protégés to learn from each other, and they often match protégés with mentors sight unseen. Team mentoring is a less hierarchical program in which protégés mentor each other in a group while searching for more permanent and personal mentors. In this program, protégés and mentors are arguably better matched because mentors are chosen by the Protégé. In addition, Protégés benefit by tapping into the wisdom of their peers. As a result, team mentoring is a viable alternative to traditional mentoring programs.


A Research–Based Rubric For Developing Statements Of Teaching Philosophy, Matthew Kaplan, Deborah S. Meizlish, Christopher O'Neal, Mary C. Wright Jan 2008

A Research–Based Rubric For Developing Statements Of Teaching Philosophy, Matthew Kaplan, Deborah S. Meizlish, Christopher O'Neal, Mary C. Wright

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Despite its ubiquity as the way that instructors represent their views on teaching and learning, the statement of teaching philosophy can be a frustrating document to write and the results are often uneven. This chapter describes a rubric created at the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching to help faculty and graduate students craft teaching statements. We describe the research that informed the creation of the rubric, talk about how we use the rubric in our consultations and workshops, and present an assessment that validates the use of the rubric to improve instructors’ teaching statements.


Meeting The Challenges Of Integrative Learning: The Nexia Concept, Jane Love Jan 2008

Meeting The Challenges Of Integrative Learning: The Nexia Concept, Jane Love

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Integrative learning challenges faculty developers to facilitate integrative and connective experiences not only for students, but for faculty as well. For many faculty, curricular requirements impede connective teaching, and the widespread assumption that connectivity must be taught on the course level also limits their ability to enrich students’ learning through diverse perspectives and interactions. Nexia is an approach to this problem based on the concept of ad hoc connectivity, or small-scale, focused, short-term connections that allow students from two or more courses to interact around points of interest to both classes. By releasing connective teaching from expensive curricular constraints, the …


The Teaching Resource Portfolio: A Tool Kit For Future Professoriate And A Resource Guide For Current Teachers, Dieter J. Schönwetter Jan 2008

The Teaching Resource Portfolio: A Tool Kit For Future Professoriate And A Resource Guide For Current Teachers, Dieter J. Schönwetter

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Extensive annotated bibliographies have guided academic researchers over several years and in various disciplines, providing key resources to assist in the development of new ideas. However, less common are published annotated bibliographies on effective teaching resources, both general to teaching across various disciplines as well as specific to each discipline, that guide the academic in the teaching enterprise. This chapter focuses on a tool, the teaching resource portfolio, that helps the graduate student preparing for an academic career including teaching, the new faculty member desiring additional teaching resources, the academic wishing to have resources that support discipline-specific scholarship of teaching …


Reflecting And Writing About Our Teaching, Mark Weisberg Jan 2008

Reflecting And Writing About Our Teaching, Mark Weisberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Reflecting on what we are doing can help us become better teachers and better people; yet in our increasingly busy and stressful lives, how can we find the space and time? This chapter describes and exemplifies two strategies that can help us and our colleagues become more reflective about our teaching and about our vocation: the Teachers’ Reading Circle, meeting for regular discussions of provocative texts about teaching and learning, and the Teachers’ Writing Circle, using prompts and examples of colleagues’ writing to set participants on an extended course of writing about their own teaching.


Breaking Down Barriers To The Use Of Technology For Teaching In Higher Education, Erping Zhu Jan 2008

Breaking Down Barriers To The Use Of Technology For Teaching In Higher Education, Erping Zhu

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter examines the most common technologies used for teaching on college campuses and the most common barriers to advanced uses of technology tools. Survey results consistently show that the major barriers to incorporating technology into higher education are lack of faculty time, faculty doubts about the relevancy of technology to disciplinary learning, and inadequate technical support for faculty projects and technology uses. This chapter, then, proposes several approaches developed and assessed by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan for removing those barriers to technology uses in higher education. Although providing flexible technology …


Bibliography, Volume 26 (2008) Jan 2008

Bibliography, Volume 26 (2008)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 26 (2008) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.


Ethical Guidelines For Educational Developers Jan 2008

Ethical Guidelines For Educational Developers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

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


Evaluating Teaching: A New Approach To An Old Problem, L. Dee Fink Jan 2008

Evaluating Teaching: A New Approach To An Old Problem, L. Dee Fink

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The approach to evaluating the quality of teaching described in this chapter starts by developing a Model of Good Teaching. This model is then used to create a set of evaluation procedures based on four key dimensions of teaching: design of learning experiences, quality of teacher/student interactions, extent and quality of student learning, and teacher’s effort to improve over time. The challenges and benefits of using these procedures are discussed.


Grounded Theory Research In Faculty Development: The Basics, A Live Example, And Practical Tips For Faculty Developers, Michael Sweet, Rochelle Roberts, Joshua Walker, Stephen Walls, John Kuscera, Shana Shaw, Janet Riekenberg, Marilla Svinicki Jan 2008

Grounded Theory Research In Faculty Development: The Basics, A Live Example, And Practical Tips For Faculty Developers, Michael Sweet, Rochelle Roberts, Joshua Walker, Stephen Walls, John Kuscera, Shana Shaw, Janet Riekenberg, Marilla Svinicki

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

While autobiographical narratives and case study reflections remain vital to faculty development research, we must also make substantive efforts to build theory in our field. Researchers making claims about collective meanings of observed behaviors and the mechanisms that underlie them (i.e., theoretical claims about social behavior) must be disciplined in how they identify and organize the evidence they use to support those claims. Such systematic, inductive theory-building in the social sciences is called “grounded theory” research. This chapter presents the basics of grounded theory research, describes a grounded theory research program currently being executed by faculty developers, and offers practical …


Supporting The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning At Liberal Arts Colleges, Dolores Peters, David Schodt, Mary Walczak Jan 2008

Supporting The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning At Liberal Arts Colleges, Dolores Peters, David Schodt, Mary Walczak

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Although the liberal arts college, with its traditional focus on teaching, may seem like a natural environment for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), few such institutions participate in national SoTL initiatives. Our associates’ experience since 2001 suggests a model for supporting SoTL in teaching-intensive contexts based on faculty ownership, a focus on general education, and some emerging rules of engagement. Because faculty reward systems must validate SoTL if it is to become part of the institutional culture, we also describe one department’s efforts to reform its review criteria in order to define scholarly activity broadly.


Marketing Plans For Faculty Development: Student And Faculty Development Center Collaboration For Mutual Benefit, Victoria Mundy Bhavsar, Steven J. Skinner Jan 2008

Marketing Plans For Faculty Development: Student And Faculty Development Center Collaboration For Mutual Benefit, Victoria Mundy Bhavsar, Steven J. Skinner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Our faculty development center engaged senior-level business students as consultants to help us inform instructors about our resources. The students argued that organizational and marketing tasks are critical to our pedagogical work as they create opportunities for the pedagogical work to occur. This chapter describes the collaboration, the students’ recommendations, and the center’s response. Engaging students, our ultimate clients, in setting priorities for our center was a powerful learning experience for both us and them. Other centers may wish to use our experiences as impetus to collaborate with students on their campuses.


Thawing The Chilly Climate: Inclusive Teaching Resources For Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math, Katherine A. Friederich, Sherill L. Sellers, Judith N. Burstyn Jan 2008

Thawing The Chilly Climate: Inclusive Teaching Resources For Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math, Katherine A. Friederich, Sherill L. Sellers, Judith N. Burstyn

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Although universities are aware of the need to promote diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), this awareness has not translated into significant changes in classroom environments. Many STEM instructors would like to offer equal opportunities for success to all of their students, but they are not sure where to begin. We describe an effective group of teaching tools that can empower STEM faculty and graduate students to modify their courses to address diversity at their own pace. These resources extend from awareness exercises to recommendations for action and have been useful tools for course design, teaching assistant training, …


Co-Teaching As A Faculty Development Model, Andrea L. Beach, Charles Henderson, Michael Famiano Jan 2008

Co-Teaching As A Faculty Development Model, Andrea L. Beach, Charles Henderson, Michael Famiano

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Co-teaching is a promising and cost-effective approach to promoting fundamental research-based instructional change. In this chapter, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of co-teaching and describe our initial experience with it. A new instructor (MF) co-taught with an instructor experienced in physics education research-based reforms (CH). An outsider (AB) conducted separate interviews with each instructor and observed several class sessions. Results include immediate use of research-based instructional practices by the new instructor and a significant change in teaching beliefs over time. Recommendations are made for implementing co-teaching as part of a faculty development program.


Promoting Learning–Focused Teaching Through A Project–Based Faculty Development Program, Susanna Calkins, Greg Light Jan 2008

Promoting Learning–Focused Teaching Through A Project–Based Faculty Development Program, Susanna Calkins, Greg Light

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter describes how we incorporated project-based learning into a yearlong faculty development program at a research-intensive private university located in the Midwest. This inquiry-based approach fosters critical reflection on teaching and promotes learner-focused teaching in a manner that encourages deeper student approaches to learning. We use case studies, drawn from critical accounts of faculty projects, to illustrate a model that depicts how faculty understand improvement in their teaching and to identify key program elements that facilitated the adoption of learning-focused teaching practices by our participants.


Introduction, Volume 25 (2007), Douglas Reimondo Robertson Jan 2007

Introduction, Volume 25 (2007), Douglas Reimondo Robertson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Introduction to volume 25 (2007) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Douglas Reimondo Robertson of Highland Heights, Kentucky.


It All Started In The Sixties: Movements For Change Across The Decades—A Personal Journey, R. Eugene Rice Jan 2007

It All Started In The Sixties: Movements For Change Across The Decades—A Personal Journey, R. Eugene Rice

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A combination of memoir and social commentary, this chapter explores changes in higher education throughout five decades—1960s: utopian quest for learning communities; 1970s: faculty development movement; 1980s: focus on the academic workplace; 1990s: broadening the understanding of scholarship; and 2000s: new pathways and the engaged campus. This chapter provides a context for the careers and work of faculty, academic administrators, and faculty development specialists (both new and experienced) as well as for the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD).


Living Engagement, Bell Hooks, Douglas Reimondo Robertson Jan 2007

Living Engagement, Bell Hooks, Douglas Reimondo Robertson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In this “talking chapter” bell hooks reveals, through dialogue about her thoughts and experiences related to college teaching and learning, a profound and robust perspective on what could be called “deep” faculty development. Topics include engaged pedagogy, therapeutic conversations, spiritual practice, difference, conflict, and love.


Surviving To Tenure, James M. Lang Jan 2007

Surviving To Tenure, James M. Lang

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

For most new faculty, anxiousness about the tenure application begins from the first day on the job. Surviving the six intervening years on the tenure track requires a range of time- and career-management skills that new faculty may only learn piecemeal along the way. New faculty need help in five specific areas in order to survive their path down the tenure track: 1) developing teaching strategies that will fit their personalities and reach as many students as possible, 2) managing their time to allow for research and publication, 3) determining what and how many service commitments to make, 4) existing …


The Abcs Of Fractal Thinking In Higher Education, Edward Nuhfer Jan 2007

The Abcs Of Fractal Thinking In Higher Education, Edward Nuhfer

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

All learning establishes and often stabilizes neural networks in the brain. These carry both cognitive and affective attributes and have fractal form. Fractal networks produce many actions and products that exhibit fractal qualities. Awareness of such qualities provides a unifying key to understanding and applying educational knowledge. It represents a marked shift in perception that differs from thinking customarily employed in considering information as a specialist. This alternate perspective helps professionals in higher education draw on diverse information from specialty research and apply it more effectively.


Toward A Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning In Educational Development, Peter Felten, Alan Kalish, Allison Pingree, Kathryn M. Plank Jan 2007

Toward A Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning In Educational Development, Peter Felten, Alan Kalish, Allison Pingree, Kathryn M. Plank

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational development traditionally has been a practice-based field. We propose that as a profession we adopt the methods of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), so often shared with our clients, in order to look through a scholarly lens at the outcomes of our own practice. Using SoTL approaches in our work would deepen the research literature in our field and improve the effectiveness of decisions we make about where to spend limited time and resources. In this chapter, we explore what it might mean for individual developers, and for our professional community, to apply SoTL methods to our …


Action Research For Instructional Improvement: Using Data To Enhance Student Learning At Your Institution, Constance E. Cook, Mary Wright, Christopher O'Neal Jan 2007

Action Research For Instructional Improvement: Using Data To Enhance Student Learning At Your Institution, Constance E. Cook, Mary Wright, Christopher O'Neal

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Action research is a powerful tool that can be used by teaching centers to improve teaching and learning. This chapter describes an action research project conducted at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. The project concerns retention and attrition in science gateway courses, with particular attention given to the role of the teaching assistant. This chapter concludes with a discussion of six principles for teaching center staff who wish to conduct their own action research projects.


Moving From The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning To Educational Research: An Example From Engineering, Ruth A. Streveler, Maura Borrego, Karl A. Smith Jan 2007

Moving From The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning To Educational Research: An Example From Engineering, Ruth A. Streveler, Maura Borrego, Karl A. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In The Advancement of Learning , Huber and Hutchings (2005) state that the “scholarship of teaching and learning . . . is about producing knowledge that is available for others to use and build on” (p. 27). Can viewing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) as an educational research activity help make SoTL findings more available and easier to build on? This chapter describes a program that prepared engineering faculty to conduct rigorous research in engineering education. Project evaluation revealed that engineering faculty had difficulty making some of the paradigm shifts that were presented in the project.


Structuring Complex Cooperative Learning Activities In 50–Minute Classes, Barbara J. Millis Jan 2007

Structuring Complex Cooperative Learning Activities In 50–Minute Classes, Barbara J. Millis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Given the power of learning-centered teaching, faculty can be coached to structure cooperative activities wisely and well, even within 50-minute class periods where there is a perception that complex group work is difficult. In addition to giving some basic advice on team formation and classroom management, this chapter provides examples of five complex cooperative learning structures—Jigsaw, Send-a-Problem, Cooperative Debates, Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning, and Bingo—that can be conducted within 50-minute classes. The specific literature-based examples are complemented by examples in a variety of other disciplines, making them seem doable to more faculty.


How Do You Handle This Situation? Responses By Faculty In Great Britain And The United States To Workshops On The Ethics Of Teaching, Miriam Rosalyn Diamond Jan 2007

How Do You Handle This Situation? Responses By Faculty In Great Britain And The United States To Workshops On The Ethics Of Teaching, Miriam Rosalyn Diamond

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty in the United States and Great Britain took part in workshops exploring educational ethics. Participants articulated concerns about balancing approachability with fairness, cross-cultural communication, conveying standards to students, and academic integrity. Responses to the session were positive, and both groups indicated an interest in continuing discourse on the topic. The groups differed on specific issues of interest, as well as feedback on the session. Some of these appear to be culturally influenced. Overall, this workshop presents a model for providing faculty with the opportunity to examine and formulate direction when dealing with ethical issues related to teaching.


Teaching Business By Doing Business: An Interdisciplinary Faculty–Friendly Approach, Larry K. Michaelson, Mary Mccord Jan 2007

Teaching Business By Doing Business: An Interdisciplinary Faculty–Friendly Approach, Larry K. Michaelson, Mary Mccord

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter describes the implementation of an interdisciplinary undergraduate curricular innovation in two different university settings. The Integrative Business Experience (IBE) requires students to enroll concurrently in three required core business courses and a practicum course in which they develop and operate a startup business (based on a real-money loan of up to $5,000) and carry out a hands-on community service project. This chapter also reports outcomes for students (including data from an assessment), examines the variables that minimize the difficulty of achieving cross-disciplinary integration in IBE, and suggests keys to enabling faculty-friendly integrative course designs in other settings.