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Preface, Volume 24 (2006), Sandra Chadwick Blossey

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Preface to volume 24 (2006) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Sandra Chadwick Blossey of Rollins College.

Monster At The Foot Of The Bed: Surviving The Challenge Of Marketplace Forces On Higher Education, Raoul A. Arreola

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The impact of technology on society has caused a paradigm shift in the basic support for higher education. Where higher education was traditionally supported as a function of government, the knowledge explosion and global economy resulting from the impact of computer and other technologies is moving the underlying support of higher education to the marketplace. There is evidence that traditional academic strategies and practices that were successful under the old paradigm may no longer be working. Twelve suggestions are offered for revolutionary changes that the academy must make in order to survive, even thrive, in the new paradigm.

A Different Way To Approach The Future: Using Chaos Theory To Improve Planning, Marc Cutright

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Strategic planning is a good idea that gets a bad name from dubious efforts carrying the title. Much of this rap comes from half-hearted exercises, but some of it comes from efforts that founder due to faulty or limited conceptions of how the future “works.” Chaos theory is an alternative approach and metaphor with potential to let us see the future and its dynamics in new ways. Cognizance of chaos’s nature and underlying structure might help us do planning in new, nonintuitive, and more successful ways.

Perceptions Of Faculty Developers About The Present And Future Of Faculty Development At Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Phyllis Worthy Dawkins, Andrea L. Beach, Stephen L. Rozman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The development of faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has been a challenge and commitment since their inception before and after the civil war. Historically, faculty have assumed many roles, but they primarily sought to address the needs of black students. The HBCU Faculty Development Network, founded in 1994, has been instrumental in providing a platform to showcase accomplishments and challenges in education at this unique group of colleges and universities. To address future needs, we surveyed the membership to explore current program goals and influences, practices, and new directions. The results are compared with data for the …

Preparing Faculty For Pedagogical Change: Helping Faculty Deal With Fear, Linda C. Hodges

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

How receptive faculty are to changing their pedagogical approach is a complex issue, but one factor that impedes change is the fear of taking a risk. Underlying this fear may be the fear of loss, fear of embarrassment, or fear of failure. Addressing these issues can empower faculty to be more innovative in their teaching. Drawing on research literature, personal teaching narratives, and my own work in faculty development, I discuss some of these underlying fears. I then offer concrete strategies for working with faculty to enable them to overcome these emotional barriers and embrace change.

An Electronic Advice Column To Foster Teaching Culture Change, Donna M. Qualters, Thomas C. Sheahan, Jacqueline A. Isaacs

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

First-year engineering students receive most of their teaching from instructors outside of engineering. As a result, these instructors are typically not a teaching community with a shared commitment to engineering student learning. Retention of engineering students is strongly tied to the quality of teaching, thus addressing collective teaching quality is important. This chapter describes the development of a carefully crafted, electronically distributed advice column on teaching developed by an interdisciplinary editorial team, written under the pseudonym Jonas Chalk. Surveys of Chalk Talk readers indicate that this is an effective means to promote teaching culture change.

Practicing What We Preach: Transforming The Ta Orientation, Patricia Armstrong, Peter Felten, Jeffrey Johnston, Allison Pingree

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Brookfield (1995), Schön (1983), and others articulate the necessity and complexity of being critically reflective in our work. Indeed, the value of critical reflection is inherent to educational development as a field in that we frequently encourage such thinking in our consultations with instructors. But practicing what we preach can be difficult. This chapter reflects on an experiment in the transformation of a teaching assistant orientation, a central event of our teaching center. We not only describe and assess the process of revising this orientation, but we also reflect on the implicatiom of this case for broader programming issues in …

Faculty Competency By Design: A Model For Institutional Transformation, Helen M. Clarke, Philip E. Bishop

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

For a decade, Valencia Community College has striven for a faculty development program with direct impact on student learning. The college succeeded by designing faculty learning with the same logic we apply to student learning. Valencia’s program for new tenure-track faculty focuses on significant faculty learning outcomes, a learning-centered pedagogy, high standards of scholarship, and continuous program assessment. The college’s Teaching/Learning Academy and a coordinated tenure process have cultivated new learning leaders and created a fresh partnership among deans and faculty members. This developing process of new-hire faculty development has been pivotal to Valencia’s learning-centered transformation.

Bibliography, Volume 24 (2006)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 24 (2006) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Why Does Policy Fail? Understanding The Problems Of Policy Implementation In Pakistan - A Neuro-Cognitive Perspective, Sajid Ali

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Education policy in Pakistan, as in other developing countries, faces the challenge of poor implementation. The article explores the history of education policy in Pakistan and describes the conventional accounts of policy failures. It particularly highlights the issues of unclear goals, political commitment, governance, centralisation, resources and foreign aid. Generally, it is assumed that overcoming these conventional challenges will result in better policy outcomes. Although this is partially true, Spillane, Reiser and Reimer (2002) direct our attention to the cognitive factors that play a critical role in policy implementation. They argued that implementing agents try to make sense of policy …

Volume 17, Number 01, G. William Hill Editor, Linda M. Noble Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 17, Number 01 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 16, Number 2, Fall 2005, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

Message from the President - Judith Kamber, Northern Essex Community College

From the editors - Tom Thibodeau, New England Institue of Technology, and Steve Berrien, Bristol Community College

Praising the Profession - Thomas S. Edwards, Thomas College

Faculty Development for Community College Leadership - Charles Kaminski, Berkshire Community College

Literacy Identity and Diversity - Melissa M. Juchniewicz, Northern Essex Community College

Connecting with Others

Dwell in Possibility - Bill Searle, Asnuntuck Community College

Meet Our New Board Members

NEFDC Fall Conference, Friday, November 4, 2005, Westford, Massachusetts; theme: Beyond Tolerance: Diversity and the Challenge of Pedagogy in American Higher …

Elements Of Credible Research, Charles Eberly

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This paper is developed from a speech I gave before the 100th anniversary convention of the National Panhellenic Association. The organization was concerned about the questionable ethics of articles published about the college fraternity and sorority at that time.

Elements Of Credible Research, Charles G. Eberly

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This paper is developed from a speech I gave before the 100th anniversary convention of the National Panhellenic Association. The organization was concerned about the questionable ethics of articles published about the college fraternity and sorority at that time.

Volume 16, Number 02, G. William Hill Editor, Linda M. Noble Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 16, Number 02 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Mentoring Educational Leaders - A Study To Define The Skills Of A Mentor, Janet Boling Larch

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The efficacy of mentoring for educational leaders is of growing concern in the field of principal preparation. The purpose of this qualitative study was to define and describe the skills of an educational mentor. The participants in this study were five mentors and five proteges who had completed the Indiana mentor/protege pilot project, "Mentoring and CoachingDeveloping Educational Leaders." This pilot was launched in October, 2002 and was developed by The Indiana Professional Standards Board in conjunction with the Indiana University Consortium and The National Association of Secondary School Principals. Subjects were tape recorded by the researcher in face-to-face interviews. Coding …

Teaching And Trading: Local Voices And Global Issues From Central Asia, Sarfaroz Niyozov, Duishon Shamatov

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2005, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

From the NEFDC President: The Heart of the Matter - Thomas S. Edwards, Thomas College

Transforming Your Good Idea into a Compelling Conference Proposal - Judith E. Miller, Clark University

Learning the Infield Fly Rule: Limits of the “Silver Platter” Method - Rob Schadt, Boston University School of Public Health

Discovering New Ways to Teach: Our Experience in an Instructional Skills Workshop Facilitators Training Program - Patricia Cook and James M. Gentile, Manchester Community College

The Bad and the Good About Improving Student Retention in Online Learning - Elaine Garofoli

Connecting with others

Learning Disabilities in Higher Education: An …

Volume 16, Number 01, G. William Hill Editor, Linda M. Noble Editor

Reaching Through Teaching

Full text of Volume 16, Number 01 of Reaching Through Teaching.

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 15, Number 2, Fall 2004, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

Message from the President: The College is My Classroom - Thomas Edwards, Thomas College

Review of Robert Boice: Advice for New Faculty Members—Nihil nimus - Eric Kristensen, University of Ottawa

From the editors, Sue Barrett, Boston College, and Susan Pasquale, UMass Medical School

From Nepal to Iceland and Back Distance Learning Characteristics of Two Cultures - Karen A. Lemone, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Building Community with Technology - Elise Martin, Middlesex Community College, and Charles Kaminski, Berkshire Community College

Two Hours and Fifteen Minutes - Tom Thibodeau, New England Institute of Technology

Elections to NEFDC Board

Learning Disabilities in Higher …

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

Higher Education

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2004, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

Message from the President: Things We Value - Tom Edwards, Thomas College

Metaphors for Teaching - Polly Parker and Bill Searle

Significant Learning Experiences: Integrated Course Design Designing the Learning We Want into the Learning Experiences - L. Dee Fink

NEFDC Fall Conference Keynote Speaker: L. Dee Fink

NEFDC Spring Roundup, June 4, 2004; theme: Building Community and Collaboration Through Technology

UNH To Offer Online Certificate in College Teaching - Michael Lee, University of New Hampshire

Assessment in New England: Announcing Discipline-Based Workshops

Conference: Faculty-Student Partnerships in Teaching and Learning

Board of Directors

Preface, Volume 22 (2004), Catherine M. Wehlberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Preface to volume 22 (2004) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Catherine M. Wehlberg of Texas Christian University.

Introduction, Volume 22 (2004)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Introduction to volume 22 (2004) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

From Sgid And Gift To Bbq: Streamlining Midterm Student Evaluations To Improve Teaching And Learning, Margaret K. Snooks, Sue E. Neeley, Kathleen M. Williamson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty members want feedback about ways to improve learning. Midterm assessments are more useful than end-of-term student evaluations. Not all institutions provide faculty development consultants. This chapter presents an innovative process appropriate for institutions currently without teaching enhancement centers. The Bare Bones Questions (BBQ) process consists of empathic trained colleagues facilitating students’ evaluative discussions. Students and faculty members are overwhelmingly positive about the process piloted for the past three years. Students’ suggestions can include simple changes in classroom environment or enhanced sensitivity to cultural diversity. BBQ may build intra-institutional collegiality by reducing the isolation of teaching.

A Versatile Interactive Focus Group Protocol For Qualitative Assessments, Barbara J. Millis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A highly flexible focus group protocol captures efficiently and economically useful data for immediate and longitudinal course and program assessment. Special features include an index card activity that deals with satisfactions levels and a Roundtable/Ranking activity that allows participant-generated judgments about the most positive and the most negative features of a course or program. These latter activities, with data displayed in an Excel histogram and in a colored-coded Word table, can be used for what is called a “Quick Course Diagnosis” (QCD).

A Transformative Model For Designing Professional Development Activities, David J. Langley, Terence W. O'Connor, Michele M. Welkener

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A new model for professional and organizational development is presented based on concepts derived from Wilber (2000) and Astin (2001). The model consists of an individual/public dimension and a reflection/performance dimension. Four quadrants that result from connecting these dimensions are formed: 1) individual reflection, 2) public reflection, 3) individual performance, and 4) public performance. We believe this model offers faculty developers a framework for designing thoughtful programs to aid faculty in meeting the wide range of internal and external demands that confront higher education institutions.

Problem–Based Service–Learning: Rewards And Challenges With Undergraduates, Kenneth France

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Students in three Abnormal Psychology sections participated in problem-based service learning (PBSL). Desired learning outcomes included humanizing persons diagnosed with mental health disorders and more fully appreciating challenges experienced by such individuals. Students completing the PBSL projects evidenced decreased negative feelings and increased positive feelings toward consumers of mental health services. According to the community partners, students made valuable contributions to both the organizations and the mental health consumers served by those organizations. Students saw the activity as being challenging and rewarding.

Making Adjunct Faculty Part Of The Academic Community, Karen R. Krupar

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Hundreds of adjunct faculty in four-year colleges and universities teach over 45% of the courses, especially in the general education programs, but few institutions have chosen to construct adjunct faculty development programs that integrate these faculty into the instructional community. Metropolitan State College of Denver, recipient ofa Title III grant to build an adjunct development program received a TIA-CREF Hesburgh Award of Excellence in 2001 for its innovative adjunct support activities. This chapter articulates the features of this successful program and its effect on the adjunct faculty cohort at the college.

Bibliography, Volume 22 (2004)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 22 (2004) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

doi: 10.3998/tia.17063888.0022.023