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Higher Education Administration

2013

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Articles 31 - 45 of 45

Full-Text Articles in Higher Education and Teaching

A Consultations Tracking Database System For Improving Faculty Development Consultation Services, Jason Rhode, Murali Krishnamurthi Jan 2013

A Consultations Tracking Database System For Improving Faculty Development Consultation Services, Jason Rhode, Murali Krishnamurthi

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The role of the facuity development center in supporting the academic environment of the institution often includes creating or sustaining a culture of teaching excellence, responding to individual faculty members’ needs, and advancing new initiatives in teaching and learning (Sorcinelli, Austin, Eddy, and Beach, 2006). The varied programs, resources, and services offered routinely result from efforts to meet the expressed needs of faculty. While workshops and seminars are effective for introducing new pedagogical approaches or emerging technologies, faculty often have unique questions within specialized contexts that cannot be fully addressed in a large group setting. In such instances, a more …

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Using Undergraduates To Prepare International Teaching Assistants For The American Classroom: Development Of Senior Faculty, Warren E. Christian, Brian J. Rybarczyk Jan 2013

Using Undergraduates To Prepare International Teaching Assistants For The American Classroom: Development Of Senior Faculty, Warren E. Christian, Brian J. Rybarczyk

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter describes how undergraduates may be used in the training of international teaching assistants (IT As) in three ways: as conversation partners, classroom consultants, and guest instructors. Increasing the contact between undergraduates and international graduate students before they meet in the classroom as students and instructors can benefit each group. After a brief review of the literature that explores the chal lenges IT As face in the American university classroom, we describe the roles that undergraduates may perform in training IT As, explain the benefits to both IT As and undergraduates, and provide a list of best practices for …

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The Reacting To The Past Pedagogy And Engaging The First–Year Student, Paula Kay Lazrus, Gretchen Kreahling Mckay Jan 2013

The Reacting To The Past Pedagogy And Engaging The First–Year Student, Paula Kay Lazrus, Gretchen Kreahling Mckay

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter investigates the value of the Reacting to the Past pedagogy with regard to engaging first-year students. In recent years, calls to improve student engagement and active learning techniques have grown, and few have been as successful in producing the desired results as Reacting to the Past. This chapter investigates why Reacting is so suc cessful in meeting the goals of high-impact practices that increase student engagement and learning. We also examine how the Reacting pedagogy and first-year seminars encourage problem solving, critical thinking, and writing among students.

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Envisioning Creative Collaboration Between Faculty And Technologists, Gail A. Rathbun, Sally Kuhlenschmidt, David Sacks Jan 2013

Envisioning Creative Collaboration Between Faculty And Technologists, Gail A. Rathbun, Sally Kuhlenschmidt, David Sacks

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers must often mediate conflicts resulting from differences between seemingly mutually exclusive cultures that university technolo gists and university teachers inhabit. Activity theory embraces workplace conflict as normal and as contributing to organizing health and adapta tion, in contrast to a functionalist approach that focuses on how to maintain system equilibrium. Engestrom’s (1987) interpretation of activity theory provides a theoretically informed framework for under standing different forms of human activity, mediated by culturally mol ded rules, values, and division of labor, without suffering from the polarizing effects of an us-versus-them approach.

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Program Planning, Prioritizing, And Improvement: A Simple Heuristic, Peter Felten, Deandra Little, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens, Michael Reder Jan 2013

Program Planning, Prioritizing, And Improvement: A Simple Heuristic, Peter Felten, Deandra Little, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens, Michael Reder

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

As educational developers working with multiple constituencies and demands on our time, how can we efficiently and creatively improve our programming and prioritize our efforts? In this chapter, we offer a simple heuristic to prompt quick yet generative examination of our goals or programs in relationship to three key characteristics of effective educa tional development on three different institutional levels. We then describe uses and applications of the tool and reflective process, which allow developers to efficiently gain insight into their work and effectively frame priorities for planning and improvement.

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From Outsiders To Insiders: Graduate Assistant Development At State Comprehensive Universities, Kathleen M. Brennan, Laura Cruz, Freya B. Kinner Jan 2013

From Outsiders To Insiders: Graduate Assistant Development At State Comprehensive Universities, Kathleen M. Brennan, Laura Cruz, Freya B. Kinner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We assess graduate assistant competency in key skills that employers in and outside of academia value and examine whether these skills are developed in the context of the graduate assistantship (GA) at a specific state comprehensive university. The GAs in our sample rate themselves as competent or very competent on all skills and report their GA experience somewhat influenced or influenced their skill competencies. Furthermore, perception of how one’s graduate assistantship influenced skill compe tency was significantly associated with perceived skill competency level. Based on these findings, we qiscuss distinct gaps that could be addressed to facilitate GA development at …

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Connect To Learning: Using E-Portfolios In Hybrid Professional Development, Bret Eynon, Judit Török, Laura M. Gambino Jan 2013

Connect To Learning: Using E-Portfolios In Hybrid Professional Development, Bret Eynon, Judit Török, Laura M. Gambino

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Based at LaGuardia Community College, the Connect to Learning (C2L) project has developed an innovative hybrid professional development model using e-portfolios, online conversations, and face-to-(ace meetings to support campus leadership teams as they strengthen e-portfolio initiatives on twenty-five diverse campuses nationwide. The C2L model adapts a conceptual framework of inquiry, reflection, and integration to a hybrid context and addresses the challenge of local professional devel opment leadership for classroom and institutional change.

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Mobile App Learning Lounge: A Scalable And Sustainable Model For Twenty-First-Century Learning, Michael H. Truong Jan 2013

Mobile App Learning Lounge: A Scalable And Sustainable Model For Twenty-First-Century Learning, Michael H. Truong

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Twenty-first-century learning is increasingly defined by the use of mobile devices and applications. Centers for teaching and learning can help facuity and students acquire greater familiarity and fluency with just-in-time learning using mobile apps by creating informal, inviting, and informative learning spaces on their campuses. This chapter features the Mobile App Learning Lounge (MALL), a low-cost, high impact initiative of a center for teaching and learning at a California research university. Beyond sharing how MALL works, this chapter offers practical suggestions and strategies for replicating a similar ini tiative at other institutions.

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Navigating The New Normal, Terre H. Allen, Holly Harbinger, Donald J. Para Jan 2013

Navigating The New Normal, Terre H. Allen, Holly Harbinger, Donald J. Para

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty socialization and satisfaction are critical to retaining quality teacher/scholars and key to a well-functioning teaching-intensive, research-driven university (Ponjuan, Conley, and Trower, 2011). This chapter reports on a year-long research project aimed at investigating faculty work life and satisfaction at a large, urban, comprehensive state university. Our goal was to use empirical evidence to understand and support faculty work under the "new normal" conditions characterized by reduced state funding and increased faculty workload. We discuss the results in terms of a revitalized direction for facuity and explore directions for organizational development within the context of the new normal.

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Measuring Student Learning To Document Faculty Teaching Effectiveness, Linda B. Nilson Jan 2013

Measuring Student Learning To Document Faculty Teaching Effectiveness, Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Recent research has questioned the validity of student ratings as proxy measures for how much students learn, and this learning is a commonly accepted meaning of faculty teaching effectiveness. Student ratings capture student satisfaction more than anything else. Moreover, the overriding assessment criterion in accreditation and accountability-that applied to programs, schools, and institutions-is student learning, so it only makes sense to evaluate faculty by the same standard. This chapter explains and evaluates course-level measures of student learning based on data that are easy for facuity to collect and administrators to use.

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Keeping The Fire Burning: Strategies To Support Senior Faculty, Michael J. Zeig, Roger G. Baldwin Jan 2013

Keeping The Fire Burning: Strategies To Support Senior Faculty, Michael J. Zeig, Roger G. Baldwin

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Recent reports indicate that at some colleges and universities, as many as one in three professors are age sixty or older. This increase in senior faculty raises the question of what institutions do to support this large and important cohort. Historically, faculty development programs have focused on early-career faculty, with less attention paid to more seasoned professors. Based on a national web-based investigation, this chapter reviews the strategies some institutions have implemented to support senior faculty. It also provides recommendations for how senior faculty and their administrator colleagues can provide new meaning and purpose to this phase of academic life.

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Student Consultants Of Color And Faculty Members Working Together Toward Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Alison Cook-Sather, Praise Agu Jan 2013

Student Consultants Of Color And Faculty Members Working Together Toward Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Alison Cook-Sather, Praise Agu

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Through positioning undergraduate students as pedagogical consultants to college faculty, Students as Learners and Teachers is a program that provides reconceptualized "counterspaces" for students and facuity members with whom they work. In our study of the experiences of consultants of color, we found that those students and their faculty partners used program counterspaces to explore links between their lived identities and pedagogical commitments and to share authority and responsibility in developing culturally sustaining pedagogy. In this chapter we report on participants’ experiences in these collaborations and how they legitimate the knowledge of students of color in faculty learning.

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Tomorrow's Professor Today: Tracking Perceptions Of Preparation For Future Faculty Competencies, Michael S. Palmer, Deandra Little Jan 2013

Tomorrow's Professor Today: Tracking Perceptions Of Preparation For Future Faculty Competencies, Michael S. Palmer, Deandra Little

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The University of Virginia’s Tomorrow’s Professor Today (TPT) pro gram is a broadly conceived graduate student professional development program designed to facilitate the transition from student to academic professional. Begun in 2005 in response to the recommendations of a number of national reform initiatives, TPT focuses on improving pre paredness in three key areas: teaching, research, and service. We describe the key elements of the program and ongoing assessment efforts. Pre- and postprogram participant surveys from the first eight years show that TPT is improving perceptions of preparedness in twenty-one competencies tracked; follow-up studies support long-term impact.

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Expanding The Pipeline For Latino Bilingual Teachers: A Mixed Methods Study, Amabilia Valverde Valenzuela Jan 2013

Expanding The Pipeline For Latino Bilingual Teachers: A Mixed Methods Study, Amabilia Valverde Valenzuela

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Current education reform in the US requires teacher preparation programs to educate future teachers according to the certification standards set forth by each state. Certification for teaching in Texas requires that preservice teachers successfully complete a series of comprehensive examinations in their teaching fields and in professional knowledge before entering full-time teaching. However, researchers have argued (Gitomer, Brown, & Bonett, 2011) that the use of standardized tests often raises concerns about adverse impacts on members of minority groups, who often have lower test scores. The purpose of this research was twofold: First, to analyze factors that predict Mexican American teacher …

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Influences Of Theory And Practice In The Development Of Servant Leadership In Students, Jennifer Massey, Tracey Sulak, Rishi Sriram Dec 2012

Influences Of Theory And Practice In The Development Of Servant Leadership In Students, Jennifer Massey, Tracey Sulak, Rishi Sriram

Rishi Sriram, Ph.D.

This paper explores the extent to which the leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities of upper-year student leaders on one private, United States college campus developed as a consequence of their education and experience as an extended orientation leader. Findings reveal that compared to leadership education in the classroom, leadership development is limited by experiences that do not include intentional reflection. We identify key elements in pedagogical frameworks that support and impede the leadership development of students and propose strategies to enhance the learning outcomes established for leadership development.

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