Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Finding A Fulcrum: Positioning Ourselves To Leverage Change, Laurie L. Grupp, Deandra Little

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational developers are called to serve as thought leaders, change agents, and advocates while also working to fulfill the teaching and learning mission of their centers. Research on change leadership informs our understanding of the work, yet may not go far enough to describe the complex roles, responsibilities, and positions of educational developers. In this study, we analyze survey and interview data to explore the meta-competencies that guide the work of developers as they navigate a shifting landscape and serve as “levers” for change.

Impostor Phenomenon In Educational Developers, Kristin J. Rudenga, Emily O. Gravett

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

While impostor syndrome or impostor phenomenon (“IP”) is prevalent in higher education, with known negative effects, no study has yet investigated the experiences of IP among educational developers. After first reviewing prior research on the phenomenon, we use survey data to describe its frequency and manifestations within educational development. We identify factors and experiences that contribute to IP among educational developers, focusing on those that are distinct to the field. We conclude with suggestions for future research and broad recommendations for educational development as a field to tackle this problem.

The Fearless Teaching Framework: A Model To Synthesize Foundational Education Research For University Instructors, Alice E. Donlan, Sandra M. Loughlin, Virginia L. Byrne

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

There is often a disconnect between the unit of analysis in rigorous education research, and the types of recommendations that instructors find the most useful to improve their teaching. Research often focuses on narrow slices of the student experience, and university instructors often require broad recommendations. We present the Fearless Teaching Framework to address this gap between research and practice. In this framework, we define four pieces of effective teaching: classroom climate, course content, teaching practices, and assessment strategies. We argue that these are appropriate areas of focus for instructor growth, based on their relations to student engagement.

Nefdc Conference Program, Fall 2018, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Conference Programs

New England Faculty Development Consortium

The Challenges of 21st Century Education

November 9, 2018

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester, Massachusetts, United States

Keynote address: Four-Dimensional Education for the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Charles Fadel

Conference Co-Chairs: Peter Shea and Marc Ebenfield

Proposal Co-Chairs: Marc Ebenfield and Peter Shea

President: Marc Ebenfield

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 31, Fall 2018, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

President's message: Faculty development in the 21st century, Marc Ebenfield

NEFDC publication schedule change

“I will forever be changed”: Encouraging meaning-making in service-learning, Isabelle Jenkins, MDiv, Virginia Ryan, Ph.D., and Michelle Sterk Barrett, Ph.D. - College of the Holy Cross

Call for proposals for the spring 2019 conference

Lessons from the mat: 17 things being a new yoga student taught me about effective, student-centered teaching, Jen Girgen, J.D., Ph.D. - Salem State University

Connected: Building meaningful relationships for online learning, Sara Donaldson, Ed.D., Karen Caldwell, Ed.D., and Carey Borkoski, Ph.D., Ed.D. - Johns Hopkins University

Defamiliarizing the familiar: Challenging …

High Cognitive Demand Examples In Precalculus: Examining The Work And Knowledge Entailed In Enactment, Erica R. Miller

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Historically, pass rates in undergraduate precalculus courses have been dismally low and the teaching practices and knowledge of university instructors have been understudied. To help improve teaching effectiveness and student outcomes in undergraduate precalculus courses, I have studied the cognitive demand of enacted examples. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the pedagogical work and mathematical knowledge entailed in the enactment of high cognitive demand examples in a three-part study. To answer my research questions, I conducted classroom observations as well as pre- and post-observation interviews with seven graduate student instructors at a large public R1 university in the …

Applying Eye-Tracking Research In Education And Communication To Agricultural Education And Communication: A Review Of Literature, Holli R. Leggette, Amber H. Rice, Candis Carraway, Marshall A. Baker, Nathan W. Conner

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

The purpose of this integrative literature review was to synthesize the eye-tracking literature related to education and communication in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) to formulate a conceptual model and develop a research agenda that guides eye-tracking research in agricultural education and communication. To do so, we reviewed the literature to identify basic elements of eye-tracking research, examined specific variables related to eye-tracking research, and synthesized the findings into a conceptual model. We found and reviewed 77 articles published between 2010 and 2016 within education (56) and communication (21). Research implications for agricultural education included an examination of classroom …

Role Of Mentoring, Coaching, And Advising In Developing Leadership: Ecditors' Introduction To Special Issue, Lindsay J. Hastings, Cindy Kane

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

This volume is designed to guide leadership educators and institutional leaders who are looking to cultivate strong student outcomes in leadership learning through the increased involvement of adults and peers. The goal of this volume is to explore diverse types of relationships (mentoring, coaching, advising), the focus of these relationships (i.e., short-term or long-term, personal development, or leadership behavior modification), and the unique leadership development outcomes expected from these diverse relationships. Mentoring, coaching, and advising are often confused as similar developmental tools, yet their scope, purpose, and utility in leadership development are distinct. This volume will provide the guidance and …

Toward Learning And Justice, Through Love, Isis Artze-Vega

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter responds to the call for educational developers to isolate the one perspective that guides our work. It retraces the author’s career steps, seeking the origin of love as a guiding principle, and describes its evolution and application during her career. To do so, the piece includes a theoretical perspective on love and argues that its utility as a characterizing perspective for our profession stems from its significance to learning and justice. It suggests the timeliness and urgency of elevating the role of love in our field, notes associated risks and rewards, and suggests resources for doing so.

The Idea Of Educational Development: An Historical Perspective, Laura Cruz

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This essay examines the idea of educational development, inspired both in content and approach by John Henry Newman’s influential 19th century work on the idea of a university.

Changing The Lens: The Role Of Reframing In Educational Development, Donna E. Ellis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

One core concept in educational development is reframing, which involves new labels, new perspectives, and the examination of assumptions. In this reflective article, I explore the use of reframing at different levels of educational development work via the 4M framework (micro, meso, macro, and mega) in an effort to assess the utility of this concept to practitioners. I conclude that reframing has utility at all levels and posit why it may assist with change management. Connections to educational developer identity are also explored.

From The Editors: The One Thing: A Pluralistic Approach To Research And Practice, Gary Hawkins, Brian Smentkowski

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

From the editors of volume 37, issue 1 of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development (2018), Gary Hawkins of Hampshire College and Brian Smentkowski of the University of Idaho.

Equity-Minded Faculty Development, Aeron Haynie

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A governing principle of equity-minded faculty development is a commitment to supporting marginalized populations who may feel unwelcome in academia: from minority college students to first-generation graduate students to faculty of color. Faculty development should encourage faculty to notice inequities and not dismiss them as student’s individual failures; to examine institutional data on student, graduate student, and faculty achievement patterns; and to collaborate with other campus partners on interventions. As we work with faculty to develop strategies to ensure all students can succeed, we must also enact the same empowering, strengths- based practices we promote.

Seeking And Doing Justice Through Educational Development, Wayne Jacobson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

One thing that has shaped my understanding of educational development more than anything else is a commitment to seeking and doing justice. I see this commitment as the animating force that breathes life into the best of what educational developers do and the core value that continually challenges us to do better. In the many contexts in which we work, the one thing that defines the role of educational development is the recognition that we need to continually examine and improve how well our institutional systems are doing justice to the communities that we are trusting them to serve.

“Once A Scientist…”: Disciplinary Approaches And Intellectual Dexterity In Educational Development, Katherine Kearns, Molly Hatcher, Mara Bollard, Michele Dipietro, Devon Donohue-Bergeler, Leslie E. Drane, Elizabeth Luoma, Andrew E. Phuong, Laura Thain, Mary C. Wright

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The authors claim that disciplinary epistemologies—disciplinary habits of mind and ways of thinking—offer productive lenses for observing teaching practices. Furthermore, they argue that educational developers who draw from multiple epistemologies in combination provide rich evidence with regard to teaching and learning and can speak to academic colleagues from an array of disciplines. Clarity is provided for career paths in educational development for colleagues from academic disciplines who are contemplating part- or full-time work in a teaching center. The authors hope that this opening collection develops into a toolkit and area of inquiry about disciplinary approaches to the practice of educational …

Good To Great In Educational Development, Bruce Kelley

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We have been asked to describe One Thing that guides us as educational developers. For me, this is the strategic planning process described in Jim Collins’ Good to Great (2001). Collins provides a model that helps leaders navigate through change to build effective and influential centers. This framework has allowed me to develop a successful center despite periods of transition and uncertainty. Much of what I experience in my professional life is good. The challenge is to take it to the next level—to turn good into great. Collins’ strategic model provides a roadmap for how this might be accomplished.

The Four Rs: Guiding Ctls With Responsiveness, Relationships, Resources, And Research, Mary C. Wright, Debra Rudder Lohe, Tershia Pinder-Grover, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We offer a framework for guiding an effective Center for Teaching and Learning: Responsiveness, Relationships, Resources, and Research. Our intention is to fill a gap in the literature on guidance for CTL leadership. These four principles are grounded in both scholarly and experiential evidence, drawing from multiple CTL directors with a range of experience levels at different center and institutional types.

Mentoring Graduate Student Staff In A Center For Teaching And Learning: Goals And Aligned Practices, Kristin Rudenga, Joseph Lambert

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Graduate student staff (GSS) positions, commonly used in centers for teaching and learning (CTL) to expand capacity and extend disciplinary connections on campus, also offer the potential for a meaningful developmental experience for the students who fill them. Drawing on the literature on graduate student mentorship, we lay out goals and aligned practices to inform the mentoring of GSS in CTL aimed at advancing their pedagogical, professional, and personal development. Such deliberate attention to mentoring in a CTL context can enhance the experience and development of the GSS themselves, as well as improve the work of the CTL.

Measuring Transparency: A Learning-Focused Assignment Rubric, Michael S. Palmer, Emily O. Gravett, Jennifer Lafleur

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

By combining recommendations for effective assignment design with principles of transparency and the value-expectancy theory of achievement motivation, we developed a rubric capable of for assessing the quality and guiding the design of assignment descriptions. This rubric defines criteria characteristic of well-designed assignments; breaks the criteria down into concrete, measurable components; and suggests what evidence for each component might look like. While the full rubric is valid for major, signature assignments, it can accommodate a diverse range. It can also provide summative, quantitative information to educational developers for research and formative, qualitative feedback to instructors for gauging the quality of …

A Minimalist Model Of New Faculty Mentoring: Why Asking For Less Gives More, Heather Lobban Viravong, Mark Schneider

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We describe a research-based mentoring program for new full-time faculty at a small residential college, which emphasizes the empowerment of the new faculty themselves to identify and obtain the resources they need for success. In our model, the mentor takes on a role of primarily providing accountability, easing the burden on mentors, thereby making for a more sustainable program. Our mixed methods assessment of the program suggests that, paradoxically, these lessened expectations foster closer personal relationships between mentor and protégé than might have occurred if that were a programmatic expectation.

Transforming The Classroom At Traditionally White Institutions To Make Black Lives Matter, Frank Truitt, Chayla Haynes, Saran Stewart

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In recent years, many college campuses across the United States witnessed a significant increase in campus activism regarding the range of experiences and conditions facing racially minoritized communities in higher education. As critical and inclusive pedagogues and scholars, we embrace the belief that a focus on making Black Lives Matter in the classrooms of traditionally White institutions (TWIs) provides educators with the best chance to improve the educational outcomes of all students. In this essay, we examine seven principles of critical and inclusive pedagogies that have the potential to make Black Lives Matter in TWI classrooms and identify several implications …

Workshopping A Workshop: Collaborative Design In Educational Development, Eleanor V. H. Vandegrift, Amy B. Mulnix, Jennifer R. Yates, S. Raj Chaudhury

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Working remotely and collaboratively, our interdisciplinary team created an educational development workshop, Thinking Skills for the 21st Century: Teaching for Transfer, in which participants not only experience, apply, and reflect on teaching across educational settings but also connect this work to principles that have been demonstrated by learning science to support the transfer of knowledge. We used backward design to develop the workshop and evidence-based pedagogies in its implementation. We facilitated the workshop at two different national meetings for distinct audiences and also as part of an on-campus faculty development program. Here, we report on the workshop development and revision, …

Nutr 250: Human Nutrition And Metabolism-A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Karsten Koehler

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The purpose of this portfolio was to purposefully introduce and evaluate activities that are aimed at improving student learning and performance in NUTR250 – Human Metabolism, a large lecture-based 200-level course. Activities were designed to improve class preparation and ascertain student learning beyond exams (objective 1), provide time to review class material (objective 2), balance material related to concepts and knowledge (objective 3), and assess the effectiveness of activities (objective 4). To address objective 1, students completed weekly prequizzes, which improved student reading and preparation prior to class in approximately 2 out of 3 students. On average, students spend 33±27 …

A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio: Larc 497/597: Waste Ecologies, Catherine De Almeida

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This teaching portfolio presents a summary of my teaching efforts, course objectives, outcomes, and student learning for the first offering of the course LARC 497/597: Waste Ecologies. As a new professional elective course open to all upper level undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Spring 2018, participating in the Peer Review of Teaching program enabled me to develop the course through backwards design by matching course objectives with specific assignments and exercises that tracked student learning. Although this marked the first time teaching this course, it integrates my research trajectory of designing with waste. The Peer …

Distinguishing Mentoring, Coaching, And Advising For Leadership Development, Lindsay J. Hastings, Cindy Kane

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

Mentoring, coaching, and advising are often confused as similar interactions with developmental intent, yet their scope, purpose, and utility in leadership development are distinct. The purpose of this chapter is to provide clarity as to what constitutes mentoring, coaching, and advising for leadership development and to compare and contrast each relationship type.

Developing the “whole” student often requires identifying unique needs and helping students recognize when they need mentoring, coaching, and/or advising. While mentoring, coaching, and advising are all developmental interactions, their scope, purpose, and utility in leadership development are distinct. The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the …

Soci 101: Introduction To Sociology—A Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio, Kelsy Burke

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio targets the Spring 2018 semester of SOCI 101: Introduction to Sociology, a large-enrollment course that combines lecture and recitation classes. It describes course objectives (my goals for the course); an overview of course content and a description of the students enrolled (the target audience); teaching methods (assignments and classroom activities); and assessment of student learning (analyzing quantitative and qualitative data of student performance). In order to evaluate course objectives and their relationship to teaching methods and student learning, I collected data from student feedback following each exam (a post-exam questionnaire). I then compared this feedback with assignment …

A Benchmark Portfolio Evaluating Sped 201: Introduction To Special Education, J. Marc Goodrich

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Agri 115: Biotechnology – Food, Health And Environment, A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Leah Sandall

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Course Portfolio For Math 407 Mathematics For High School Teaching: Refining Conceptual Understanding In A Mathematics Course For Pre-Service Teachers, Alexandra Seceleanu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention in this portfolio is to present my approach to teaching an upper-level mathematics course for pre-service secondary level mathematics teachers. Several teaching strategies are discussed in the context of designing a coherent approach to this course, which emphasizes the need for conceptual reasoning above all other goals. These strategies are evaluated and assessed in connection to the learning outcomes using samples of student work from the course.

Also presented are samples of course materials that were used to lead students through an organized discussion of the relevant concepts. These materials convey some basic mathematical knowledge and therefore may …

Sped 415/415a Reading And Writing Disabilities: A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Judith Wilson

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio explores four aspects of the lecture and practicum that comprise the coursework for students learning to tutor children with reading and writing disabilities. The first aspect is the alignment of the course objectives, teaching methods, assessments and scores. The second aspect is innovation in curricula for tutoring, explored through student response to surveys at the end of the tutoring session. The third aspect is student experience of participating in the course at mid-point and suggestions for improvement of course delivery, gathered by a mid-semester survey. The fourth aspect is topics and content students would like to see added …