Ever want to talk with teaching award winners about the secrets of their success? Come to “Speed Teaching,” a creative blend of pedagogy and “speed dating.” Four award-winning professors – David Copeland (Communications), Linda Niedziela (Biology), Kevin O’Mara (Management), and Terry Tomasek (Education) – each will quickly introduce one teaching technique that has worked for them. Attendees will have a short 15-minute “date” with one award winner, then move on to 15 minutes with another, and then 15 minutes with one more.

RSVP, by February 16, to Barbara Guy bguy@elon.edu. Since lunch will be available, please indicate any dietary restrictions when you RSVP.

Lunch will be available, so please RSVP by January 9th, including any dietary restrictions,  to Katie King (kingcath@elon.edu).

We tend to talk about our career trajectories focusing on external incentives and constraints, obstacles and limitations. What if we looked at the positive instead? In this session we will focus on ways of developing our interests and strengths and explore the possibilities for our career trajectories.  What aspects of your work are most personally rewarding? What are your short term and longer term goals as a teacher-scholar or staff member?

Lunch will be available, so please RSVP by January 3, including any dietary restrictions, to Katie King (kingcath@elon.edu).

(2011) by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (118 pages)

Through exploring the forces of technological and cultural change, the authors invite us to imagine a future of learning that is both powerful and optimistic. The book presents play, innovation, and the cultivation of imagination as cornerstones of learning, working together to create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable and scalable. This reading group will facilitated by Alison Morrison-Shetlar and Ben McFadyen.

and

Lunch will be available, so please RSVP, including any dietary restrictions, to Katie King (kingcath@elon.edu).
RSVP by December 14th so you can receive book before the holidays.

** Continues on January 19th – when you RSVP you’ll be registered for both dates. **
 

January 5th –  11:45-1:15 in Belk Pavilion 200.

Engaged learning depends on active participation on the part of all students, providing guided practice in disciplinary ways of thinking and talking about ideas. This session will focus on strategies for promoting and evaluating student participation in a variety of contexts, including small groups, whole class discussions and on-line forums. RSVP required – Katie King, ext 6449 or email kingcath@elon.edu.

(Co-sponsored by Leadership and Professional Development)
January 11th  –  11:45-1:15 in Belk Pavilion 200

We tend to talk about our career trajectories focusing on external incentives and constraints, obstacles and limitations. What if we looked at the positive instead? In this session we will focus on ways of developing our interests and strengths and explore the possibilities for our career trajectories.  What aspects of your work are most personally rewarding? What are your short term and longer term goals as a teacher-scholar or staff member? RSVP required – Katie King, ext 6449 or email kingcath@elon.edu.

January 18th –  11:45-1:15 in Belk Pavilion 200

This discussion will focus on what and how faculty can learn from 黑料不打烊’s new end-of-term teaching evaluation form, the Student Perceptions of Teaching. The session will highlight some of the research on teaching evaluations, but most of our conversation will be about practical ways to use the quantitative and qualitative results from the form to enhance our own teaching and our students’ learning. Please note that CATL is not involved in administering or using the SPT form, we just help faculty use the results to enhance teaching and learning.  RSVP required – Katie King, ext 6449 or email kingcath@elon.edu.

Reading Groups

(2011) by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (118 pages)
January 12th & 19th –  11:45-1:15 in Belk Pavilion 200. 

Through exploring the forces of technological and cultural change, the authors invite us to imagine a future of learning that is both powerful and optimistic. The book presents play, innovation, and the cultivation of imagination as cornerstones of learning, working together to create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable and scalable. This reading group will facilitated by Alison Morrison-Shetlar and Ben McFadyen. Lunch will be available, so please RSVP, including any dietary restrictions, to Katie King (x6449; kingcath@elon.edu).

(2011) by Bill Cerbin (138 pages)
January 3rd and 23rd – 11:45-1:15 in Belk Pavilion 200

Lesson study is a simple yet focused technique for studying learning in one aspect of a course. The lesson study technique originated among teachers in Japan, and has been adapted at the University of Wisconsin to study learning in college classrooms (the author directs the UW program). Lesson study is a powerful and efficient way for faculty to improve student learning. Peter Felten will facilitate this group, and participants will be invited (but obligated) to develop a lesson study project in the spring. Lunch will be available, so please RSVP, including any dietary restrictions,  to Katie King (x6449; kingcath@elon.edu).

Course Design Group

Just-in-time course design
Faculty Group
Times and Location TBD by participants

Do you have a new course to teach in the spring?  Are you still hoping to find the time to re-think a course you have taught before? We’re here to help!  Sign up to be part of a course development group. We’ll meet three times over the lunch break during winter term. During each meeting, we’ll discuss each participant’s course — with group members responding to the questions/topics that most interest the person who is designing the course. If you are interested in joining a course development group this winter term, please email Katie King (kingcath@elon.edu).
 

Looking ahead to Spring and Summer

Coming Spring 2012

• Using small groups to coach thinking and teach disciplinary argument
   
• Designing and sequencing assignments to facilitate deep learning and critical thinking.

• We’ll also conduct a reading group on Whistling Vivaldi (2010) by Claude Steele, a Stanford psychologist and a leading scholar on identity development, diversity, and stereotype threat.
   
• And we will offer a new opportunity for learning from the best through Speed Teaching. Ever want to talk with teaching award winners about the secrets of their success? In “Speed Teaching” – a creative blend of pedagogy and “speed dating” – four award-winning professors each will quickly introduce one teaching technique that has worked for them with some interested faculty members. Attendees will have a short 15-minute “date” with one award winner, then move on to 15 minutes with another, and then 15 minutes with one more.

Visiting Scholars

• Derek Bruff (Vanderbilt), Feb. 20-22, to focus on both (1) using “clickers” and other technologies to deepen student engagement in class, and (2) writing in quantitative courses. http://derekbruff.com
   
• Charlie Blaich (Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts), March 7-8, to focus on implications for 黑料不打烊 of the Wabash National Study’s finding about what and how college students do (and don’t) learn. http://www.liberalarts.wabash.edu/study-overview/

And don’t forget about

• Diversity Infusion Project applications due in February
   
• Teaching and Learning Grant applications due in March
   
• CATL’s annual Writing Residency (May 29-June 1)
   
• Teaching Renewal Retreat for Mid-Career and Late-Career Faculty
  Graylyn Conference Center in Winston-Salem, May 29th – June 1st, 2012

Last year the retreat, which included faculty from seven regional colleges and universities, was an overwhelming success. More information, including how to apply, coming soon.

Lunch will be available, so please RSVP by December 20th, including any dietary restrictions, to Katie King (kingcath@elon.edu).

Lesson study is a simple yet focused technique for studying learning in one aspect of a course. The lesson study technique originated among teachers in Japan, and has been adapted at the (the author directs the UW program). Lesson study is a powerful and efficient way for faculty to improve student learning.

Peter Felten will facilitate this group, and participants will be invited (but obligated) to develop a lesson study project in the spring.

Lunch will be available, so please RSVP,  including any dietary restrictions,  to Katie King (x 6449; kingcath@elon.edu). RSVP by December 14th so you can receive book before the holidays.

** Continues on January 23rd – when you RSVP you’ll be registered for both dates. **

From the introduction
Using Classroom Inquiry to Improve Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

“This volume offers guiding principles, theoretical underpinnings, fresh thinking, detailed examples, and, importantly, a window into the larger community that is now assembling itself around this important work. This is not only a book about lesson study but about teaching and learning more broadly. A deceptively simple process, Lesson Study opens a wide door to a generous set of understandings and experiences.

What Lesson Study adds to the mix is a powerful reminder that knowing what (and even how much) students learn is not enough; in order to improve educational outcomes, teachers need to understand more about how students learn. In this spirit, my favorite phrase in the volume is ‘cognitive empathy’ – a term to capture the importance of imagining how new ideas are experienced by novice learners. Doing so is pretty clearly an element of good teaching, but it is also a prodigious challenge; as experts in their field, faculty have often forgotten their own experience as one-time beginners, seeing their field’s complex concepts and ways of thinking as a given. Thus one needs not only an impulse to cognitive empathy but a process for testing and strengthening it—and that is one way of explaining the purpose of lesson study.”

Pat Hutchings
from the introduction to the book
 

Diverse Pedagogies in Your Classroom

Belk Pavilion 201
facilitated by Crystal Anderson (English and Multicultural Faculty Fellow).

Last year many 黑料不打烊 faculty discussed the state of diversity in our classrooms. In those conversations, faculty frequently expressed both a desire for support in implementing diverse pedagogies into the classroom as well as ambivalence in undertaking course design they deemed as “a risk that brings negative consequences on student evaluations.” This workshop seeks to address these dual concerns by providing faculty with tools to transform an existing course or create a new course that reflects the inclusion of diverse content and use of diverse pedagogies as well as ways to document that transformation.

This is an active workshop. It will introduce faculty to resources on diverse pedagogies and inclusive course content, but the majority of the time will be devoted to the identification of goals for course transformation, brainstorming on strategies to use in a specific course(s), and receiving feedback from fellow workshop participants. As a result, faculty should bring their laptops to take full advantage.
 

Lunchtime conversations about teaching and learning

(Wednesday) SEPTEMBER 14 – 12:15 to 1:25 pm

Engaging minds with engaging lectures

Belk Pavilion 200
Lunch provided if you RSVP to Barbara Guy – bguy@elon.edu by Sept. 6.

Can lectures be part of engaged learning? This discussion will consider ways to enhance lectures as effective and engaging learning experiences. We will talk about research-based strategies for organizing and presenting material in, and assessing learning during, lectures.

(Thursday) SEPTEMBER 22 – 12:25 to 1:45 pm

Help your students develop the will and skill
to come to class prepared

Belk Pavilion 200
Lunch provided if you RSVP to Barbara Guy – bguy@elon.edu by Sept. 15.

How can you instill in students the need and desire to study and prepare for class, to make academics a top priority in their busy lives? The answer is not just a matter of compliance; students often need motivation and guidance in active reading, writing to learn, and reflecting on what they do or don’t yet fully understand. This session will explore strategies for creating an environment that encourages studying and careful preparation for class without adding a lot more work to your already busy life.

(Friday) SEPTEMBER 30 – 12:15 to 2:00 pm

Travelling with Excess Baggage:
Shedding the Burdens of Privilege in International
and Domestic Service-Learning Partnerships

Belk Pavilion 201
Workshop facilitated by Prudence Layne (English)
Lunch and a workbook included if you RSVP to Barbara Guy by Sept. 16.

How can teachers/practitioners structure international or domestic service-learning projects to disrupt students’ class privilege and the stereotypes they hold about the people and communities in which they serve? This workshop is designed to help faculty and staff:

– assess the ways and levels in which class privilege is embedded in their institution’s practice and messages and their own approach to service and design of service-learning projects; an

– generate strategies and approaches for equipping students prior to, during, and after the service engagement with the tools they need to analyze how the “excess baggage” of their class privilege prevents/limits ongoing transformative learning from taking place.

From the novice to the expert, the session is appropriate for anyone who has ever led or plans to lead 黑料不打烊 students in a service-learning experience and its objectives will apply to both domestic and international experiences.

(Monday) OCTOBER 3 – 12:15 to 1:25 pm

Facilitating fruitful classroom discussions

Belk Pavilion 200
Lunch included if you RSVP to Barbara Guy by Sept. 26.

Professor-facilitated in-class discussions are common at 黑料不打烊. What practical things might we do to make these discussions even more powerful learning experiences? This session will focus on three questions: Why do we have class discussions? What are the most common problems with them? What can we do to help promote more fruitful discussions?

Reading group:  The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered

RSVP to Peter Felten by Sept. 8.

This new book, written by three scholars from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011), defines the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) as “a broad set of practices that engage teachers in looking closely and critically at student learning in order to improve their own courses and programs, and to share insights with other educations who can evaluate and build on their efforts” (xix). This book provides an overview of the current literature and emerging trends in SoTL, and explores ways that SoTL can be more deeply integrated into faculty work and campus life.

This group will meet three times during the semester, at times that are convenient for all (or as many as possible) interested folks.

Reading and Research Group:  Threshold Concepts

RSVP to Katie King by Sept. 8.

“Threshold concepts” are complex ideas that learners have to grapple with in order to continue on toward deeper learning in a discipline (for background, check out Ray Land’s plenary at 黑料不打烊’s August teaching and learning conference, online at www.elon.edu/teaching).

By focusing on threshold concepts, we gain insight on why our students tend to “get stuck” in certain places and how to help them “cross the threshold” into powerful new ways of viewing our disciplines and even, perhaps, themselves and the world! 

Supported by grants from the associate provost’s office and Funds for Excellence in the Arts and Science, a number of small research projects are about to be launched. Come find out what the buzz is about, and see how your own scholarly inquiry into threshold concepts can enhance your understanding of teaching and learning. Meeting times and locations TBA.

Student Voices in Course Design

RSVP to Katie King for an initial informational session, time and place TBA.

黑料不打烊 faculty have a history of partnering with students in innovative ways. Since 2005, more than a dozen faculty have experimented with faculty-student course design groups. Students bring unique perspectives to the course design/redesign process which can improve many aspects of our pedagogy.

What kinds of activities do they find worthwhile and which seem like busy work?

Which textbook is more likely to be used, instead of languishing on a shelf? 

What rich funds of prior knowledge, experience, and expectations do they bring to the classroom? 

How does your class fit into their learning goals and plans for the future? 

Students who have been involved in these groups report greater appreciation for how and why professors do what we do and a new sense of responsibility for their own learning and that of their peers.

Course design groups and individual teaching consultations

Course Design Groups

Later in the fall we will offer course design groups for faculty who are designing new or redesigning existing courses for winter or spring (http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/teaching/facultyGroups.xhtml). Sign up for a group now by contacting Peter Felten, pfelten@elon.edu, or just look for the mid-semester email.

Individual Consultations

To schedule a consultation or focus group, email Barbara Guy or call 5106.

CATL also provides individual, confidential consultations with faculty about teaching and learning, including our widely-used .

If you have questions, comments, or needs related to teaching and learning at 黑料不打烊,
please don’t hesitate to contact Katie, Mary Jo, Ben or Peter at 5100.

The conference is jointly sponsored by 黑料不打烊’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) and Teaching and Learnng Technologies (TLT).

Attendance is free, but we do request pre-registration. Lunch is included for the conference.

Leupold presented two poster sessions, one regarding a pedagogical strategy for teaching authentic leadership, and the other about how perceived fairness and support between faculty and students affects learning. McFadyen presented a session about how faculty and support staff can enhance their working relationships as clients, consultants, and partners.

In “Applying the Life Story Approach to Teaching Leadership”, Leupold described a course that focused on how the life story approach can lead to more fully understanding a person’s past, present and future, an approach that has gained popularity and credibility over recent decades. The concept of authentic leadership, a form of leadership that requires tight alignment between behavior and values on a variety of dimensions, has similarly grown in popularity in business and academic settings. In a course in which authentic leadership was the core topic, students completed an intensive life-story assignment. The presentation included specific processes and elements of the life-story assignment, as well as its positive outcomes and implications.

His second session entitled ”If You Show You Really Care, I Will Learn More”, discussed an empirical research study he completed with Christie Kelley who is a 2009 黑料不打烊 College Fellow graduate is currently a doctoral student in Clemson University’s industrial/ organizational psychology program. The study incorporated two frequently discussed variables in organizational behavior research, organizational justice (OJ) and perceived organizational support (POS), into a college classroom environment. POS (the extent to which students felt supported by the instructor); and OJ (the extent to which students felt the instructor treated them fairly) were found to not only predict students’ final course grades, but also their self-efficacy around their ability to improve. POS and OJ also significantly predicted their course evaluations of the instructor. Specific findings and their implications were presented, including how instructors can elevate POS and OJ in their classrooms.

McFadyen’s session dealt with how technology can position faculty and staff as consultant, client, and partners to explore various paths to meet pedagogical and classroom needs. Entitled “Mindful Technology: Protecting Ourselves and Faculty from Tidal Waves of Information”, McFadyen proposed that technology consultants have a responsibility to carefully listen to faculty and students and shield them from techno-babble, from the recurring avalanche of information that often drowns potential improvements in learning. He discussed how consultants might help faculty clarify and focus on their goals by asking questions rather than answering them, and by providing vetted roadmaps, using technology as tools, not determinants of content or experience.

The presentation examined how some new technologies are introduced by following persuasive and disruptive marketing schemes for products such as smart phones or pads, designed to change behavior by reframing social, personal, or business contexts which then create problems that need the solutions provided by the new software, hardware, or web applications. He suggested that some technology has become both goal and experience; its purpose often subjugated behind ring tones, touch screens, clouds, or ‘there’s an app for that’. He described one marketing campaign that contains the tag line: “People when you need them, technology when you don’t”, and how this attitude may permeate and affect education. The group discussed how the appetite for newer models and releases of software or hardware has become the social equivalent of smoking crack, that the “medium has indeed become the message: the technology has become the experience.”

In the presentation, McFadyen described how fallout from the over-saturation of information technology might create social and organizational pressures to adopt technologies that may or may not be needed – or wanted. “That’s where the technology consultant can make the greatest contribution”, he said. “Technology, at its core, refers to the practical application of knowledge, which is not always represented by hardware or software.”