"College teaching is not rocket science - it's much, much harder." Diana Laurillard, University of LondonCollege faculty, both adjunct and full-time, stand with their students at the coalface of ...learning, wishing for more to succeed and disappointed at how illusory academic success is for so many. Among the array of investments colleges are making to improve student outcomes, from predictive data analysis to enhanced advising, too little attention is paid to supporting faculty. Yet the impact of teacher and teaching on student learning is incontrovertible. Taking College Teaching Seriously: Pedagogy Matters! stands against the tide - celebrating the incredible work faculty members do each day and challenging them to expand their capacity to present their content expertise effectively. This book presents a model of embedded professional development, which capitalizes on the affordances of technology to enable groups of faculty to examine their practice in a non-evaluative context, but with a clear focus on improvement. The core of the work involves individual reflection and the design provides for an accessible way to "see" into the classrooms of discipline peers. Most importantly, the Taking College Teaching Seriously experience is not an intense one-shot, but rather a structured opportunity for a faculty member to examine and adapt practice over time and to assess the impact of changes on student learning. Faculty who have participated in the Taking College Teaching Seriously experience found it to be transformative: English Professor, Kentucky: Participating in (the work) this year has helped me to be more reflective in every single action. I constantly analyze how each session went… (it) gave me the tools to think about every minute detail of a classroom. Adjunct Math Professor, Mississippi: Speaking as an adjunct, I have valued the chance to share my teaching and get ideas from others. I can honestly say that this experience has been a lifeline of sorts this year. In a "magic wand" instructional setting, I'd wish for the kind of honest, respectful and professionally challenging discussions we have in Classroom Notebook* at weekly staff meetings.*Classroom Notebook is the Taking College Teaching Seriously online platform Math Professor, NJ: I think the continual self-evaluation and reflection allowed us to work together to brainstorm improvements and positive tweaks to be more purposeful in our classrooms as opposed to just randomly reaching in the dark for ideas and techniques in HOPE of success.Taking College Teaching Seriously: Pedagogy Matters! breaks new ground in professional development. Each faculty member is at the center of the learning experience, stimulated and supported by peers working in similar contexts. They share a desire to see more students learn deeply and find that honing their skill at adapting to the learning needs of specific classes and students allows them to realize this goal. Uniquely, Taking College Teaching Seriously illuminates the link between faculty teaching expertise and improving student outcomes.The introduction to the book examines the challenges facing faculty in higher education today and reviews the literature on teaching and learning. Chapter 1 looks at the analytical foundations for all of the model's elements, from adult learning theory to communities of practice, and Chapter 2 presents the model's theory of change. Chapter 3 describes the model in detail and Chapters 4 and 5 concern the infrastructure of the faculty collaborative community, focusing on both its interpersonal and technological dimensions. The book concludes in Chapter 6 with an assessment of the value of this approach to professional development and a call to action for faculty member engagement in this important work, so essential to both professional passion and mandate.
Jane Fried's overarching message is that higher education is based on a profoundly outdated industrial model of the purpose and delivery of learning and needs urgently to be changed. Student affairs ...professionals and academic faculty have become frustrated with the alienation of so many students from academic learning because they cannot see its connection to their lives. This book - addressed to everyone involved in helping college students learn - presents what we now know about the learning process, particularly those elements that promote behavioral change and the ability to place information in a broader context of personal meaning and long term impact. Central to its argument is that learning must be experiential and engage students holistically; that it must be grounded in brain science and an understanding of the cultural drivers of knowledge construction; that academic faculty and student affairs professionals must cooperate to help students make connections and see the implications of their learning for their lives; and that the entire learning environment needs to be integrated to reflect the organic nature of the process.A second purpose of this book is to enable student affairs professionals to articulate their own role in helping students learn. Student affairs, as a profession, has had difficulty describing its work with students as teaching because the dominant paradigm of teaching continues to suggest a classroom, an academic expert and a model of learning that is basically verbal and cognitive. Student affairs professionals who read this book will be able to understand and articulate the processes of experiential, transformative education to their academic colleagues and to help collegially design integrated learning experiences as partners with academic faculty. The book concludes with a number of brief invited chapters that describe a few emerging models and programs that illustrate Jane Fried's vision of transformative learning experiences th
This book provides instructors with a holistic way of thinking about learners, learning, and online course design. The distinctive strategies derived from an integrated framework for designing the ...online learning experience help create an experience that is more personalized, engaging, and meaningful for online learners.
This concise guidebook is intended for faculty who are interested in engaging their students and developing deep and lasting learning, but do not have the time to immerse themselves in the ...scholarship of teaching and learning. Acknowledging the growing body of peer-reviewed literature on practices that can dramatically impact teaching, this intentionally brief book:
Summarizes recent research on six of the most compelling principles in learning and teaching
Describes their application to the college classroom
Presents teaching strategies that are based on pragmatic practices
Provides annotated bibliographies and important citations for faculty who want to explore these topics further This guidebook begins with an overview of how we learn, covering such topics such as the distinction between expert and novice learners, memory, prior learning, and metacognition. The body of the book is divided into three main sections each of which includes teaching principles, applications, and related strategies - most of which can be implemented without extensive preparation.The applications sections present examples of practice across a diverse range of disciplines including the sciences, humanities, arts, and pre-professional programs. This book provides a foundation for the reader explore these approaches and methods in his or her teaching.
If you find yourself thinking or saying any of the following, this is a book you need to pick up. I know or suspect that I am underpaid, but I hate negotiating. I do everything else first and then ...write in the time left over. I'm not sure exactly what the promotion requirements are in my department. Since earning tenure, my service load has increased and my research is suffering. I don't get enough time with my family. This is a practical guide for women in academe - whether adjuncts, professors or administrators - who often encounter barriers and hostility, especially women of color, and generally carry a heavier load of service, as well as household and care responsibilities, than their male colleagues. Rena Seltzer, a respected life coach and trainer who has worked with women professors and academic leaders for many years, offers succinct advice on how you can prioritize the multiplicity of demands on your life, negotiate better, create support networks, and move your career forward. Using telling but disguised vignettes of the experiences of women she has mentored, Rena Seltzer offers insights and strategies for managing the situations that all women face - such as challenges to their authority - while also paying attention to how they often play out differently for Latinas, Black and Asian women. She covers issues that arise from early career to senior administrator positions. This is a book you can read cover to cover or dip into as you encounter concerns about time management; your authority and influence; work/life balance; problems with teaching; leadership; negotiating better; finding time to write; developing your networks and social support; or navigating tenure and promotion and your career beyond.
Co-published with Promoting learning among college students is an elusive challenge, and all the more so when faculty and students come from differing cultures. This comprehensive guide addresses the ...continuing gaps in our knowledge about the role of culture in learning; and offers an empirically-based framework and model, together with practical strategies, to assist faculty in transforming college teaching for all their students through an understanding of and teaching to their strengths.Recognizing that each student learns in culturally influenced ways, and that each instructors teaching is equally influenced by her or his background and experiences, the authors offer an approach by which teachers can progressively learn about culture while they transform their teaching through reflection and the application of new practices that enrich student learning.The key premise of the book is that deepening student learning and increasing retention and graduation rates requires teaching from a strengths based perspective that recognizes the cultural assets that students bring to higher education, and to their own learning. Derived through research and practice, the authors present their Model of Cultural Frameworks in College Teaching and Learning that highlights eight continua towards achieving the transformation of teaching, and developing more culturally balanced and inclusive practices, over time. They present techniques illustrated by numerous examples and narratives for building on cultural strengths in teaching; offer tips and strategies for teaching through cultural dilemmas; and provide culturally reflective exercises. This guide is intended for all faculty, faculty developers or administrators in higher education concerned with equitable outcomes in higher education and with ensuring that all student cultural groups learn and graduate at the same rates.
What makes a university teacher 'excellent'? As debates rage about whether this is down to subject knowledge, communication skills, taking a research-led approach or being a technological whiz, this ...book provides the first in-depth examination of teaching excellence in higher education. Identifying and examining interpretations of teaching excellence, it considers what ‘excellent’ means and implies for practice.
Part 1: Beginnings 1. Introduction 2. A Critical Framework Part 2: Familiar Faces 3. Awards for Teachers 4. Institutions and Teaching Excellence 5. The Contribution of Subject Disciplines Part 3: Alternative Explorations 6. Local Knowledge: 'Ordinary' Teacher and Student Perceptions 7. Internationalisation and Inter-Cultural Learning 8. Seduced by Glitz and Glamour: Press Reporting of Teaching 9. Excellence 10. Professional Development and Teaching Excellence Part 4: Future Horizons 11. Lost in the Translation? 12. Research into Teaching Excellence in Higher Education
'Skelton writes with an engaging critical zeal, and his book will certainly help many talented, competent, and hardworking teachers in higher education in UK to understand why, and how, a few members of their profession become mysteriously singled out for recognition and reward as “excellent”, whilst they themselves do not.'
'Here we have a bold and original book that cruelly exposes some of the myth-making mechanisms that politicians and their handservants have clumsily sought to impose upon contemporary HE. Extremely well written and a model of clear organisation.'
- British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 1 2007
A thoughtfully constructed syllabus can be transformative for your students' learning, communicating the path they can take to succeed. This book demonstrates how, rather than being a mundane ...document to convey policies, you can construct your syllabus to be a motivating resource that conveys a clear sense of your course's learning goals, how students can achieve those goals, and makes evident your teaching philosophy and why you have adopted the teaching strategies you will use, such as discussion or group activities. Developing or revising a syllabus also presents you with a perfect opportunity to review the learning possibilities for the semester. Well-designed, it can help you stay focused on achieving the learning outcomes, as well as determine if the class is on track and whether adjustments to the schedule are needed. The authors show how, by adopting a welcoming tone and clearly stating learning outcomes, your syllabus can engage students by explaining the relevance of your course to their studies, create an all-important positive first impression of you as an instructor, and guide students through the resources you will be using, the assignments ahead, as well as clear guidance on how they will be assessed. Referred to frequently as the course progresses, an effective syllabus will keep students engaged and on task.Christine Harrington and Melissa Thomas lead you through all the elements of a syllabus to help you identify how to present key messages and information about your course, think through the impressions you want to create, and, equally importantly, suggest how you can use layout and elements such as images and charts to make your syllabus visually appealing and easy to navigate.
This book introduces practitioners and researchers of student affairs to the use of images as a means to gaining new insights in researching and promoting student learning and development, and ...understanding the campus environment. Visual research methods can surface and represent ideas in compelling ways and augment the traditional written word and numerical data methodologies of social science research. The purpose of this book is to provide informative, rich examples of the use of visuals to understand and promote college student development research, pedagogy, and practice.With the increased accessibility of cameras, the ability to engage in image production has become widely available. Individual--including college students, faculty, and administrators--narrate the social world in new ways using visuals. While on the one hand students are using images to mobilize around social issues on campus, on the other, institutionally produced visual artifacts send messages about institutional culture and values. In promoting visual literacy, this book offers new opportunities for student development administrators and faculty to utilize the visual sensory modality and image-based artifacts to promote student success and belonging which are critical outcomes of higher education.The book is divided into three sections: research, pedagogy, and practice. The first makes the case for adding visual methods to the researcher's toolbox, describing past uses and outlining a theoretical approach to visual methods and methodologies in higher education research. The pedagogical section demonstrates different and creative ways for educators to think about how subjects--such as social justice--might be taught and how educators can draw upon new, changing modalities in their existing pedagogies and frameworks; and it illustrates how visual-based pedagogies can prompt students to new understandings about the content of their course of study. The concluding section describes how studen
