Miami University Digital Scholarship Hosted Journals
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When Is a CTL?: A Message From the Editor-in-Chief
Get PDFWhen could have been over the course of that first year’s set of “Conversations,” which have become our Center for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL’s) hallmark. Or, it could have been when we found those little-used blue chairs in our library’s basement and asked if they could be made available to our new office; and it could have been when our office space itself was moved from the library to a room on one of the main corridors of our campus’s central building. Maybe it was even when faculty and staff crowded themselves into a classroom and jotted down on the board ideas for what a regional campus’s teaching and learning center might look like. It could have been when our campus’s graphic designer started crafting the image of the white tree against the blue background that has become our logo; or it could have been when a task force met weekly to develop a set of guidelines for selecting CTL staff members; or maybe it was when a candidate for our associate executive director’s position asserted that the formation of a CTL would be at the top of her agenda. It might even have been when our faculty began winning university-wide awards for effective teaching, using their own scholarship for teaching and learning to make their case; or it might be when the university decided that faculty at their open-access campuses would carry 4/4 loads and not have their disciplinary research weighted as heavily as their main-campus counterparts in promotion and tenure decisions
Foreword: The Changing Landscape of Faculty Development at Small Colleges
Get PDFI graduated from a historic liberal arts college for women, Mount Holyoke College, a place where I sought intellectual challenge and found the power of my voice. In 1975, inspired, like so many of Mount Holyoke’s students, by the famous words of its founder, Mary Lyons, “Go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do, “ I moved from that small, inclusive learning community to a large, public research university to pursue a doctorate. I would remain in large public research universities in the Midwest and New England until returning to the College in 2015 to work to advance faculty development, leadership, and women’s education. Despite establishing my career in a very different institutional type, I have always sustained deep connections to the College, serving as class scribe for the alumnae quarterly and as a volunteer for fundraising efforts. As well, all three of my children graduated from small liberal arts colleges, including a daughter from Mount Holyoke, and I have long supported effective teaching at small colleges through the Professional and Organizational Network in Higher Education (POD)
Faculty Development for Fostering Students’ Critical Thinking
Get PDFGiven the complexity of fostering critical thinking (CT) skills in undergraduate students and the lack of effective faculty training methods, the authors provide a comprehensive and evidence-based framework to prepare faculty in the instruction of CT skills. The model consists of an extensive workshop, mentoring, daily classroom observations, informative feedback consultations, and an end-of-semester feedback report on students’ higher order thinking growth. Two aspects of the training were assessed: Did consultations impact professor’s pedagogy in fostering CT? Did professors’ level of experience with this model impact students\u27 CT gains? Fifteen professors were assessed during seven semesters (45 classes and 904 students). Results indicate that between first and second consultations, professors demonstrated statistically significant change (p < .05) in the frequency of four of the six pedagogical processes. Professors’ training experience in this model significantly affected student growth (p < .01) within three levels of CT knowledge. Findings reflect the benefits of a program model that offers continued feedback and training to professors
The Process of Progress: A Teaching and Learning Center Examines the Adaptation of Active Learning Across the Disciplines
Get PDFThe authors examine four instructors’ participation in a one-year teaching fellowship and consider the resulting growth in their teaching. The disciplines represented are accounting, English, computer science, and marriage and family therapy. Faculty development consultants working with these instructors discussed the incorporation of active-learning pedagogies and sought to document possible change with feedback gathered from small-group instructional diagnoses (SGIDs), formal university student evaluations, and instructor interviews. Upon consideration, the authors recognize that taking into account an instructor’s discipline, background experience, personal context, and willingness to engage in self-reflection plays a significant role in faculty development and Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) practice, and that faculty developers must appreciate the developmental process and celebrate even small changes in teaching. Further, the authors realize that active-learning methodology falls along a continuum of simple to complex, and activities at either end of that spectrum can be effective
Teaching Centers as Teaching Advocates: Navigating University Politics
Get PDFWhat happens when teaching centers become advocates for educational change? Is such activity advisable if the centers become polarizing forces on campus? And if polarization occurs, how should directors navigate it? This essay, which focuses on the author’s experience advocating for a change in his university’s student evaluation forms, provides a framework for answering these questions and, in the process, suggests that advocacy can offer a number of hidden benefits. The article concludes with a suggestion of how this issue might affect conceptions of faculty development programs as well as the manner in which they are assessed
Writing in Action: Scholarly Writing Groups as Faculty Development
Get PDFThe authors trace the five-year development and implementation of scholarly writing groups at a public, teaching-oriented university. They describe the experiences and outcomes of faculty writers via the personal accounts of three participants, presented through the lenses of the directors of the University Writing Center and the Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI). Using modest resources, writing groups thrive because they efficiently serve all stakeholders: faculty members get much needed support for their scholarly writing; facilitators (writing center professionals) learn about writing across disciplines; the CFI meets its mission of supporting faculty scholarship, and the university benefits from an enhanced academic culture. Another outcome is helping faculty identify with student experiences and, as a result, improving teaching and writing across the curriculum
Essentials Skills in Building and Sustaining a Faculty Development Center: Budget and Staff
Get PDFDr. Todd Zakrajsek began his career as an adjunct professor, teaching at a small private college, a technical school, and distance education classes. Securing a tenure-track position at a small regional college in the Pacific Northwest in the fall of 1994, Todd started a center for teaching and learning in his third year there. For his efforts he received a budget of 5,000 and a one-course release. In year three, the budget was 1.2 million. In 2012, Todd began working in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and also in the Academy of Educators to assist in building resources for faculty in the School of Medicine.Given Todd’s extensive experience in faculty development for over 15 years in a variety of types of institutions, regions, and faculty served, we have asked him to write a series on essential issues needed by directors of faculty development efforts. This series is designed to suggest areas for faculty developers to consider along with tips and techniques Todd has found to be helpful along the way. In this issue, Todd focuses on budget and staff concerns. Possible future topics will include how to get and maintain support on campus, what programs to offer, bringing outside experts to campus, assessing/documenting your successes, and strategic planning. If there is a topic you would like to see covered, contact the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]
Determination of Filter Criteria for Micro-Meteor Observations by the Arecibo 430 MHz Incoherent Scatter Radar
Get PDFThe paper discusses filtering of processed incoherent scatter radar (ISR) data, which was collected from the Arecibo 430 MHz ISR in order to detect meteors entering the ionosphere. From the ISR data received, we found that extracting only data from altitudes of 80 km to 130 km and velocities between 2 km/s and 90 km/s provides a good model of meteor phenomena. Variances in the observed phase shift in excess of 1 radian and abnormally large signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were found to be indicative of interference. These filtering criteria produce accurate data on micro-meteor trends and could be used to determine a mathematical model for micro-meteors
Obscured Ship Signals Over Ninety Kilometers at Arecibo
Get PDFThis paper will discuss the coherent interference which has been determined to be ships on the ocean, and review the ship signal phenomenon that has been detected numerous times with the incoherent scatter radar at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. V-shaped coherent structures have been observed when the magnitude of raw power bounced back to the receiver is plotted against time and altitude. These structures have been determined to be ships due to the slow velocity of the objects, the high amount of power reflected back to the receiver and the relatively short range. While the radar apparatus at Arecibo is the world’s most sensitive and is able to monitor electron density changes in the different regions of the ionosphere it is unable to detect large cruise ships beyond a distance of 90 kilometers. The main reason for this is that the radar at Arecibo was never intended to monitor ships as the dish and antenna are aimed directly towards the sky. However, we will investigate the reason why ship signals observed at Arecibo are not able to be detected beyond a range of 90 kilometers and demonstrate that the causation for the inability of the radar to detect ships beyond this range is due to the line of sight of the radar at this specific location and the curvature of the Earth
Geosynchronous Balloon Control Solution
Get PDFFor their Senior Design Project, Jesse Bramble, Lee Mondini, Hani Naqvi, and Matt Peppo are conducting a feasibility study to determine if it is possible to control a high altitude weather balloon for sustained flight in near space. To start their research, the team investigated similar projects and their control techniques. The only comparable project to the Geosynchronous Balloon Control Solution team was Google’s Project Loon. Inspired by the control algorithm used for Project Loon, our team is aiming to implement a control technique that will allow the user to specify GPS coordinates causing the balloon to try and stay stationary at the given coordinates in 3D space. After some research, we have concluded that this result can be achieved by manipulating the altitude of the balloon causing it to float in different directions with the wind. Our simulation has concluded that using an ideal balloon, as if the balloon was a point, our control algorithm is capable of guiding the balloon to a specified point in space and sustain the flight