Miami University Digital Scholarship Hosted Journals
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Beyond the Retrofit— CTLs as Centers for Institutional Change: A Message From the Editor-in-Chief
Get PDFOne of my principal concerns as a Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) staff member has involved ways our efforts at the center might best circulate throughout our institution and beyond. At the same time, Jay Dolmage’s (2009) notions of “retrofitting” and “universal design” help me discern how news of CTL work might be spread not just far and wide, but so as to achieve particular results in a sustainable fashion. In other words, I hope not so much for our CTL to be just everywhere but everywhere to serve as a catalyst for ongoing dialogues geared to pedagogical innovation and to the institutional changes needed to motivate and maintain that innovation. Dolmage works primarily in the fields of rhetoric and disability studies, but his theories have enhanced my understanding of contributions CTLs can make to campus cultures, contributions I find highlighted in this issue of the Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning (JCTL)
The Value of a Disciplinary Teaching Certificate Program for Chemistry and Biology Graduate Students
Get PDFWe explored the value of a teaching certificate program administered by a disciplinary teaching and learning center (TLC) and tailored specifically to the needs of graduate students in biology and chemistry. Using a survey and interviews, we investigated the participants’ motivation, the value of each program component, and the effectiveness of the overall program de-sign. We found that the disciplinary nature of the program, especially the two-credit science teaching course, and the flexibility of the program’s de-sign were particularly valuable to the program participants. We believe that the disciplinary focus of the certificate program, which relies on the deep involvement of the TLC, serves as a model for professional develop-ment that is responsive to the specific needs of STEM graduate students
Nooks and Crannies and Center Stages: Exploring the Role of the Teaching and Learning Center— A Message From the Executive Editor
Get PDFOne of my most recent charges--in a non-Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) capacity, at least not officially--involved training my department\u27s new graduate associates to teach the university\u27s first-year writing sequence. During a weekly workshop devoted to this training, one of these new teachers informed her cohort she had been having a conflict with the instructor whose class followed hers. The dispute, she explained, involved the 10-minute transition between classes, that time in which her students were exiting the classroom and the other teacher\u27s students had begun to enter. The GA was particularly shaken up over the attitude of this other teacher, who seemed annoyed that the GA still occupied the space that the other teacher now clearly saw as her own. "A lot of times students want to stay after class to talk to me, quick questions," the GA told our group, "or I have to gather my stuff together, log off the computer, and she\u27s already at the desk, banging books around or breathing all heavy at the chalkboard.
A Podcasting Initiative at the Center for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching, and University Assessment at Miami University (Ohio)
Get PDFDuring fall 2009, a series of podcasts were developed in conjunction with the Center for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching, and University Assessment (CELTUA) at Miami University (Ohio). This podcasting initiative created a series of podcasts to serve as a resource for Miami faculty, staff, administrators, and teaching assistants (both graduate and undergraduate). By providing a mobile, on-demand form of faculty and professional development, CELTUA has the ability to reach a demographic that they previously had not engaged. In this article, the author provides background information on the decisions revolving around podcasting at the Center, the methods and evaluations utilized in producing the podcasts, as well as the future goals of the newly adopted form of faculty and professional development at Miami University
The Growth Mindset Approach: A Threshold Concept in Course Redesign
Get PDFGrowth mindset (Dweck, 2006) is the simple but powerful belief that intelligence is not fixed, but dynamic, and can develop over time. When faculty and students embrace the idea that learning is elastic, it permanently transforms how we approach learning and, thus, is a “Threshold Concept,” a transformative and irrevocable way of thinking about something (Meyer, Land, & Cousin, 2006). This combined approach to course design workshops (growth mindset and threshold concepts) provides a lens through which faculty developers at small colleges can view student learning and faculty development because it illuminates bottlenecks or sticking points for faculty in the course design process and helps them shift their focus away from content delivery to active, transformative learning. The author argues that the growth mindset approach is a powerful concept in learning and academic development, describes specific workshop activities that help promote a growth mindset for faculty, and contends that such an approach represents a threshold concept for them and, thus, their students
Center for Teaching and Learning on Tour: Sharing, Reflecting on, and Documenting Effective Strategies
Get PDFThe Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) on Tour is an instructional-development initiative addressing faculty-teaching needs in a minority-serving institution. At these CTL Tour meetings, faculty travel across campus to facilitate bi-weekly interdisciplinary discussions on current pedagogical challenges and opportunities. These meetings foster a safe and inclusive climate to share and discuss what happens in the classroom. The Tour initiative enables faculty to engage in reflective practices in meeting spaces across all departments and offices on campus and on nontraditional days and times that fit into our fast-paced work routines. These meetings have allowed the CTL to build a culture of assessment regarding effectiveness of instructional development initiatives
Cultivating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Get PDFThis article describes the approaches adopted by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the University of Calgary in Qatar (UCQ) Cam-pus to create a culture for the scholarship of teaching and learning. This project consisted of three steps culminating in the implementation of a SoTL program. Step one consisted of an individual faculty needs analysis to document faculty experience with teaching, knowledge of SoTL, per-spectives and theories on learning, research training, and interests in un-dertaking professional inquiries into teaching practice. Step two saw the development of an ecological model to help understand and place SoTL projects at the individual, community, and institutional level. Step three involved setting up teaching improvement projects and a Certificate of Professional Inquiry and Scholarship for faculty interested in SoTL re-lated studies. Results of this case study indicate that the creation of learn-ing communities centered on SoTL is an effective means of engaging fac-ulty in pedagogical inquiries and research. CTL-sponsored events resulted in substantial research outputs on a variety of teaching and learning top-ics all aimed at creating better conditions for student learning. This case study confirms that CTLs have a vital role to play in facilitating teaching and learning projects and promoting the formation of a SoTL institutional culture
Toward an Integrated Model of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Faculty Development
Get PDFThe authors explore the intersection of models of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and faculty development. They propose a new model that integrates the processes of faculty development with the methodologies and the culture of SoTL and suggests ways to enhance the work done by teaching faculty and by faculty developers. They recommend that faculty development centers use a model of a continuous circle wherein novices can learn to become experts and then use their knowledge and expertise to improve the work done by the center. This continuous circle model will help create a culture of inquiry and investigation where questions about teaching and learning are investigated and studied so that they build knowledge and feed back into the teaching others are doing
Teachers as Students: Changing the Cognitive Economy Through Professional Development
Get PDFThis article explores the relationship between centers for teaching and learning and teaching faculty. Examining the cognitive economy that constitutes the learning environment for both faculty and students under the categories of goals, activities, information, time, community, and alignment, the author suggests that centers for teaching and learning consider faculty as students. Arguing that the theory-in-use or governing paradigm of most institutions values instruction over learning, he explores the requirements of a cognitive economy that promotes a deep approach to learning for students and a deep approach to teaching for faculty, and he indicates the implications of this framework for centers of teaching and learning
Establishing a New Faculty Mentoring Program: Proposal Development
Get PDFMentoring programs for new faculty provide clear benefits to the participant. However, the availability of mentoring is typically uneven across many campuses. This article describes how faculty development centers can successfully propose a New Faculty Mentoring Program that both benefits and saves money for the larger university. Preparation for a proposal includes a review of the current literature on campus mentoring, an examination of the needs of potential stakeholders, a review of data collected on retention/tenure for new faculty, an analysis of current campus resources, a pilot program and plans for assessment of the program