OpenSimulator is an open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) which can be accessed through a variety of clients, on multiple protocols.
The Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) website allows instructors to gather learning-focused feedback from students. The SALG survey asks students to rate how each component of a course (e.g., textbook, collaborative work, labs) helped them to learn, and to rate their gains toward achieving the course goals. The SALG survey can be customized to fit any college-level course, and can be administered multiple times per course. A baseline instrument allows faculty to compare gains relative to incoming student characteristics.
In the on-going quest for improved learning in large-class settings, an active-learning approach for an introductory physics course yielded mixed results, according to a new report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Modified Peer Instruction in Large Introductory Physics Classes examined the use of collaborative, multiple-choice format question (MCFQ)-writing activities for students as a supplement to standard peer instruction methods.
Ask for multiple mentors so you can get the benefit of experts in more than one topic. Many professors are overworked and overassigned, so getting a single, good mentor can be a pretty tall order. Instead, work with your chairman to determine four or five topics on which you would like to receive guidance from several mentors.
Some suggestions: Find out who the whizzes are at teaching the various kinds of courses in your department and ask to meet with them. Believe me, most good teachers will find time to talk about their own approaches to teaching; it's quite flattering. Ask to be linked with someone who can help you to understand how to balance scholarship and good teaching, or how to make the service expectations of the institution jibe with the teaching expectations. After you meet with your colleagues, talk about these things with your chairman.
"She wasn't really familiar with my discipline, but she was able to give me perspectives about the institution from a different vantage point. I really grew to appreciate that."
an increasing number of colleges now rely on formal mentor programs, many of them campuswide, to give new faculty members guaranteed access to senior professors who can help them.
These days, actively seeking career guidance within the ivory tower doesn't hold the stigma for new professors that it once did
"It used to be sink or swim." Either you were cut out for the professoriate, or you weren't, she says. "But now you walk into a new place and it's not shameful to need help."
baffling task of pinning down the right mix of research, teaching, and service that will lead to tenure.
On a scale of 1 to 5, with the highest number representing "very important," the mean score for informal mentoring was 4.49. Formal mentoring was slightly less important with a mean score of 4.04.
"We try to have multiple pathways for people to engage in finding mentors,"
Officials at Yale University are fast-tracking efforts to shape the informal faculty mentors that is common on its campus into a more formal mentor process
Ms. Trower says that the more corporate mentorship mode — which includes training mentors and protégés, setting goals, and measuring the end result — isn't yet common in academe. Meanwhile, formal mentor programs do have at least one drawback: a mismatch can result in a strained relationship from which neither party sees a way out.
the future of mentor programs for faculty members should include outreach to midcareer professors