Group items tagged

The appropriate role of the professoriate has been a topic of ongoing debate in higher education. As different types of educational institutions have emerged, the focus of scholarly pursuits and their relative value to the organization have evolved. This module examines how Boyer's model of scholarship can be used to clarify and balance roles of college faculty. Expanded Definition of Scholarship Boyer (1997) proposed an expanded definition of "scholarship" within the professorate based on four functions that underlie the Profile of a Quality Faculty Member (1.2.4): discovery, integration, application, and teaching. He argues that, within this framework, all forms of scholarship should be recognized and rewarded, and that this will lead to more personalized and flexible criteria for gaining tenure. He feels that, too often faculty members wrestle with conflicting obligations that leave little time to focus on their teaching role. Boyer proposes using "creativity contracts" that emphasize quality teaching and individualized professional development. He recommends that this model be based upon the life patterns of individuals and their passions. The first element of Boyer's model, discovery, is the one most closely aligned with traditional research. Discovery contributes not only to the stock of human knowledge but also to the intellectual climate of a college or university. He stresses that new research contributions are critical to the vitality of the academic environment, and that his model does not diminish the value of discovery scholarship. The second element, integration, focuses on making connections across disciplines. One interprets one's own research so that it is useful beyond one's own disciplinary boundaries and can be integrated into a larger body of knowledge. He stresses that the rapid pace of societal change within a global economy have elevated the importance of this form of scholarship. The third element, appl

The Scholarship of Teaching: New Elaborations, New Developments By Pat Hutchings and Lee S. Shulman Note: This article was originally published in Change, September/October 1999. Volume 31, Number 5. Pages 10-15. It's the middle of June as we begin this article, and our writing faces serious competition from the spirited company of 43 faculty in residence here at The Carnegie Foundation. Members of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL), these "Carnegie Scholars"selected through the Pew National Fellowship Program, one of CASTL's components-examine teaching and learning issues in their fields in order, as our program materials say, to 1) foster significant, long-lasting learning for all students, 2) advance the practice and profession of teaching, and 3) bring to teaching the recognition afforded to other forms of scholarly work. One Scholar is studying "moments of difficulty" as opportunities for student learning; another is pilot-testing a new model for teaching accounting; several have focused their work on ways to make students more purposeful, self-directed learners.

How to Teach These pages are complementary to the theory pages on Learning, which address various �why?� questions about learning. These address �how?� questions about teaching (teaching adults, that is). I suspect they will be consulted more than the others. (You can switch between the two parts of the site by clicking on the appropriate part of the logo in the top left-hand corner) I feel a bit presumptuous writing all this, because although I have been teaching for almost 35 years, man and boy (literally, because in that distant past I had my own primary-school class, as a temporary unqualified teacher, in what is now called the �gap year� before I went to university � poor souls, I wonder what became of them), I have not cracked it yet. I still have lousy classes, without understanding quite why. Going by the results of my evaluation questionnaires, my students think I have even more of them than I do!

The Knowledge Media Laboratory works to create a future in which communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions collectively advance teaching and learning by exchanging their educational knowledge, experiences, ideas, and reflections by taking advantage of various technologies and resources. The KML is currently working with its partners, including Carnegie Foundation programs, to achieve the following goals: * To develop digital (or electronic) tools and resources that help to make knowledge of effective teaching practices and educational transformation efforts visible, shareable and reusable. * To explore synergy among various technologies to better support the scholarship of teaching and learning. * To build the capacity for faculty and teachers independently to take advantage of information and communications technologies that enable them to re-examine, rethink and represent teaching and student learning, and to share the outcomes in an effective and efficient way. * To sustain communities of practice engaged in collaboratively improving teaching and student learning by building common areas to exchange knowledge and by building repositories for the representation of effective practice.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) - What is it?\n\nIntroduction\n\nIn this section, we offer both a brief definition of SoTL (SoTL in brief), as well as a much more detailed and scholarly discussion of the history and different conceptions of SoTL (starting with Conceptions of Scholarship and SoTL, and progressing through the subsequent sections).\n\nThe aims of this section are:\n\n * to inform the reader of the different conceptions of scholarship in general and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in particular, and to highlight any interesting points and controversies;\n * to encourage the readers' own consideration of what scholarship, and in particular SoTL, might be; and,\n * to provide a working definition for the purposes of this web resource. \n\nThus, this section includes a brief review of the work of leading academics regarding scholarship and SoTL, as well as links to relevant articles etc., to allow readers to become familiar with several different currently-merited conceptions, and so provoke thought on the matter. The sections titled In Depth are optional extras for those who are interested in more of the intricacies in the debate about SoTL.\n\nNote - although SoTL is our preferred term here, some authors have referred to is simply as the scholarship of teaching (hence, SoT), thus when considering a particular author's work, we shall refer to the concept with the same terminology as used by each author.

Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education\nThis journal offers an opportunity for those involved in University learning and teaching to disseminate their practice. It aims to publish accounts of scholarly practice that report on small-scale practitioner research and case studies of practice that involve reflection, critique, implications for future practice and are informed by relevant literature, with a focus on enhancement of student learning. This publication thus offers a forum to develop and share scholarly informed practice in Higher Education through either works in progress or more detailed accounts of scholarly practice. There will be opportunities for discussions/comments regarding works in progress to be shared with journal readers on the journal site. The journal is published twice a year (April and October).

Professional standards The UK Professional Standards Framework (UK PSF) for teaching and supporting learning, launched in February 2006, is a flexible framework which uses a descriptor-based approach to professional standards. There are three standard descriptors each of which is applicable to a number of staff roles and to different career stages of those engaged in teaching and supporting learning. The standard descriptors are underpinned by areas of professional activity, core knowledge and professional values. The framework provides a reference point for institutions and individuals as well as supporting ongoing development within any one standard descriptor. The framework was developed by the Academy on behalf of Universities UK (UUK), GuildHE and the four UK higher education funding councils after extensive consultation with the higher education sector. They recognise the diversity of institutions and enable a sector-owned approach to learning and teaching standards.

The Meyer and Land Threshold Concept "The idea of threshold concepts emerged from a UK national research project into the possible characteristics of strong teaching and learning environments in the disciplines for undergraduate education (Enhancing Teaching−Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses). In pursuing this research in the field of economics, it became clear to Erik Meyer and Ray Land [1−6, 7−12], that certain concepts were held by economists to be central to the mastery of their subject. These concepts, Meyer and Land argued, could be described as 'threshold' ones because they have certain features in common." Glynis Cousin, An introduction to threshold concepts Over the past five years this concept has been embraced by many disciplines outside economics; indeed the above quote is from Glynis Cousin's excellent short introduction to the concept written for earth scientists. The threshold concept has been seen as a valuable tool, not only in facilitating students' understanding of their subject, but in aiding the rational development of curricula in rapidly expanding arenas where there is a strong tendency to overload the curriculum (Cousin, [1, 13]). This web page will describe, briefly, the characteristics of a threshold concept and list selecteted references to the work of those examining its value in the engineering and computer sciences, the physical and biological sciences, economics, accountancy, mathematics and statistics.

The Carnegie Foundation Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with a primary mission "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education."

'Constructive alignment' starts with the notion that the learner constructs his or her own learning through relevant learning activities. The teacher's job is to create a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes. The key is that all components in the teaching system - the curriculum and its intended outcomes, the teaching methods used, the assessment tasks - are aligned to each other. All are tuned to learning activities addressed in the desired learning outcomes. The learner finds it difficult to escape without learning appropriately.

Turning a College Lecture into a Conversation with CoverItLive Alfred Hermida by Alfred Hermida, April 13, 2009 Tagged: coveritlive, journalism school, social media, twitter, university of british columbia Journalists who also teach will know that one of the challenges of teaching a large, undergraduate class is the sheer number of students. It can be hard to foster a discussion in a lecture hall, where many students may be too intimidated to speak up. So instead the lesson often becomes a lecture, as the professor stands up in front of the class and talks at them for the best part of an hour. In this instructor-centered model, knowledge is a commodity to be transmitted from the instructor to the student's empty vessel. There is a place for the traditional, one-to-many transmission. This is the way the mass media worked for much of the 20th century and continues to operate today. But the emergence of participatory journalism is changing this. Most news outlets, at the very least, solicit comments from their online readers. Others, such as Canada's Globe and Mail, use the live-blogging tool CoveritLive both for real-time reporting and for engaging readers in a discussion, such as in its coverage of the Mesh conference in Toronto. Tools such as CoveritLive or Twitter can turn the one-to-many model of journalism on its head, offering instead a many-to-many experience. The same tools may also have a use in the classroom, as a way of turning the traditional university lecture into a conversation.

Frustrated With Corporate Course-Management Systems, Some Professors Go 'Edupunk' A group of tech-savvy professors are claiming punk music as inspiration for their approach to teaching. They call their approach Edupunk. Punk rock was a rebellion against the clean, predictable sound of popular music and it also encouraged a do-it-yourself attitude. Edupunk seems to be a reaction against the rise of course-managements systems, which offer cookie-cutter tools that can make every course Web site look the same.

ASKe is the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning based at Oxford Brookes University Business School. It was set up in summer 2005 with a £4.5 million award (spread over five years) from HEFCE in recognition of good practice based on pedagogic research into aspects of assessment carried out by staff in the Business School and the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. ASKe's work focuses on ways of helping staff and students develop a common understanding of academic standards, and it builds on and promulgates established good practice.

Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds. "My life is in teaching. To have a chance to do that with a world audience is just wonderful." * Gilbert Strang MIT Mathematics professor United States Read more Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds. "My life is in teaching. To have a chance to do that with a world audience is just wonderful." * Gilbert Strang MIT Mathematics professor United States Read more Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange ASKe is the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning based at Oxford Brookes University Business School. It was set up in summer 2005 with a £4.5 million award (spread over five years) from HEFCE in recognition of good practice based on pedagogic research into aspects of assessment carried out by staff in the Business School and the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. ASKe's work focuses on ways of helping staff and students develop a common understanding of academic standards, and it builds on and promulgates established good practice.

In-Class Use of YouTube Videos In connection with the Engaged Classroom professional development opportunity, we would like to share "model" lessons of how technology can be used to teach the curriculum. One particularly powerful piece of technology that can be used for educational purposes is the use of online video for instruction. YouTube is currently the industry standard in user-generated video distribution. Therefore, we think it only reasonable to allow the use of educationally sound YouTube content under controlled circumstances within the classroom. In this brief paper, we will elaborate and show that such behavior is within the confines of current district policy.

welcome to the ADM-HEA website Supporting and developing learning and teaching in art, design, media, history of art and the history of design in higher education

The entire ontology (manifested beliefs about teaching and learning) of higher education is misconceived: It does not fit with the proven realities of learning, and does not fit at all with the new nature of knowledge construction in a Web 2.0 world. The education establishment needs to say goodbye to pedagogy and hello to andragogy to create a better fit. Here's the difference:\n\nIn pedagogy, the concern is with transmitting the content, while in andragogy, the concern is with facilitating the acquisition of the content.\n\nThere is little doubt that the most dominant form of instruction in Europe and America is pedagogy, or what some people refer to as didactic, traditional, or teacher-directed approaches. A competing idea in terms of instructing adult learners [including first-year college students], and one that gathered momentum within the past three decades, has been dubbed andragogy. [http://www-distance.syr.edu/andraggy.html]\n

Today, I am presenting at the 10th Annual NJ Best Practices Showcase on using blogging as a reflective process for my students. You can view the presentation on my Slideshare page. NJEDge.Net and the host school, the College of St. Elizabeth, are also recording the presentations and hoping to post them to the new NJVid site. In this post, I want to go into a bit more detail than I can do in my presentation about reflective practice itself. Though I reference the book The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action by Donald Schön, what I am discussing does not appear in his book since blogging did not even exist in 1995 when the book was published. He was an MIT social scientist and consultant, and in that book he examines five professions (engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, town planning). The book is very much about how professionals go about solving problems. He introduced reflective practice as a continuous process that involves the learner considering critical incidents in his or her life's experiences. The concept immediately gained traction in teacher education, and also health professions and architectural design. For a teacher-in-training and active in the field, the process of studying his or her own teaching methods and determining what works best for the students is essential. I think it is important that all students (practitioners-in-training) also consider their own experiences in applying knowledge to practice, especially while being "coached" by professionals (instructors,mentors) in their discipline. Education is my focus here, but all three disciplines also make use of portfolios of a kind. If you use portfolios (paper, electronic or objects), you are probably already using reflection as a part of that practice.