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Summer 2008 faculty opportunities and FCTL's Learner-Centered Teaching Program
Inquiries into Teaching and Learning: A Faculty Learning Community on Planning an Assessment of Student Learning
About
This is a two-phase project, with a three-week Phase I in Summer 2008, followed by a semester-long Phase II in Fall 2008. Phase I can also be completed during 3 days (3 hours per day) during the week of August 24 (specific dates TBA).
The principle aim of the Inquiries into Teaching and Learning Project is, like that first articulated by Walvoord and Anderson (1998) and, later, by Savory et al. (2007), "to help you approach your own teaching in a more structured fashion, as you investigate teaching (and learning) questions that you really care about, that cycle back into your teaching for improved student learning, that are embedded within a specific classroom context, and that you may have encountered over successive course offerings."
Said differently, but again borrowing from others [i.e., Bernstein et al., 2006)], in this project, you will first (in Phase I) plan for and then (in Phase II) "provide evidence of your students' learning, understanding, and performance, and reflect upon their learning in relation to your overall teaching goals for this course."
Finally, it is also our hope that participants in this project will go on to serve as resources for faculty at Ferris who wish to improve their teaching and students' learning through a systematic assessment of student learning outcomes.
Phase I (Summer 2008)
About
In this phase, we will carefully develop a plan for assessing aspects of your students' learning in a course you will teach in Fall 2008. Specifically, you will:
- Identify two student learning outcomes or two questions about your teaching that you wish to examine.
- Identify or develop the means, assessment tools, or methods to collect information that will provide answers to your questions.
- Establish a timeline for completing this work in Fall 2008.
Along the way, we will discuss readings that inform this work.
Logistics
Facilitator: Todd Stanislav
You have two options for participating in this.
Option 1: We will meet for 3 hours once each week for 3 weeks beginning the week of May 19th.
Option 2: We will meet for 3 hours for 3 days during the week of August 25.
Regardless of which option you choose, at the conclusion of this time, you will have a plan with relevant and accompanying documents that will enable you in Fall 2008 to conduct a systematic assessment of two aspects of your teaching or students' learning. If you have succeeded in creating this plan and the documents, you will receive a $400 PDI.
To register for this session, please contact Laurie Daniels at ext. 2440 or danielsl@ferris.edu. If you have any questions about this session, please contact Todd Stanislav at ext. 3541 or stanist@ferris.edu.
Teaching Strategies that Produce Long-Term Learning
About
This 3-day workshop will examine learning strategies and activities that best help students to develop deep and long-lasting memories of their learning. A special focus will be given to out-of-class assignments, which are a key to building the long-term memories students need to be successful. Faculty will leave the workshops with dozens of ideas on how to engage their students in learning activities designed to work in harmony with how their students' brains produce long-term memories. This is a great workshop for any faculty member whose is frustrated that their students don't seem to remember what they were supposed to have learned earlier in the semester. Faculty will be asked to implement and assess four assignments in one of their Fall 2008 courses and share their findings with the rest of the workshop members either through a NING network, which is a social network tool that will be set up for this sharing activity, or via brown-bag or workshop sessions. A PDI of $300 is available upon successful completion of the project at the end of the Fall 2008 semester.
Logistics
Facilitator: Terry Doyle
We meet from 9 AM until 1 PM on June 10, 11, and 12.
To register for this session, please contact Laurie Daniels at ext. 2440 or danielsl@ferris.edu. If you have any questions about this session, please contact Terry Doyle at ext. 2808 or doylet@ferris.edu.
Improving the Validity and Reliability of Your Tests or Quizzes
About
This course will present research findings about how to improve the reliability and validity of your tests or quizzes and give you the opportunity to work on writing questions that best reflect the knowledge, skills, and thinking strategies you taught your students. A well-constructed test can tell faculty a great deal about what their students have learned, what was unclear, and what was not learned. We'll also discuss how to do an effective post-test analysis that is designed to not only improve the quality of your tests, but help your students improve their performance on future tests.
Logistics
Facilitator: Terry Doyle
We meet from 9 AM until 1 PM on June 23, 24, and 25.
To register for this session, please contact Laurie Daniels at ext. 2440 or danielsl@ferris.edu. If you have any questions about this session, please contact Terry Doyle at ext. 2808 or doylet@ferris.edu.
Teaching Students the Skills They Will Need to Succeed in a Learner-Centered Classroom
About
This workshop will use my new book Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment to help faculty develop strategies for teaching students how to transition from the passive learning roles of a teacher-centered environment to the more active roles required in a learner-centered classroom. Eight skill areas will be explored including:
- Helping students become more independent learners
- Helping students develop the communication skills needed to work with others
- Helping students take charge of their learning
- Teaching students how to teach others
- Helping students with presentations and performance assessments
- Helping students become life-long learners
- Helping students recognize what they know, don’t know, and misunderstand
- Helping students to evaluate—themselves, others, and the teacher.
Faculty will leave this workshop with specific activities and strategies for helping students take on the new learning roles required by a learner-centered classroom. Faculty will be asked to integrate and assess in a Fall 2008 course two new activities or strategies that require students to be more active learners. A copy of the book will be provided for each participant. At the successful completion of the Fall 2008 component of this project, a $400 PDI will be provided.
Logistics
Facilitator: Terry Doyle
We meet from 9 AM until 1 PM on July 15, 16, and 17.
To register for this session, please contact Laurie Daniels at ext. 2440 or danielsl@ferris.edu. If you have any questions about this session, please contact Terry Doyle at ext. 2808 or doylet@ferris.edu.
Using Your Course Content to Teach Students to be Life-Long Learners
About
Life-long learning is as much disposition and attitude as it is a real set of skills to enable one to live a fulfilling and successful life in today's global society and economy. This course will discuss how college teaching doesn't have to be an either or process when it comes to deciding to teach content or learning processes. These two actions can be easily integrated to assist students in developing the life-long learning skills they will need to be successful. Nobel laureate Herbert Simon put it best when he said, "Knowing has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it. More than ever the sheer magnitude of human knowledge renders its coverage by education an impossibility."
Faculty will learn how to use their content to drive the development of life-long learning skills such as collaboration, presentation, independent learning, writing, reading and research skills that are needed to be successful. Faculty will be asked to share two ways that they currently integrate or plan to integrate the development of students' life-long learning skills into their content or courses. They will do this via a Google Docs document. Upon successful completion, a $300 PDI will be provided.
Logistics
Facilitator: Terry Doyle
We meet from 9 AM until noon on July 22, 23, and 24.
To register for this session, please contact Laurie Daniels at ext. 2440 or danielsl@ferris.edu. If you have any questions about this session, please contact Terry Doyle at ext. 2808 or doylet@ferris.edu.
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