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Monday, November 29, 2010

CUR Institute Deadline Approaching: Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research

http://www.cur.org/institutes/instugr.html

Deadline Quickly approaching: Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research

February 4- 6, 2011, Stetson University, DeLand, FL
Application Deadline: December 15, 2010

This workshop will bring together teams of three to five faculty members and administrators from institutions that are interested either in initiating an undergraduate research program or in institutionalizing existing research activities. The three days will consist of plenary lectures presented by facilitators associated with CUR interspersed with individual team meetings with CUR mentors. The teams will begin the workshop by meeting with their facilitator and reflecting on the current status of undergraduate research on their campuses. This inventory will include the examination of institutional strengths, as well as the obstacles currently preventing achievement of desired results. After this assessment, the teams will begin formulating mission statements, goals, and action plans for their own institutions. The event will conclude with the teams discussing their plans with the entire community. Throughout this process, the facilitators will be engaged with the teams in order to assist them in discussions and deliberations.

For more information, and to apply to attend, please visit: http://www.cur.org/institutes/instugr.html
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Inside Higher Education: Should Profs Leave Unruly Classes?

November 29, 2010
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/29/walkout

Professors routinely complain about students who spend class time on Facebook or texting their friends or otherwise making it clear that their attention is elsewhere. But is it acceptable for a faculty member to deal with these disruptions by walking out of class?

Two years ago, a Syracuse University professor set off a debate with his simple policy: If he spots a student texting, he will walk out of class for the day.

Now two faculty members at Ryerson University, in Toronto, sparked discussion at their institution with a similar (if somewhat more lenient) policy -- and their university's administrators and faculty union have both urged them to back down, which they apparently have.

The Ryerson professors' policy was first reported last week in The Eyeopener (the student newspaper) and then was picked up by other Canadian publications. Two professors who teach an introductory engineering course in chemistry jointly adopted a policy by posting it on the courses' Blackboard sites. The professors vowed to make tests more difficult, to encourage students to pay attention. And the professors said that after three warnings about disruptions such as cell phone discussions and movies playing on laptops, the professors would walk out of class -- and students would have to learn the rest of that day's material themselves. (Sources could not say whether the faculty members followed through on their treats.)

The student newspaper described a chaotic environment in the class where the faculty members made the threat to walk out, with loud chatting among students and even paper airplanes being shot around the room. A Ryerson spokeswoman said she couldn't confirm that those conditions existed, but others at the university said that student behavior has deteriorated in introductory courses (even if only a minority of students misbehave). Comments posted on the student newspaper article from people who said that they were in the classes -- including comments from those critical of the professors' response -- confirmed the rude behavior. One student wrote about "a whole row of kids" chatting and reading Facebook throughout a recent lecture.

But this student added these questions: "Was it really fair to leave the class based on the actions of these few students? Why were we all reprimanded for their bad mistakes?"

The two professors -- Robert Gossage and Andrew McWilliams -- did not respond to requests for comment (and have not responded to inquiries from reporters in Canada, either).

Janet Mowat, a spokeswoman for Ryerson, issued a statement on behalf of the university that rejected the approach used by the professors. "Ryerson University does not endorse faculty members threatening to abandon their class if the class is unruly nor does the university endorse arbitrarily raising the bar for tests in the middle of the semester." The statement went on to note that the university has a "guide to civility" and a student code of conduct, both of which say that both students and professors are responsible for jointly assuring a good learning environment. Students are specifically barred from "disruption of learning and teaching."

The engineering college at Ryerson is also starting several initiatives to help faculty members teach large classes, the statement noted, including a special online seminar on managing large, first-year classes; inviting a student conduct officer to participate in orientation to discuss these issues; and adding teaching assistant support to large classes.

Mowat said that the professors had been contacted and that she believed they would be trying other tactics in the future to deal with the issues.

Anver Saloojee, a professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson who is president of the union that represents tenure-track faculty members, said that the faculty contract would not permit faculty members to leave their classes unless there was an issue of health or safety. "One of the most important things we have to do is teaching," he said. And while Saloojee said he sympathized with faculty members struggling with inappropriate student behavior, he is not a fan of collective punishment. "You might have a minority of students who are disruptive, but you are doing a disservice to the students not engaging in that activity" by leaving, he said.

The university does need to do more to educate students -- especially first-year students -- on acceptable behavior, he said. And inappropriate behavior is clearly on the rise, he said, "when students have multiple devices at their disposal" in class. Saloojee said that he has had success from outlining expectations about behavior in the first session of each course.

While Ryerson appears committed to dealing with these issues without professorial walkouts, Laurence Thomas, a professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, said that he's sticking with his ultimatum about students who text, although he sometimes gives a warning for the first offense he spots. He said that since Inside Higher Ed covered his policy, he shows students that article on the first day of class.

Thomas said that the reason for the policy is straightforward: "I have the power to walk out whereas asking a student to leave the class could result in a very awkward confrontation."

In explaining his policy to students, Thomas said that he stresses that he himself uses text messaging (when doing so would not be rude), as he wants students to know that his objection to texting in class does not arise from being "clueless" about technology. "I talk about the climate of the classroom and how each of us makes a difference in that regard."

Sometimes, he leaves class. "I actually walked out two weeks ago and I was stunned by the extent to which the student apologized for the behavior," he said.

— Scott Jaschik
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Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA) LISTEN LIVE: "How to Be a Successful Freelance Writer for College Textbook Publishers"

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/textacademicpodcast/2010/12/01/how-to-be-a-successful-freelance-writer-for-colleg

LISTEN LIVE Wednesday, Dec. 1 @ 12-12:30 p.m. ET:

"How to Be a Successful Freelance Writer for College Textbook Publishers"

Presented by John Soares, a freelance writer of college textbook supplements, and the author of Writing College Textbook Supplements The Definitive Guide to Winning High-Paying Assignments in the College Textbook Publishing Market

Join us for us for an interview with John Soares, a freelance writer of college textbook supplements, on
TAA's blogtalkradio show, Wednesday, December 1 @ 12-12:30 p.m. ET.

Learn how to succeed as a freelance writer of college textbook test questions, lecture outlines, instructor's manuals, study guides, and other materials that help students learn better and instructors teach better.

Soares, author of Writing College Textbook Supplements: The Definitive Guide to Winning High-Paying Assignments in the College Textbook Publishing Market, will share how to:

Get the attention of higher-education textbook editors and convince them to hire you
Get your projects done well and quickly
Get paid well
No need to register. You can listen right from your computer, or you can call in and ask questions on TAA's toll-free line: 1-800-572-4281.

Kim Pawlak
Associate Executive Director
Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
http://www.Twitter.com/TextandAcademic
(608) 687-3106

Text and Academic Authors Association
PO Box 56359
St. Petersburg, Florida 33732-6359
(727) 563-0020
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Faculty Focus: Curriculum Development, Alignment and Coordination: A Data-Driven Approach

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/curriculum-development/curriculum-development-alignment-and-coordination-a-data-driven-approach/?c=FF&t=F101129a

By Mary Bart

Most faculty work hard to make each individual course they teach the best learning experience it can be. They learn with each semester, and make revisions based on what worked and where the course stumbled. If done correctly, it’s a continuous improvement process that runs like a well-oiled machine. But no matter how good their individual courses are, it’s easy for faculty to end up in a silo—unsure of what’s happening in other courses throughout their discipline or department.

Curriculum mapping, a process that helps faculty align curriculum to ensure that the program addresses all learning outcomes effectively, can help break down those silos.

“It is through cross-curriculum development that learning and skills development can be enhanced and reinforced,” says Peter Wolf, director of Teaching Support Services at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

In the recent online seminar Connect Learning Across Courses with Curriculum Mapping, Wolf explained how Guelph uses curriculum mapping to ensure that individual learning experiences are connected across courses and relate to the larger context of the student experience.

Although curriculum mapping can be accomplished with a low-tech approach such as Excel, Guelph uses two different software applications to accomplish its goals. Using the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE), an open source project based at Tufts University, Guelph’s curriculum committees can develop course progression maps to help make informed decisions about program structure. For example, by viewing the four-year course progression map of a particular major, the committee discovered that the most difficult required courses were all in semesters four and five. In an earlier survey, students reported feeling burned out during these same two semesters. The department was able to make a few adjustments to even out the workload, without sacrificing program quality, Wolf says.

To accomplish the second dimension of curriculum mapping—breadth program outcomes mapping—Guelph developed its own software called CurricKit, a curriculum mapping toolkit that helps match program outcomes with individual courses by collecting data from faculty, course outlines, and curriculum committees. The software helps map courses across three components: knowledge, skills and values; instructional methods; and assessment methods.

“The processes are faculty driven, that’s the only way to have a sustainable model,” says Wolf. “The goal is not to evaluate courses or evaluate faculty, but to use data to have meaningful discussions that drive curriculum decisions so that our graduates have the knowledge, skills, and values we want to foster in our students.”
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