Conferences
Articles and Live Blogs about conferences that I’ve attended.
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Pedagogy, then Technology
Want to integrate technology into your classroom? Choose technology that supports your pedagogical aims. That’s the message of my workshop conducted this morning at the Teaching Professor Conference in Washington, DC. Attendees worked together to create opportunities to infuse their courses with technology. I presented 4 experiments that I’ve tried in my classroom with social…
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Learning Strategies for Teaching Professors
The Teaching Professor Conference was full of good teaching ideas and resources. Here are a few from selected panels I attended. For further information on one of these strategies, leave a comment here. Engaging Students in their Own Learning Angie Nippert and Kris Bransford of Concordia University and Karen Moroz of Hamline University The four…
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Why Won’t They Talk? Breaking the norms of the college classroom – #TPC12 Keynote Speaker
“A lecture about discussion is always a bad idea,” says Jay Howard of his keynote speech at the Teaching Professor Conference on June 2, 2012 in Washington, DC. Howard, Professor of Sociology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Butler University, says effective discussions require careful planning and structuring. Norms exist in…
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The Lively Discussion: Getting students to talk and learn
“Any discussion protocol is a game that you play in class, linked to your course aims,” says Burdick. Using Film Noir as a backdrop for classroom techniques, Dakin Burdick, Director for the Center for Teaching Excellence at Endicott College in Massachusetts, advanced the conversation on classroom discussions at The Teaching Professor Conference June 2, 2012…
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Digital Storytelling and the Hero’s Journey
“Stories are interesting in ways that normal conversation is not,” says David Noah. In Noah’s freshman seminar course at the University of Georgia, students are invited to be part of a hero’s journey* that combines narrative design, digital storytelling, and personal experiences. “I wanted students to journal in a reflective way about their own academic…
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Reflecting on our learning about General Education
Five members of the Queens University of Charlotte faculty attended the 2012 AAC&U’s conference on General Education in New Orleans: Chip Bowen, Suzanne Cooper-Guasco, John McArthur, Lynn Morton, and Jeff Thomas. Our key take-away from the conference, aptly stated by our distinguished colleague from the English department: An excellent General Education program has clearly defined…
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Adjunct faculty are educators, too.
49% of college instructors nationwide are classified as adjunct faculty. Adjunct faculty are seen as peripheral to higher education, but play a vital role in student education. Community colleges are leading the way in developing programs and professional development opportunities for adjuncts. At North Shore Community College in Massachusetts, the college developed a one-year adjunct…
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Designing Multiple Pathways to Learning
One of the key trends impacting colleges and universities today is the need for multiple pathways to participation in an institution. At the City University of Seattle, faculty and administrators tackled this issue head on. At AAC&U’s conference on general education, Elizabeth Fountain, David Griffin, and Melissa Mecham described their university’s approach to a multiple…
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One word to promote general education renewal (it’s not “jobs”)
A general education outcome that reads, “through a diverse set of course, students explore various disciplines as part of an integrated education that causes them to connect and apply their learning across the curriculum,” might in practice mean, “We teach what we want. Students take courses willy-nilly. If they happen to relate, well, that’s cool.”…
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Strategizing Faculty Engagement in Curricular Reform
A Tale of Two Universities: Faculty members and administrators at Boise State University and Miami Dade College joined forces in this session to share their two stories. Their hope was that the similarities between reform processes at two dissimilar institutions could suggest a few best practices for faculty engagement. Here are four overarching strategies with…
J.A.McArthur 