Teaching Academy Activities

ACTIVITIES FOR 2010-11

MEETING WITH YEAR 2 NEW FACULTY

• January 25, 2011, 12:00 – 1:00, Panorama Room
• Teaching Academy Participants:  
• Prof. Lisa Bartle
• Prof. Diane Brantley
• Prof. Rafiqul Bhuyan
• Prof. Ted Coleman

CAMPUS CONVERSATION ON  "Students’ Voice on Teaching and Learnaing”

• March 3, Thursday,    12:00-1:15           Room 119, College of Education
• Student Presenters:  Kandyce Hall (Sophomore, Political Science/Communications), Ashley Temm (Sophomore, Kinesiology) and Gin Brewer (Graduate Studet and Teaching Assistant, English)
• The event was attended by Provost Andy Bodman.
• Teaching Academy members who were present:  Profs. David Baker, Lisa Bartle, Ted Coleman, Kim Cousins, Kareen Gervasi, Janelle Gilbert, Yasha Karant, Britt Leatham, Bob London, Kathie Pelletier, Pete Robertshaw, and Jenny Zorn.
• Program Set-up
• Consultation and meetings with ASI's Mr. Shannon Stratton (Program Coordinator and ex-officio member of the Board of Directors and Club Allocation Budget Committee) in inviting 4-6 students for the event
• Preliminary meeting with students for orientation and overview of up coming event (February 24, 2011)
• Program:
  
  • 12:00 Lunch
  • 12:10 Welcome
  • 12:15 Introductions
  • 12:55 Conversation with students
  • 1:10 Wrap-up, Closing
    
    
• Conversation Summary Notes

1.  If you were to mentor a freshman, what would you conisder would be most helpful to for a freshman to know?

During freshmen year, support was strong (e.g., priority registration), and there’s lots of enthusiasm. By the following year (sophomore), there is less support, a student needs to do more on his/her own. It helps when you have a class with the same instructor and classmates.

Being part of a student group helps, especially those that provide not only social support but also teach members about time management skills and gives academic support (e.g., study group activities).

It will also help if there is better support for students who work and have a family.  There is a need to better communicate to students information about the children’s Center, information about available student assistant jobs.

2.  How important is writing and what can be done about poor writing skills among students?

Writing Center can provide help (but not re-writing a paper for students). There is need to better communicate the services provided by the Writing Center to instructors and students. Writing 306 needs to be looked into (some courses are about writing a resume or memos; others do not go beyong one-page papers).

3.  What do you consider as some of the best practices in teaching?

• Feedback:  it helps learning if instructor write comments in addition to marking student’s work with simply “good” or “incorrect”.  Comments that explain why it is good or wrong will  reinforce learning.
• Transparency in teaching:  be clear to students and let students know what is expected of them, what will be learned.
• Engaging discussions and conducting the class in an engaging manner (e.g., do not stand behind the podium for 2 hours)
• Teaching also reflects that instructor cares about students and their learning.  Attendance was considered an indicator of instructor’s interest in student learning and a motivator for students. Sharing personal ideas are also considered to contribute to relationship-building in the classroom that supports learning
• Use of Powerpoint presentations that reflect the organization or mapping of the content or lesson for the day and making those available to students

 

4.  Are exam questions mainly repetitions or recall of content learned or are new problems presented to assess learning?

In some classes, it is application and problem solving, but there are also cases where it is simple recall of information in textbook.

2009-10

Workshop on CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: ISSUES AND STRATEGIES

• November 6, 2009 (Friday) 10:00-11:30 am PL-15
• Teaching Academy Panel:

• Prof. Nathan Carter (A&L)
• Prof. David Baker (BPA)
• Prof.. Diane Brantley (EDU)
• Prof. Kim Cousins (NSCI), and
• Prof. Pete Robertshaw (SBS)

• The workshop addressed issues and strategies related to classroom management: setting up a classroom that promotes learning, how to establish and maintain classroom civility, what faculty can do to be preventive or pro-active, how to handle the "smaller" problems, and for cases that are out of the ordinary, whom to contact on campus.

MEETING WITH YEAR 2 NEW FACULTY

• January 20, 2010, 12:00 – 1:00, Pine Room
• Teaching Academy Participants:  

• Prof. Lisa Bartle
• Prof. Diane Brantley
• Prof. Sandra Kamusikiri
• Prof. Kathy Pelletier
• Prof. Pete Robertshaw
• Prof. Jenny Zorn

CAMPUS CONVERSATION ON  "Online Advising”

• April 28, 2010 Wednesday 12:00-1:15 Pine Room

Presenter:  Prof. Janelle Gilbert, Associate Professor of Psychology and Teaching Academy Chair
Teaching Academy members who were present:  Profs. Bonnie Piller, Kim Cousins, Nadejda Dyakevich, Yasha Karant, Jenny Zorn, Lisa Bartle, David Baker, Brett Leatham.

• Program:
• 12:00 Lunch
• 12:10 Welcome
• 12:15 Presentations
• 12:55 Conversation (Big group or breakout sessions)
• 1:10 Wrap-up Collect Notes from each group, Closing
• Sample questions for  Campus Conversation

• applicability of this project to other advising courses
• role of online advising can play during these challenging and changing times
• technology used and the design of the online tutorial

• Summary Notes

• Online advising can take care of repetitive information and students will be able to read basic information prior to face-to-face advising, thus leaving more time for quality discussion.  With online advising, students will be able to access the information again and again.
• Buy-in from students is needed.
• Although quality of discussion between adviser and students has improved, workload could still be an issue.
• In undergraduate advising, pdf’s are used to cover the essential information.  Few students read websites or don’t even know it exists. The use of email to reach out to students can be affected by current email issues (students not logging in, etc.)
• It is probable that online advising is already being partly done in other programs (e.g., Public Administration).
• Advising is not required but is needed among undeclared students, who use up their GE units within the first two years.  In some cases, seniors missed taking the advising course because of scheduling conflict with work or personal obligations.
• Additional questions:  Is the online advising course (Psychology 101) a credit/non-credit course? Would doing the advising through a credit/non-credit course be a better way to go? How can this online advising be applied in GE (e.g. gender courses) or SOAR.

• ONLINE ADVISING PROJECT by Prof. Janelle Gilbert

This advising project involves a psychology specific course which is currently done as an in-class advising course for students for one unit.  There are many problems with offering a one unit course.  It creates problems for student schedules because they have to reserve a time slot that could be used for a 4 unit course.  It was then decided that this advising course be done online, as it became clear that it could benefit from incorporating new technologies to create a model of advising that would be more engaging to students.  The original model would be psychology specific, but the template designed and the tools created could then be used by other departments. The online advising tutorial and the project evaluation results were presented at the Campus Conversation event on April 28, 2010.

• PROPOSAL REVIEWERS for CSU Symposium on University Teaching

The following Teaching Academy members served as proposal reviewers for the 13th CSU Symposium on University Teaching that was hosted by CSUSB-TRC on April 24, 2010:

• Prof. Kathie Pelletier
• Prof. Diane Brantley
• Prof. Nathan Carter
• Prof. Joseph Jesunathadas
• Prof. Nadejda Dyakevich

2008-2009

Meeting with Year 2 New Faculty (January 21, 2009)

Campus Conversation on Models of Student Engagement: Classroom and Beyond (April 29, 2008)

• Presenters (Faculty and Student):

• Prof. Tony Coulson (CBPA) and Ms. Michael-Anne Vasquez-Barner on "Engaging Students in Online Classrooms"
• Prof. David Chavez (CSBS) and Ms. Paula Arnett on "Engaging Students through Research"
• Prof. Aaron Moffet (NSCI) and Mr. Michael Rister on "Engaging Students in the Community through Service Learning"

• Summary Report

• Enthusiastic presentations by both faculty and student presenters prompted many audience questions
• Audience questions addressed faculty concern with engaging many students, i.e. how many students could be effectively mentored/taught using the presenters methods
• Due to length of presentations and large number of questions no formal table group discussions took place.
  

2007-2008

Meeting with Year 2 New Faculty (January 16, 2008)

Campus Conversation on SOTE (April 30, 2008)

• Summary Report 2007-2008

2006-2007

Meeting with Year 2 New Faculty (February 21, 2007)

Web Seminar: Effective Mentoring Programs (April 5, 2007)      

Campus Conversation on SOTE (April 25, 2007)

• Summary Report 2006-2007

2005-2006

Presentation on .The American Seminar: A Faculty Learning Community. (Sep 20, 2005)

Campus Conversation on .Maximizing Student Learning Opportunities. (March 1, 2006)      

• Summary Report 2005-2006

On-going: Handbook Project

2004-2005

Senate Approval of Teaching Academy Structure and Governance

Senate Approval for a Gateway Program for New Students

Annual Lunch Meetings with Year 2 New Faculty (January 26, 2005)

Sponsor: Faculty Learning Community (The American Seminar)

2003-2004

Annual Lunch Meetings with Year 2 New Faculty (January 29, 2004)

Submission to Faculty Senate of Teaching Academy Structure and Governance Document

Senate Proposal for a Gateway Program for New Students

Participation in the development of WASC Survey to measure faculty satisfaction with CSUSB Faculty Development programs

Participation in meetings with WASC Visitation Teams

2002-2003

Workshop on Learning Communities (Invited Speaker: Milton Cox, Oct 25, 2002)

Campus Conversation on Teaching and Learning (Nov. 2002)

Annual Lunch Meetings with Year 2 New Faculty (Jan 28, 2003)

2001-2002

Teaching Academy Pre-Summer Workshop (June 24, 2002)

• Agenda
• Summary Report

CSUSB Team at AAHE Summer Academy, Mt. Snow, VT (July 16-21, 2002)