Center for Teaching and Learning

Not to miss! Have expert will travel on ipod or computer screen!
Stanford's "best teachers series". Some favorites: Professor Carl Weiman on "Science Education in the 21st Century"; Tom Byers' "Teaching in the Age of YouTube"; Eric Mazur's "Confessions of a Converted Lecturer"; and Donald Barr's "Standing at the Abyss: Teaching in Interdisciplinary Contexts".

An opportunity to join the vibrant community around teaching and learning that grew out of the earlier Visible Knowledge Project.  Become part of an international community of practice and engage with experts in the scholarship of teaching and learning and instructional design.

I call this "dream team" planning. This is a grassroots faculty inquiry based (Hewlett and Carnegie funded) model . The SPECC (Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in Community Colleges) project is grounded in Carnegie research and nurtured through the work Pat Hutchings and Mary Taylor Huber (The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons, 2005).  Note that they have the very best, master teachers, with the strongest disciplinary grounding working on the problem of developmental education. (discovery research in SoTL) An excellent resource ans a great "toolkit" as well!

I was at Bryn Mawr attending an intensive leadership training working on my OC campus leadership project (the Cabinet Learning Community) when this was "rolled out". Largely because of that connection and its intersection with my longstanding collaboration with the assessment liaisons and teaching and learning leads, when Noreen Light (Faculty Development Coordinator, SBCTC) asked for suggestions for this year's conference we were able to get Dr. Alma Clayton Pedersen as this year's keynote presenter for our Pacific Northwest Assessment, Teaching and Learning Conference!

I included this  link in honor of Erica McWilliam who is so inspiring in her 2008 work, The Creative Workforce: How to Launch Young People into High -Flying Futures.  Australia has really beecome the leader in this arena in the last five years.

Just a good set of resources to have at hand. Since I am an active member of ASHE , the Association for the Study of Higher Education, I will probably use this hyperlink, too!

I sent this site to Jennifer Hayes in Communication.  It is a dream, but we would both like to enroll in this sort of program.  I love the short video on creativity! Working at the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy!  I included it hoping that you would be inspired by the video in the upper right hand corner.

A great Service Learning site.  Expect conversations and collaborations in the Center for Teaching and Learning around service learning . . . very soon.

I first learned of this site at an Indigenous Service Learning conference. Good opportunity for the use of voice and counter-narrative. Could become high impact integrative learning experience for "high context", "high concept", "high touch" pedagogy and androgogy.

This UW website is still one of the clearest, most straightforward resources I know in terms of thinking and learning about and reflecting upon student learning goals. In a Buzz Lightyear moment I have dubbed this site "to accreditation and beyond."

Almost everything you want to know. Done by the California State Universities- known for their commitment to and training for good teaching and for providing support for fowarding and assessing student learning.

Another great "toolkit" item.

The website of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. An excellent resource site.

This is a good  resource website.  As folks who have been participants in the "advising as teaching" workshop know, I also think the Sedlacek's work on "non-cognitive variables" is excellent. (We have a well-worn copy in the Center that has been read and used by many of you already . . .Thank you!) Much of what is suggested here is done in our General Studies courses.  Note that the Berkeley profs are being encouraged to integrate this into each college credit bearing course to help to keep students motivated.

This is the big training ground for educational organizational developers. When I started in this position, I had taught as an adjunct in multiple disciplines and a "full time temporary" utility infielder :), found a niche and piloted an interdisciplinary program that I was given "three years" to build and earned my tenure based on that work. As program coordinator and department chair, I worked in community with my colleagues, always interested in mentoring and in talking about how to make our courses relevant and engaging.  Worked for years on curriculum committee, worked as an assessment liaison  . . .then I was "recruited" by the Lilly Conferences based on peer reviews of my work and encouraged to go into faculty development.  Interviewed here . . . the rest is "the road we make by walking". I appreciate your support as I continue to train to make our Center excellent and "state of the art". Each of you knows how important it is to be an "expert" in your field and have foundational knowledge before you "hang out a shingle". Browse through the site to discover what this organization does to help me to serve your needs. I would consider it a personal favor if you would read "Value of a Teaching Center" under the heading "What is Faculty Development."  I still miss being faculty . . .I miss the classroom . . . It's a Rolling Stones moment worth remembering.  "You can't always get what you want; but, if you try sometimes, you just might find . . . you get what you need."

I included this site because I consult it regularly (almost daily) as I try to fill lacunae in my knowledge and skills sets.  I have been a bit of a luddite, a kind of "quill and candle", "mood lighting", "texture and color loving" , "where's the poetry and ambience" kind of gal  . . . Known to "hold forth" on social justice issues and  the very real "digital divide" . (See page 3 of the newsletter.)  http://www.units.muohio.edu/celt/library/newsletter/pdf/CELT_Newsletter_v3n3_2007-02.pdf

Pronounced "nicks-pod", this organiztion is a resource for developers iincreasing their skills to increase institutional vitality. It's here to reflect our mission of lifelong learning for our entire campus community, and, as you can see, it includes specific examples of things like FERPA trainings and new employee orietations done in collaboration with Human Resources experts. The "Computer Whisperer" and contracted technology trainings we sponsored fit in this category, as do our innovation workshops, and small group evaluations for work teams.

Although I think I like the LaGuardia Community College "writing in the disciplines" materials just as much as I like this website, I include this one for the very clear statements in "Why Should I Use Writing Assignments in My Teaching".  I agree with the observations that good writing assignments prompt students to read more thoroughly and more critically, and the authors' statements about the ways that writing assignments can improve classroom discussions, teach students to organize ideas, force students to keep up with assigned reading and "give us a window into our students' thinking and learning" really resonate with my experience.

A clear, approachable, well organized, information rich site . . .for anyone.  Sometimes we hear people say "I read and read and nothing sinks in" or "I've studied this so many times."  Just as instructors are mutli-modal communicators, students need strategies to address those multiple modes. At the Center for Teaching and Learning, one of our first steps is assessment of teaching and learning styles, giving us lots of options to match your strategies with your context and to help you to communicate more clearly which students tend to thrive in the  learning environment you create and sustain together.

Featured website  and resource for working on Olympic College global core learning ability.  Please explore in depth!

I wish that I had found this resource when I was an I-5 corridor "freeway-flyer"-have -backpack-and-wheely-suitcase-will-travel-always-dedicated-holding office hours because 'how could I not" adjunct. Here it is, now.

This is a great read with a cup of coffee or tea in the morning.  Gets you started in the mood and mode of what we do.  I noticed that the League for Innovation in Community College (I know it sounds like a super-hero thing) has a competition on for faculty who use the New York Times in their instruction.
http://www.league.org/blog/post.cfm/league-connections-january-2009

I learned about this outreach project when I was invited to the campus in February.  I think that we could use aspects of this project and we could certainly learn from the research in terms of our outreach to the community.

Dr. Clayton-Pedersen was one of the faculty at the HERS, Bryn Mawr Summer Institute. When I got back to my home ground, I wanted to find a way to have everyone in our system learn what I had learned about all of the changes that are coming around "inclusive excellence".  My thanks go to Noreen Light at the SBCTC who asked our conference planning committee to decide who we should bring this year as our keynote . . . investigated . . .and agreed.

If I had to choose one community college to emulate, I think it would be LaGuardia.  If asked, I would go on and on about why . . .In this case, I am hopeful that we might consider the "student mentors in technology" idea. (I also love their website and the Boston University website . . .They've got "the look".)

This is an interview with Michael Wesch, the anthropologist from Kansas State University who used his Anthropology 2oo class to teach us that inspiring good questions creates a learning environment where we "harvest more work".  This interview gives direction for integrating all of our core learning abilities in our curricula, with most pointed emphases on global, lifelong learning and information literacy abilities.  Wesch says that institutions need to create "spaces"- forums to share ideas and to inspire one another.  He implores us to great our students with "love and respect", meeting them as important people who have a lot to share with us.  With the typical anthropological emphasis on "making the familiar strange" and using "beginner's mind", Wesch exhorts us to recognize that we learn in community and that creating community is the key to meaningful education that helps us to answer the questions that really matter- The question from the "test of life". When asked if creating active learning environments was more work (for both students and instructors) , Wesch quotes Nietzsche, in a sound bite that I believe is resonant with my experience: "Somebody who knows why, will put up with any how." Do our students know why we want them to learn?  Do we know why?

Dreamland! (see what I mean). Check out the interactive sign language dictionary and "Bu's Bats"!

You've gotta love the Library of Congress for keeping us moving on!

This year, Cornel West is one of the keynote speakers. An excellent conference. I love the "A Conversation With . . ." series. I use Francie Kendall's work in every class or workshop at any opportunity.  Worth exploring. I have books by this year's keynote speakers in my collection to share with you if you are interested.

And, now, for something completely different . . . You've got to search the site, but finding the Rutgers "Teach X  . . .the portfolio is out there" site is worth the effort. Includes teaching goals inventories and very clear guidelines for writing objectives.  Highly useful for designing assignments to address our core learning abilities! ( A few of the links were not working when I last investigated, but with a little patience, you will find resources that I have not seen elsewhere.)

Resources to feed the imagination.

An activity designed to simulate the inequity of environmental racism increasing awareness in young children (valuable consideration for adults, too.)

Be sure to go to the Conference site- "Beyond the Tides" to see te embedded YouTube description. A "must see" for Nurses and Nursing Instructors and anyone else in the health care fields . . . at the bottom of the page, click on the link labeled "total pain".
(I belong to the Developers' Caucus and I presented paper at this conference in Edmonton, the summer of 2007,  on the way to do OC work at Alverno and then to attend the Learning Communities training at Evergreen.  Although I'd rather not repeat that junket, the learning was worth it (almost).

Erica McWilliam uses the Blue Man Group to talk about teaching and learning in her chapter : Teacher: sage, guide, meddler. She notes that we are moving away from "every eye on me" to interactivity and playful irony and the ability to tolerate and work flexibly within ambiguity. The appeal  of the Blue Man Group is "hands on, minds on, plugged in" entertainment. Erica McWilliams identifies this experience as what John Seely Brown calls "learning to be" rather than "learning about". Citing the literature around "peripheral practice" as an antecedent to entering the community of practice, McWilliam quotes Seely Brown: "In peripheral participation the student is engaged in real work . . .He or she is able . . . to pick up as through osmosis, the sensibilities, beliefs, and idiosyncracies of the particular community of practice.  Learning happens seamlessly as part of an enculturation process as the learner moves from the periphery to a more central position in the community."  Sounds like an invitation to lifelong learning to me.

Having worked closely with these colleagues for years, I know the time and effort and energy they out into student success.  Doug Mooers and Heidi Ypma have been state leaders in making mathematics accessible. Worth exploring the entire site when you have the time.Check out Calculus on the web COW @Temple University or any one of the other free courses and support resources.  This site truly makes math accessible to EVERYONE.

I want to start a cross-silo discussion about this. Watch an episode, participate in an online or face-to-face discussion from any vantage point from any one or your multiple roles and identities.

Robin Jeffers of Bellevue College and I wrote a chapter together in an upcoming new publication on assessment, teaching and learning in the community college. It grew out of our work in both our Washington community of practice and our work in the Alverno based Innovation and Inquiry for Student Learning Consortium.  http://iisl.alverno.edu/  The work is in the final editing process and we are excited to see it in print!

Out of Dartmouth, this is the inaugural issue of this peer-reviewed online, open access journal.  The future of authentic lifelong learning is upon us!

Published by the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, this journal is an example of the new open access view of knowledge.  It is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal and issues and excerpts may be reproduced without express permission provided they are accompanied by full citation information. How does this change the academy?

Volume 9, No. 3 (2008) has a fascinating study about "The Effect of Individual Learning Styles on Student GPA in Engineering Education at Morgan State".  It uses Myers-Briggs types and Kolb typing (converger, accomodator, assimilator, diverger)  to study achievement in Engineering courses.  It seems that accomodators and assimilators are most successful while convergers and divergers (like me) have the hardest time. Worth reading just for the"box plot" . . .

Open access, international, online journal.  Post-graduate research in the arts, humanities and social sciences and education.  Based at the University of Glasgow, Scotland and run by graduate students, the peer-reviewed journal provides a first entry into academic publishing.

I had the pleasure of visiting University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign as the keynote speaker for their faculty retreat. I loved reading this journal even before I visited the campus, but I have a deeper appreciation now. (I have read everything that Richard Powers has published and used one of his works to show the range and depth of what it means to be "educated enough" to read a complex novel.) As you browse this journal See Volume 10, Number 5 (February 1, 2009) for Elizabeth Delacruz' take on our global learning and information literacy core learning abilities: "From Bricks and Mortar to the Public Sphere in Cyberspace: Creating a Culture of Care in the Digital Global Commons".  Here is a very different approach to the rhetoric around "millenials" and "digital natives"- an erudite look (using Habermas, Dewey and discussions of a civic commons and  bringing compelling interests into public space) at "ubiquitous learning". I'll use it if I have the privilege of teaching the literature and politics course again.

Mick is a good friend and a challenging sparring partner. He is the one who first encouraged me to read the literature in the scholarship of teaching and learning in the U.K. Through his prodding, I fell in love with the works of Ronald Barnett and Morwenna Griffiths and all of the Open Court Press group who are not afraid to talk about "reshaping the university" , "educating for critical being", and investigating what it means to have "a will to learn" - "being a student in an age of uncertainty".  Mick Healey is associated with the Centre for Active Learning and multiple award-winning expert, not only in his discipline, but also in his work in active learning research, in his work supporting disabled students on fieldwork and in his work on developing inclusive curricula.  It is my pleasure to introduce his work to our campus community and to encourage you to read what comes out on Open Court Press.

This is a relatively new German journal of American Studies.  I include it here because of its relevance ( through its transnational perspectives) to our global learning outcome.  There is an interesting article on "screen Indians" in a recent issue. Gives one another perspective on American culture.