Teaching+group+report

Faculty development resources available at more than one campus and deemed potentially useful at UMB included:   §  Resources related to best practices/scholarship of teaching and learning  §  Campus workshops related to teaching effectiveness  §  Consulting/mentoring services available to faculty  §  Resources related to evaluating, documenting, and examine one’s own teaching  §  Interdisciplinary, multi-site workshops and short courses  §  A clear mission statement consistent with the purpose of the university  §  Links to university-wide assessments of teaching effectiveness <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;"> ·  <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Luncheons that addressed issues related to teaching effectiveness (some organized around specific themes and some more “free-form” in nature and meant as an opportunity for faculty to discuss matters important to them). <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Centers for Learning and Teaching: (Report by Jay R. Dee at the Graduate College of Education (2005) <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Resources at UMB <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Need for survey to develop a sense of UMB faculty needs in terms of development. Peter pointed out that previous surveys indicated a concern, on the part of new faculty, about developing a research agenda but there was comparatively little focus on development with regard to teaching <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Need for attention to how teaching is evaluated/measured and what types of benchmarks are expected. Attention to how faculty can be encouraged to experiment with new methods of teaching within the current constraints imposed by the system of teaching evaluations that currently exist. <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Recommendations for whole committee discussion: <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings;"> ü  <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A website should be developed to make available the full range of resources available on campus to improve teaching effectiveness, drawing on both best practices in the field and the needs of UMB faculty. Development of the website should follow a careful examination of resources available on other campuses and be tailored to meet the needs of the UMB community. One idea discussed was to include a social-networking/self-populating component of the website through which faculty could make available new and useful resources related to teaching effectiveness. <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings;"> ü  <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Department chairs should be expected to clearly communicate expectations to new faculty with regard to teaching effectiveness within their respective programs and a formal model of mentorship should be established. Several noteworthy models at UMB were discussed, including the English department. Ping-Ann also distributed a series of suggestions for faculty mentorship distributed at other institutions. <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings;"> ü  <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Finally, it was agreed that a survey should be undertaken to develop a sense of what types of resources are currently available with regard to teaching effectiveness/faculty development at UMB and what types of resources faculty would like to see made available in the future. The hope is that such a survey will illuminate “what specific resources provide most value to the teacher.” .
 * <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A Well-organized, easy-to-navigate, resource-heavy website that displayed, among other things:
 * <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Different models: some faculty driven, some led by administrators.
 * <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Made a campus priority by virtue of the fact that the center was well-resourced and adequately staffed (e.g. George Mason University appointed an Associate Provost for Faculty Development to lead the center, in addition to a faculty fellow and an administrative staff).
 * <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">faculty chairs could communicate their expectation that new faculty would avail themselves of these resources and somehow document, perhaps through a “teaching portfolio,” the impact on their subsequent teaching. It was hoped that such an exercise would result in an opportunity for faculty reflection that would impact teaching positively.