The Official Blog of UCAT

UCAT Staff Member Receives GATA Award

2012-05-23T11:57:00.005-04:00

Congratulations, Lindsay!

Congratulations to our graduate intern Lindsay Bernhagen for being a recipient of this year’s Graduate Associate Teaching Award!

The Graduate Associate Teaching Award, affectionately known as “GATA,” is awarded to ten outstanding graduate teaching associates each year. Nominees for the award—of whom there are generally more than one hundred—prepare an extensive portfolio that provides insight into their teaching philosophy, how they have developed in their role as a teacher, and their accomplishments as a teacher at OSU. The award is granted based on such selection criteria as “ability to stimulate thinking and understanding among students,” “excellent knowledge of and enthusiasm for course subject matter,” and “ability to demonstrate that the course(s) resulted in significant student learning.”

Lindsay earned her bachelor’s degree in music at Luther College and masters degrees from Ohio State in Music and Women’s Studies. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the OSU Comparative Studies department, researching music and gender. In her role as Graduate Consultant and Intern at UCAT, Lindsay helps to develop resources for UCAT, facilitates teaching workshops, and consults with other GTAs and with various academic units across campus in order to help improve the quality of teaching at OSU.

Lindsay joins a number of other past and present UCAT Graduate Consultants in winning GATA. We are proud to have Lindsay working here at UCAT!

The Last Quarter: Preparing to Teach in Semesters

2012-05-17T13:03:00.004-04:00

Over 60 members of the campus community
participated in the conference.

by Jennie Williams

There is no way around it. Semesters are coming!

June 18, 2012 is the first day Ohio State will be on the semester system, marking the end of the long and arduous quarter-to-semester conversion.

We've been so wrapped up in course proposals and paperwork that we had to stop and wonder: Are people actually prepared to teach in semesters? How will the experience be different for both students and teachers alike? How can we successfully prepare for and navigate this change?

Ann Christy presented "Behind the Scenes
of the Quarter-to-Semester Conversion"

In order to address this issue, the Academy of Teaching themed its 2012 Mini-Conference on Excellence in Teaching: "The Last Quarter: Preparing to Teach in Semesters."

Sixty faculty, staff, and graduate students from across campus joined the conversation on Friday, May 11, and reported taking away lots of new ideas to implement in their semester-long classes.

Ann Christy kicked off the day by discussing the behind-the-scenes process of converting from quarters to semesters and all that entailed.

Susan Williams wrapped up the conference with
"What Semesters Hold in Store for Us."

Kathryn Plank and Jerry Nelms from UCAT facilitated a workshop about teaching to the pace of the semester - the challenges and opportunities presented by the shift in course timing.

Two faculty members from Otterbein University who are finishing their first academic year in the semester system shared their candid insights, challenges, and suggestions from "the other side."

Over lunch, the Academy of Teaching Executive Council presented its Founder's Award to the Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Members of the Executive Council with
members of the Alumni Association Board of Directors,
recipients of this year's Founder's Award.

Then, academic support units from around campus participated in a "five minutes of fame" presentation, describing tips and tools they can offer faculty members in the new academic year.

Finally, Vice Provost Susan Williams wrapped up the day by discussing changes in college teaching that may arise as a result of internal issues such as calendar conversion as well as external changes in higher education.

We invite you to view the conference website for session descriptions, PowerPoint presentations, and other resources. Also, visit the Academy of Teaching website and consider making a gift to support future conferences.

Our May Book Giveaway is HERE!

2012-05-02T13:58:00.002-04:00

This month, we're giving away a copy of Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education, by Kathleen Gabriel.

Here's a description from the publisher:

As societal expectations about attending college have grown, professors report increasing numbers of students who are unprepared for the rigors of postsecondary education—not just more students with learning disabilities (whose numbers have more than tripled), but students (with and without special admission status) who are academically at-risk because of inadequate reading, writing and study skills. This book provides professors and their graduate teaching assistants—those at the front line of interactions with students—with techniques and approaches they can use in class to help at-risk students raise their skills so that they can successfully complete their studies.

Within the framework of identifying those students who need help, establishing a rapport with them, adopting inclusive teaching strategies, and offering appropriate guidance, the book presents the theory teachers will need, and effective classroom strategies. The author covers teaching philosophy and goals; issues of discipline and behavior; motivation and making expectations explicit; classroom climate and learning styles; developing time management and study skills; as well as the application of “universal design” strategies. The ideas presented here—that the author has successfully employed over many years—can be easily integrated into any class.

There are many ways to enter the drawing. See below for more! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winner of April Book Giveaway

2012-04-30T10:46:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to Erin L., this month's winner of UCAT's giveaway!

Erin was selected from over 300 entries to receive a copy of Teaching Sustainability, Teaching Sustainably, a collection of essays edited by Kristen Allen Bartels and Kelly A. Parker.

We'll be announcing our May giveaway later this week, so stay tuned for a chance to win another exciting book about teaching in higher education!

Congratulations to the New Academy of Teaching Members

2012-04-25T16:58:00.001-04:00

By Mohamed F. Yousif, Professor of Mathematics, OSU Lima

The Academy of Teaching's insignia

On behalf of the Academy of Teaching, I would like to congratulate the newest recipients of the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. This award is given annually to honor faculty members for superior teaching. Recipients are chosen by a committee of alumni, students and faculty after having been nominated by present and former students and colleagues.

This year's recipients are:

Bradley Clymer: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
David Herman: Department of English
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Department of History
Mark A. Kleffner: School of Earth Sciences, OSU Lima
Robin Rice: School of Music
Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan: Department of Human Development and Family Science
Ric Simmons: Moritz College of Law
Paul Sivilotti: Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Deborah K. Steward: College of Nursing

Each year, the recipients of the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching are inducted into the Academy of Teaching, of which I am the current chair. The Academy was founded by President Gee to reward excellence in teaching and to promote quality scholarship in teaching and learning. Each year the ten recipients of the prestigious Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching become members of the Academy, and with that honor, the new members assume their responsibility in carrying forward the stated mission of the Academy in promoting excellence in teaching.

Since its inauguration, the Academy has sponsored numerous activities designed to promote quality teaching. The Academy has flourished through the publication of its annual volumes on “Talking about Teaching," the organization of seminars and conferences on Great Teaching, and the orientation of new faculty to OSU.

“Talking about Teaching” is a collection of essays on the scholarship of teaching and learning by members and friends of the Academy. You can browse through past issues through the Knowledge Bank.

Each year the Academy organizes a one-day mini-conference showcasing excellence in the scholarship of teaching and learning through the best practices of its members. The mini-conference is open to all faculty, graduate students and staff who want to improve their instructional skills and learn more about the vital link between teaching excellence and scholarship. This year, we will address the theme of teaching in semesters vs. quarters in our 2012 mini-conference on May 11.

In 2008 the Executive Council of the Academy of Teaching established the Founder’s Award to recognize individuals for meritorious service in promoting teaching excellence on the campuses of The Ohio State University. The Founder’s Award is named for OSU President E. Gordon Gee, who, on April 4, 1992, announced his intent to form The Academy of Teaching. The Founder’s Award was established to recognize distinguished service in furthering the mission of the Academy. Nominees for the Founder’s Award may include those who have served in academic or administrative positions at the university, as well as alumni and other non-university individuals.

The Academy also holds a Fall Reception exclusively for members of the Academy of Teaching, which is an opportunity to connect with each other and engage in a discussion about teaching with university leaders. Past speakers included Dean Osmer (2006), President Gee (2007), Provost Alutto (2008), Dean Steinmetz (2009), Kathy Starkoff (2010) and Vice Provost Mike Boehm (2011).

If you have an interest in supporting the Academy of Teaching through the Campus Campaign, please visit our website for gifts.

Once more I wish to congratulate the new recipients of the award and welcome them into the Academy.

UCAT around the World: Taiwan, Part I

2012-04-16T11:49:00.008-04:00

The following entry is the first part of our multi-part series, "UCAT around the World: Taiwan". In December, three of our consultants traveled to Taiwan to share the work that we do at UCAT with members of the Chinese Culture University. Each of the three travelers will be sharing their reflections as part of this blog in the coming weeks.

CCU'S motto is "Quality, Simplicity, Endurance and Persistence"

Invitation to Chinese Culture University

By Laurie Maynell

Last June, representatives from Chinese Culture University (CCU) in Taiwan paid UCAT a visit. Their university had recently won a prestigious multi-year grant from the Taiwanese government, the goal of which is to develop initiatives to strengthen and support teaching at CCU.

One of our visitors, Dr. Hsin-Yi Ou-Yang, is an Ohio State alumnus (Ph.D., Sociology, 1990) and the Dean of International and Mainland China Affairs at CCU. He and the university’s then President Tien-Rein Lee asked us several questions about how UCAT works to support teaching at Ohio State’s campuses. We in turn asked questions about their university and their teaching center.

A couple months later, we received an official invitation, and our collaboration with Chinese Culture University had begun. The memorandum of understanding between our two universities provides for the organization of joint academic/educational activities, such as courses, seminars or conferences, as well as collaborative research and teaching projects and the development of ongoing and new curricula. In October, Dean Ou-Yang returned to Ohio State, along with Registrar Min-Chin Chang. They spoke with Vice Provost William Brustein and President Gee about creating education abroad programs between the two universities.

In addition, our guests attended UCAT workshops, and shadowed different consultants in their day-to-day activities in order to experience first hand how UCAT functions. Director Chang continued on with several UCAT staff to Atlanta, GA, to attend the 36th annual Conference of our professional organization, the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.

Next, in early December, Kathryn Plank, Teresa Johnson, and I flew halfway around the world to Taipei to present workshops at the International Symposium on Improving Teaching Quality hosted by CCU.

Founded in 1962, Chinese Culture University’s main campus is located on a mountain, next to Yang Ming Shan National Park, about a 30-minute drive from Taipei City. The campus is stunning, not just because of the beautiful location but also because of the lovely architecture. As Provost Steve Shih explained to us during a campus tour, the architecture is a blend of traditional and modern Chinese cultural styles.

CCU is a private university and one of the most comprehensive universities in Taiwan. It has 12 colleges, and 59 departments offering undergraduate degrees, as well as 40 master’s programs and 11 doctoral programs. The student body consists of 20,500 undergraduates and 2500 graduate students.
Its School of Continuing Education is the largest in Taiwan, and it has several sister universities all over the world. In late February, CCU celebrated its 50th anniversary. The celebration included the 2012 International President Forum, at which Vice Provost William Brustein was an invited speaker.

We are honored to have this opportunity to work with and learn from the faculty and staff of such a great university. In Part 2, we will tell you more about the symposium and our experiences working with faculty at CCU.

Our April Book Giveaway Begins Today!

2012-04-02T11:30:00.000-04:00

This month, we'll be giving away one of our new favorite books Teaching Sustainability, Teaching Sustainably, edited by K. A. Bartels and K. A. Parker.

Here's a short description from the publisher:

"Over the coming decades, every academic discipline will have to respond to the paradigm of more sustainable life practices because students will be living in a world challenged by competition for resources and climate change, and will demand that every academic discipline demonstrate substantial and corresponding relevance.

This book takes as its point of departure that integrating a component of sustainability into a discipline-specific course arises from an educator asking a simple question: in the coming decades, as humanity faces unprecedented challenges, what can my discipline or area of research contribute toward a better understanding of these issues? The discipline need not be future-oriented: an archaeologist, for instance, could incorporate into a course some aspects of sustainable archaeological practices in areas threatened by rapid climate change, as well as examples of sustainable or unsustainable ways of living practiced by members of the long-gone society under investigation."

There are many ways to enter. To find out how, follow the links below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spring Has Sprung!

2012-03-29T10:36:00.003-04:00

The Spring Quarter - that is, our last quarter at Ohio State - is now upon us! We invite you to get the quarter off to a good start by registering for some of our spring events. Here are some highlights:

Our College Teaching Series will take you through the process of designing assignments, quizzes, and tests through grading them fairly and efficiently.

Writing Across the Curriculum will provide guidance on creating a more dynamic classroom community through writing. Learn to create opportunities for collaboration, group work, and peer review, and gain some tips on how to use writing to enhance class discussion and participation.

We're also partnering with several groups across campus to sponsor a campus visit from sustainability scholar David Orr of Oberlin College, and we're excited to announce that registration is open for this year's Academy of Teaching mini-conference: The Last Quarter: Preparing to Teach in Semesters.

What better time than now to finally participate in one of our Course Design Institutes? As you revamp your course for semesters, or perhaps plan to create a brand new one, consider joining an interactive, intimate community of others across campus who are trying to accomplish the same goal.

Read about these events and more, and gain some tips on teaching in semesters, by reading the online version of our quarterly Events on Teaching newsletter.

Register for any events that pique your interest at our website: http://ucat.osu.edu.

Winner of UCAT's Book Giveaway!

2012-03-26T10:57:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to Kathryn L., this month's winner of our first book giveaway!

Kathryn was selected from over 300 entries to receive a copy of Team Teaching: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy, edited by Kathryn M. Plank, UCAT’s associate director.

An essay by Kathryn Plank included in Team Teaching was recently included on the blog counterpart to the popular mailing list Tomorrow's Professor. Tomorrow's Professor features content covering a wide variety of issues relevant to a career as a faculty member. The list and blog are edited by Richard Reis of Stanford University and sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning. Click here to read the post "A Rough-and-Tumble Enterprise."

We'll be announcing our new giveaway later this week, so stay tuned for a chance to win another great book about teaching in higher education!

Upcoming Conference: Today's Student Veterans

2012-02-28T11:18:00.002-05:00

Filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes

By Mike Carrell, Ohio State's Veterans Resource Analyst

What do you think of when you hear “Student-Veteran,” or “Military Student?” Do you have military and veteran students in your class, or seeking services from your office? How do you know? Does it make a difference? What needs might they have? How could you help them, and where should you refer them?

These students have often been described as Non-Traditional students, but “more of;” i.e. more of them:

are over 25 or over 30
are married
have children
may experience Post-Traumatic Stress
use federal aid
have been deployed than was typical of military members in the past

Over 2 million men & women served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past 11 years, and now many of them are coming home and attending college. In our great state of Ohio, they join previous veterans to number 890,000 state residents with military service—all eligible for some education benefits. OSU’s student veteran population is growing quickly to now almost 1800!

The number of Ohio State students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill for Higher Education has grown 900% from Fall 2009 to Fall 2011, and more growth is expected in the next 10-15 years. Ohio State, like all universities, has been challenged by this rapid expansion. Add the 1800 students to the more than 1000 OSU faculty & staff that are veterans, and you probably teach, or work with, a Veteran—you just might not know it!

There is help to understand--The University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, along with Student Life, Undergraduate Education, Veterans' Affairs, and OSU’s student organization Vets4Vets, invite you to a one day conference on “Today’s Student Veteran: Creating a Supportive Educational Environment” on March 5^th at the Ohio Union.

The conference will feature nationally renowned filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, OSU’s InterACT acclaimed production on student-veterans, and a panel of Ohio State Student Veterans describing their transition back to college and civilian life from the military. Breakout panels on Teaching Student-Veterans, Today’s Veteran, and Suicide Prevention will also be offered.

The cost is only $10 and includes a catered lunch! Please sign up before March 2^nd at: http://ucat.osu.edu/participate/ucat_events/veterans/

UCAT'S Monthly Book Giveaway Starts TODAY!

2012-02-21T10:40:00.001-05:00

Starting today, UCAT will be giving away a favorite book about teaching each month!

The first book you can win is Team Teaching: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy, edited by Kathryn M. Plank, UCAT’s very own associate director.

Description from the publisher:
For those considering adopting team teaching, or interested in reviewing their own practice, this book offers an overview of this pedagogy, its challenges and rewards, and a rich range of examples in which teachers present and reflect upon their approaches. This book provides insight into the impact of team teaching on student learning and on faculty development. It also addresses the challenges, both pedagogical an administrative, that need to be addressed for team teaching to be effective.

There are many ways to enter. To find out how, log in below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UCAT's Communicating with Your International TA Event Coverage in The Lantern

2012-01-25T09:56:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, OSU's student news paper The Lantern ran story about a recent event that UCAT instructional consultant Laurie Maynell co-facilitated: "Strategies for Communicating Effectively with Your International TA." This event was part of OSU's 2011-2012 Undergraduate Colloquium Series whose central theme this year is "Immigration, Identity, and Citizenship."

You can read The Lantern's article here.

Workshop Reflection: Teacher Identity and Student Expectations

2012-01-10T08:38:00.008-05:00

By Lindsay Bernhagen

On November 10, UCAT and DISCO (the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU) co-sponsored a workshop titled “Teacher Identity and Student Expectations: How does who we are affect what happens in our classes?” The event was attended by about 20 GTAs and faculty members, each of whom was presented with a chance to reflect on and share how their identity has shaped the way they are perceived and approached by their students.

In order to create an inviting, open space for conversation in which ideas could be freely exchanged among the participants, we used the “World Café” facilitation technique. We began our first round by asking the five small groups of participants to introduce why they chose to come to the event and then to share a story from their own experience about identity in the classroom. Each table then chose one story to share.

In rounds two and three the participants moved to different tables to talk with new people while sharing their responses to some research findings on how teacher identity shapes students’ experiences and sharing strategies they’ve tried in their own classes. Finally, as a large group, we brainstormed additional resources that could help us respond to some of the challenges that the group identified throughout the session.

During each round, the groups were asked to jot down notes on a large piece of paper in order to capture their conversation. These notes, as well as those taken by facilitators during the session, were then typed up and “harvested,” or sorted into pseudo-concept maps a few days later by some of the participants. In the pictures below, you can see some snapshots from the results from the harvest and get a sense of the how different faculty and graduate students are experiencing identity in their classrooms at Ohio State.

Question 1: What brought you here today?

Question 2: What about the research findings surprised you? What sounded familiar to you?

Question 3: What are some strategies that you’ve tried in your own classrooms?

Question 4: What additional resources would you like to see to help you navigate some of the challenges you face in the classroom?

What themes, patterns, and connections do you notice? What do you find familiar? What do you find surprising?

To read more about some of the research that inspired this event, see our earlier blog post, "The Classroom Is Not Neutral."

Using Student Feedback to Help Your Teaching and Get You Published

2011-12-05T11:40:00.006-05:00

By Tom Koontz, Professor in the School of Environmental and Natural Resources

As a newly hired assistant professor in Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, I turned to UCAT (formerly the Faculty & TA Development office) for inspiration and advice about my teaching. I became a big fan of student feedback, thanks to classroom visits by Li Tang and Kathryn Plank for SGIDs (small group instructional diagnostics) and a survey instrument I give to students at the end of each quarter.

After many years of soliciting and using feedback, Kathryn and I discussed the fact that we had accumulated a large dataset across diverse courses. This became a great opportunity to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning. The latest issue of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching includes a peer-reviewed article that Kathryn and I co-authored.

The article, “Can Reading Questions Foster Active Learning? A Study of Six College Courses,” describes my use of structured reading questions to encourage students to complete assigned readings before class, and to promote active learning. We linked the reading questions to Svinicki’s (1991) six principles of active learning and found that students valued the questions especially for two of those principles: identifying what information is important, and connecting the reading to prior knowledge. Nearly 60 % of students reported completing assigned readings at least 75 % of the time, and over half rated the question sets as “very helpful” for their learning, the highest point on a 5-point scale. I have found the reading questions to be great for sparking in-class discussion, both because they encourage students to read and thus be able to discuss the content, and because they can be posed in class. I have found this to be a versatile pedagogical tool across undergraduate and graduate courses in topics such as natural resources policy, research methods, ecosystem management, and public policy theory.

For sample reading questions that link to Svinicki’s principles of active learning, see the article at: http://celt.muohio.edu/ject/fetch.php?id=506.*

*The download of the article pdf only works from Ohio State campus IP addresses.

2011 POD Conference: Supporting Adjunct Faculty

2011-11-09T12:09:00.004-05:00

by Lindsay Bernhagen

Nationwide, adjunct faculty made up about 50% of the professoriate in 2009, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The ratio is lower at OSU, about 43%, at OSU, but adjuncts still make up a significant portion of our teaching labor pool. In 2010, Ohio State employed 2,226 “auxiliary” faculty compared to 2,982 regular (that is, excluding clinical and research appointments) tenure-track faculty. There is no question that the number of adjunct faculty teaching at colleges and universities around the country are on the rise.

At the recent annual POD Conference, I attended a session designed to help faculty developers better serve this growing population of adjunct faculty. Adjunct faculty, we were reminded, have many of the same needs as tenure-track faculty and teaching assistants, including access to professional development activities, and the ability to be a part of a community.

Adjunct faculty face a number of challenges that tenure-track faculty and even teaching assistants don’t necessarily have to consider. For example,

adjuncts typically teach a much heavier course load than TAs or tenure-track faculty.

Many find that, because they are generally paid significantly less than their tenure-track counterparts, they must taken on work at multiple institutions, cobbling together several adjunct appointments to make a livable wage.

Adjuncts are frequently hired at the last minute—sometimes only a day before a term starts—resulting in a distinctive and disturbing lack of job security or even predictability.

When they arrive on campus, they may or may not find that they are “oriented” with the same thoroughness and care as other populations.

Adjuncts may or may not be included in the departmental community: some get invited to faculty or departmental meetings, but many do not.

Though, at many universities, they take on the majority of teaching responsibility, they are often left to ascertain how their course fits into the curriculum without much guidance.

They may not have access to—or even be aware of—resources that they need, such as information technology offices, services provided by the library, or even adequate office space.

Indeed, many adjunct faculty function in a “liminal” space where they are both inside and outside their employing departments and/or institution(s).

Here at the University Center for the Advancement of teaching, all of our events are open to adjunct faculty, tenure-track faculty, and graduate students alike. We hope that we can provide a place where many different voices can contribute. To register for our events, click here. If you have a suggestion for how we can better serve our adjunct faculty, please contact us at ucat@osu.edu.

2011 POD Conference: Mutual Mentoring

2011-11-08T17:18:00.000-05:00

by Teresa Johnson

We often think of mentoring as a process where the mentor has more experience or holds a higher professional position than the mentee. This typically creates a traditional teacher/student type of relationship where the mentor teaches and the mentee learns. Last week at the POD Network annual conference (read our previous post about POD here), I learned of a different type of mentoring where the learning and the teaching goes in both directions. It is called Mutual Mentoring or Peer Mentoring.

This type of mentoring is not intended to replace the need for a more experienced mentor. Indeed a peer mentor is meant to benefit both members through mutual development of both parties, through information sharing, career strategizing, job-related feedback, emotional support, and friendship. After hearing the presenters talk about their personal experience with mutual mentoring, I think that having a peer mentor in an academic setting might be valuable to all of us, whether the mentoring is focused on teaching, research, or all aspects of an academic life.

Entering into a mutual mentorship can be approached in much the same way as a more traditional mentoring relationship, with one important difference. Before identifying a mutual mentor, think about not only what you want from a mentor, but also what you have to offer as a mentor.

As you think choosing a peer mentor, it may seem natural to ask someone who is a colleague in your department or unit. While having a peer mentor who really understands your work environment and knows what you do every day can seem enticing, it can also be beneficial to have someone who thinks about things from a different point of view and who has some professional distance. The leaders of the conference session discussed how their different personalities and positions across the country, created a nice framework for their peer mentoring relationship.

Other aspects to consider when choosing a mentor that were mentioned in the presentation were gender, values, attitudes and beliefs, age, complimentarity of knowledge, skills, and abilities, ability to be reflective and willingness to commit time to the mentoring relationship.
Once two of you have agreed to enter a mutual mentorship, it is important to have an open discussion about the scope of your proposed relationship including the following topics:

The intentionality of the relationship – how formal should the relationship be?
What goals do each of the parties have for the mentor relationship?
How and when you will meet?

A peer mentor can add a whole new dimension to your support structure as you move through your career in academia. If you are interested in learning more about mentoring in general, or mutual mentoring specifically, please feel free to contact UCAT at ucat@osu.edu.

2011 POD Conference: A Lesson in Collegiality

2011-11-03T10:22:00.000-04:00


"At POD, collegiality flows like wine." Image courtesy of GoogleImages

By Glene Mynhardt

Being involved in a teaching center means that you naturally get exposed to many other centers, initiatives, and institutions that care just as much as we at UCAT do about teaching and the development of their faculty and graduate teachers.

POD (Professional and Organizational Development) is one of those organizational acronyms that floats around UCAT often, but the scope of its mission wasn’t evident until I was granted the opportunity to attend the 2011 POD conference in Atlanta, Georgia at the end of October. In short, POD is an organization that exists for the purpose of providing teaching support for faculty and TAs around the world. The members of POD are a mix of administrators, teaching consultants, and faculty – and this year I got to be a part of POD as a graduate student.

I have been to many discipline-specific conferences, which are always enjoyable, bustling, and usually exhausting, with talks of new discoveries in the field. POD was no different, but there was a very unfamiliar feeling of collegiality in the air. Of the 700-plus attendees, I made friends from Japan and Granada, and even got an opportunity to network with neighbors from the University of Michigan! I was able to share what it means to be passionate about teaching, and it wasn’t considered strange as it often can be at conferences that are focused on disciplinary research. From one day to the next people whom I had met only once before knew my name, my background, and my goals. It was amazing.
During one of the sessions at POD we shared projects happening in teaching centers all around the world – each with the goal of enhancing TA development in teaching and professional development. I was in awe not only because Powerpoints, unpublished data, and new techniques that might be guarded like the Mona Lisa in other disciplines were readily being shared, but also because this sort of collaboration and openness was expected!

At POD, collegiality flows like wine. (As a telling example, one of the things I thought most provocative and inspiring was a humorous warning that so-called PODers “Participate or Die (POD!)!”) I will take the lesson that collegiality does not have to be rare or strange with me wherever I go. I am a graduate student, but I am also a teacher and a researcher who often adopts a territoriality not uncommon in the sciences, and POD helped me to better appreciate the benefits of intellectual and professional collaboration.

If you would like to know more about what POD does, click here.

Using Writing to Enhance Discussion

2011-10-10T16:25:00.001-04:00

Connecting class discussion to writing can help you focus
your goals for students' engagement.
Photo by foreverdigital

The following tips about using writing to enhance discussion are brought to you by the Writing Across the Curriculum program, part of the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing at The Ohio State University.

How do I facilitate productive and active participation in the classroom? How do I connect classroom engagement to the writing that students are doing outside of class?

Some instructors get fired up for classroom discussion and engagement; they see participation in the classroom as a way of expanding how students might think about a certain issue or interpret a certain text. Some instructors might approach the topic of classroom engagement with a bit of trepidation; they worry about what might happen if students aren’t participating and a conversation grinds to a halt, or what might happen if students get locked into a heated debate about a controversial topic. Connecting class discussion to writing can help you focus your goals for students’ engagement. Efficiently linking classroom engagement and writing will be even more important as we adjust to teaching shorter classes after the semester conversion!

Tomorrow: Begin and end your class with a few minutes of free-writing to help students ground themselves in the classroom and collect their thoughts.

Tomorrow, try beginning your class by giving students five minutes to write about the reading that is due that day or a problem or issue relevant to class. This will give them time to “shift gears” and focus on being in the classroom, and it will also give them something concrete to build on in class participation. Having students write at the end of class can help them to pull together their thinking over the period, to begin to consider issues you will cover in subsequent sessions, and to connect discussion to longer term projects. Furthermore, if you have a chance to collect their writing, you can have a really rich picture of what students are thinking and how they are learning. You don’t even need to grade these reflections.

Point out that writing of any kind is a good way to organize one’s thoughts, and that discussion and lecture will help build on the ideas from the free writing exercise. Free writing can be particularly effective when you direct students’ thinking toward a particular question or problem, and when you explicitly connect the writing students do to the following discussion or activity.

Next Week: Develop group work and discussion activities that ask students to practice the writing and thinking skills they will need for their formal writing assignments.

Divide the class into groups and create activities that encourage students to practice the same skills they will use in their writing in an interactive way. Ask groups to write responses to these questions and post them to a discussion board or read them aloud in class.

For example, an instructor in the social sciences might ask students to establish an operationalizable thesis to address a broad issue or question. Later, groups could brainstorm potential confounding variables for other groups’ theses, and those groups could revise their theses to better account for those variables.

An instructor in the humanities might have students construct an analytical thesis statement based on a text that the class has read and analyzed. Student groups could then reread for textual evidence that both supports and complicates or contradicts the thesis, revising as they discover and integrate new evidence from the text.

In the sciences, an instructor might pull data from an existing study and ask groups to discuss and write up the conclusions one might draw from the data. Groups might then read the original research and compare and evaluate their conclusions with those from the existing research report.

Instructors can emphasize that students should listen to every group members’ position and, through collaborative dialogue, agree upon a thesis and supporting evidence. Having students practice short, informal collaborative writing can help them see writing as a process that comes directly from collaborative engagement. It also provides an opportunity for students to discuss how integral collaboration is to the research and knowledge-making process.

Continue reading at the Writing Across the Curriculum blog to find tips about implementing this initiative next quarter and in semesters.

The 2011 Teaching Orientation @ Ohio State

2011-09-27T11:50:00.000-04:00

Participants engage in group discussion during
Introduction to Teaching and Learning.

by Jennie Williams

Each year, UCAT offers a three-day orientation for graduate teaching associates who are either new to The Ohio State University or new to their teaching assignment for the coming academic year. The orientation is designed to reduce anxieties, provide some techniques and strategies for effective teaching, and suggest resources for further assistance.

This year's orientation was held September 13, 14, and 15. We had 445 participants in attendance, representing 64 departments from across campus.

Of those who pre-registered with us:

85 were international students
205 came to us with no teaching experience
51 had taught at Ohio State
101 had taught at another college or university
123 had teaching experience outside of higher education

Our Teaching Resource Fair taught GTAs about the teaching
support they can find through various units on our campus.

Our participants commented on their evaluations:

"It was great to have dedicated, structured, but flexible time with experienced TA’s."

"Taught me to think of the teacher I want to be and the atmosphere I want to create."

"I will be using most of this information next week!"

"Straight to the point with good examples of what we could encounter in the future."

"…as an international student, definitely helped with what to expect will be different."

To learn more, visit the Teaching Orientation website.

To see more pictures, visit our Facebook page.

If you attended the orientation, please leave us a comment that describes a highlight of your experience!

The Value of Awkward Silence: Increasing Wait Time in the Classroom

2011-08-22T11:05:00.001-04:00

Increasing wait time after asking a question in your class
helps students practice critical thinking skills.
Photo by: goto10

by Lindsay Bernhagen

By now, most instructors are familiar with the value of actively involving students in class through asking questions. But it can feel awkward or even frustrating when questions posed to a classroom full of students are met with nothing but crickets. A first impulse may be to just cold call a student and hope for the best or for the instructor to provide the answer her- or himself.

There is another option, though, and it involves a simple strategy with potentially huge payoffs. This other option is simply to wait. Let those crickets chirp for at least three (but up to even ten!) seconds, and see what happens.

Over 40 years ago, Mary Bud Rowe pioneered the notion that "wait time" – a name she gave to the length of time between when a teacher asks a question and when a student hazards an answer—was an integral variable in the overall quality of student responses and thus of student learning.

Rowe showed that after asking discussion questions of their students, most instructors (from elementary school through college) waited less than one second before calling on a student for a response or providing the answer themselves. Robert Stahl expanded Rowe’s concept, recommending three second gaps at multiple points during a class period—not just during question and answer activities.

Students need time to identify and put into practice the critical thinking tools they are being asked to hone in class before composing thoughtful and coherent verbal contributions. Extending “wait time” provides them with a chance to do just that.

In fact, Rowe, as well as subsequent researchers, found that the length of student responses tends to increase at least threefold. Student responses tended to be more substantive, including more thorough argumentation and less mimicry of what the instructor had already stated. On top of all that, increased wait time appears to be directly related to increased student motivation!

Instructors benefit from increasing wait time as well. Having more time allows instructors to better strategize how to incorporate student responses, and provides an opportunity to develop higher-level questions. Research shows that the combined benefit of increased wait time and higher cognitive questions is greater than the benefit of either of these alone.

This simple strategy—slowly counting to three while waiting out an “awkward silence”—is one of the easiest and most effective ways to allow chirping crickets to transform into churning wheels.

"What's In a Name?": Helping Our Growing Chinese Student Population Feel Welcome

2011-08-15T11:35:00.004-04:00

The number of Chinese students studying at American
colleges and universities is increasing at a stunning rate.

by Jennie Williams

"A colleague of mine was about to meet with a new faculty member from China, so he asked me to teach him the pronunciation of her name. After the meeting, he came into my office and described to me how impressed and pleased she looked at hearing her name spoken accurately." -University staff

"My Chinese students tell me when other professors can pronounce their names correctly: 'He can say my name!' Their faces light up." -ESL teacher

America continues to be the prime destination for international scholars. As reported in Business Week, our country hosted 691,000 international students in the 2009-10 academic year – 26% more than in the previous decade. Of these students, the highest percentage came from China, and according to the Institute of International Education, the number of Chinese students attending our colleges and universities is increasing at a stunning rate. In 2009-10, nearly 128,000 Chinese students studied in the United States, which is an increase of 30% from the previous year.

And not only that, but more and more of these Chinese international students are coming not as graduate students, but as freshmen. Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the Institute of International Education, told the New York Times that the booming Chinese economy in conjunction with its one-child policy are contributing to this change: “I think one factor is the great number of Chinese families with disposable income, two working parents and only one child, and a determination to invest their money to make sure that child receives the best education possible.”

The Ohio State University is not exempt from this influx of Chinese scholars. In a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, China, university president Gordon Gee announced that Ohio State ranks 14^th in the country for the number of international students it hosts, “with the greatest number of students – more than 1,200 – coming from China.”

As Ohio State professors, instructors, and GTAs see their rosters becoming increasingly international, they are also faced with a need to help these students adapt and feel comfortable in their classrooms. As the above quotations illustrate, a teacher’s ability to pronounce a student’s name correctly can do a lot to make him or her feel welcome in a foreign classroom.

To assist teachers with this particular challenge, UCAT will host a workshop called “Pronouncing Chinese Names” on Wednesday, September 28 from 2:30–4 p.m. Felice Marcus, Associate Director of the American English and Culture Program at Miami University in Oxford, OH, will facilitate this program with help from two students whose native language is Chinese.

For more information on this event and to register, please visit our website.

Registration for Autumn Events on Teaching Is Now Open!

2011-07-29T13:44:00.001-04:00

Registration is now open for the Autumn 2011 Events on Teaching sponsored by UCAT!

We are proud to continue bringing you a quarter full of workshops that cover a wide array of teaching-related issues from student learning to suicide prevention training.

To kick off the quarter, Felice Marcus, Associate Director of the American English and Culture Program at Miami University in Oxford, OH will give faculty and GTAs a tutorial on Pronouncing Chinese Names. With the help of two students whose native language is Chinese, she will also answer such questions as: What identity issues are behind their using American names? Do the students embrace English names to feel more culturally integrated? Or do they feel compelled to go by a different name to be more accepted and for the convenience of teachers and classmates? Should we be using their native or American name?

Additionally, Bob Eckhart from the School of Teaching and Learning, in conjunction with Laurie Maynell from UCAT, will discuss personal disclosure in the classroom in their October 7 presentation, To Share or Not to Share: Telling Students about Illnesses, Personal Beliefs, and Other Experiences. Read Bob's essay, in the Academy of Teaching's annual publication, Talking About Teaching, that inspires this discussion.

We also continue to bring you the ever-popular Preparing for an Academic Job Search series for those who are preparing to enter the academic job market, and if you haven't already taken a Course Design Institute, don't forget to apply for the upcoming Autumn Quarter or Winter Break offerings. They fill up quickly!

Visit our website to see what else we have to offer and to register. We look forward to working with you!

The Classroom is Not Neutral: Faculty Diversity and Teaching

2011-07-12T11:14:00.003-04:00

Research shows that students have different expectations of
female professors than they do for male professors.
Photo by Andrew Feinberg

by Lindsay Bernhagen

“I always have higher expectations for female instructors than male instructors. And, yeah, when they don’t meet them it’s a let down. And if it’s a male instructor I tend to blow it off and say, ‘Well, that’s typical…’ I mean, I don’t expect my male instructors to be as caring or concerned as I expect my female instructors to be. Whether that’s good or a bad thing to be going on in my head, it’s just a real thing. And I think it’s pretty universal.”

This quote, taken from a student interviewed for a 2004 report conducted by the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning, suggests that helming a successful classroom comprises more than just a command of the subject matter, proficient presentation and communication skills, and patience. While there are many ways that we can develop as teachers, the ways our identities affect our classroom experiences often remain under-analyzed.

In a meritocratic culture, we tend to believe that sufficient energy devoted to the development of teaching skills should unequivocally result in successful and even easy classroom management. However, not every professor can be guaranteed that this will be enough.

For example, in the research referenced above, Diane B. Kardia and Mary C. Wright cite two studies done by the University of Michigan faculty in the late 1990s—one that looked at the experiences of both white women and women of color, and one that surveyed undergraduates’ perceptions of female and male instructors.

Of the female faculty surveyed, 82% reported frequent encounters with students who questioned their authority both in and out of the classroom. Students candidly confirmed these female faculty’s experiences—83% of those interviewed admitted holding different standards for female versus male teachers, with higher expectations being held for females.

Exacerbating the problem, women faculty report that the additional efforts they must put forth to address these challenges are frequently dismissed (if recognized at all) by administrators and fellow faculty members. Continued lack of awareness of the specific challenges faced by female instructors is all the more difficult to counter given the continued (though improving) underrepresentation of women in faculty positions at Ohio State and beyond (see the 2010 Status Report on Women at The Ohio State University).

It is of utmost importance that we all seek to recognize the multiple identities that bare on our experiences as instructors, and that we maintain open and attentive dialogue about the experiences of all faculty members. In addition to one-on-one consultations at UCAT, our public events also provide excellent platforms for such conversations. Find out more here.

Sources

Kardia, D.B. and M.C. Wright (2004). “Instructor Identity: The Impact of Gender and Race on Faculty Experiences with Teaching.” CRLT Occasional Papers, No. 19. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

Status Report on Women at The Ohio State University (2010). The President’s Council on Women and The Women’s Place. Columbus: The Ohio State University.

Course Design Institute Turns Professor on Her Head

2011-06-23T13:59:00.001-04:00

Jackie Miller is an Associate Professor in the
Statistics department at Ohio State.

A recent alumna of our Course Design Institute published a blog post with the Digital Union about her experience.

I was recently part of the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s (UCAT) Course Design Institute (CDI) along with 4 peers from across the university. Laurie Maynell and Teresa Johnson from UCAT were our fearless leaders.

You know, I have been teaching for 17 years (if we don’t count tutoring and do count 6 years in graduate school), and I have never scratched my head as much as I did during the 5 weeks of the CDI. Okay, there may not have been actual head scratching, but there was a lot of pondering. Why is it that in 17 years of teaching, including 4 years of coursework in graduate school, I was never taught to design a course? The simple answer is that there was no such course. I took fantastic courses in both Statistics and Education and had excellent opportunities as a student pursuing a One-of-a-Kind PhD in Statistics Education. The Course Design Institutes began in 2009, and the one I took was the 14th offering of the Institute. If you have not taken it yet, I urge you to consider it. Here is a link to UCAT’s events page.

How was I turned on my head? First, we talked about the idea of backward design. One good source for this is Wiggins, Grant, and McTighe. “What is Backward Design?,” in Understanding by Design. 1st edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001, pp. 7-19. We had to think about the goals of our course and the (measurable) objectives that go with these course goals. This is easier said than done! But, by defining our goals and objectives (day 1), we could think about designing the assignments (day 2) that would lead us to those goals. Once we had our goal-based assignments designed, we could develop criteria for evaluation (day 3). On day 4, we organized our content and planned the learning of that content. Finally (day 5), we spoke about assessing our courses and shared what we had with others.

Continue reading >>>

Learning Communities Celebrate Teaching, Collaboration, and Discovery

2011-06-06T14:18:00.003-04:00

by Glené Mynhardt

On Thursday, May 26, 2011, a diverse group of Ohio State faculty, staff, and graduate teaching associates joined together for the Ohio State Teaching Enhancement Program (OSTEP) reception and poster session.

As a graduate student, I couldn’t have wished for a better morning. The spring reception began with a buffet-style breakfast, and 45 participants were gathered around posters, excitedly discussing projects that they had worked on during the past year. President Gordon Gee spoke, recognizing the fellows for their participation in one of OSTEP's learning communities.

I was thrilled to attend the festivities, but more so because I had the opportunity to serve as one of seven OSTEP Graduate Teaching Fellows (GTFs), one of four learning communities currently co-sponsored by UCAT.

The original intent of the OSTEP program was to create, facilitate, and disseminate learning communities at Ohio State, and since its inception, close to 300 fellows have participated in 28 different, and several ongoing, communities that vary by topic and vision. Depending on the scope or disciplinary vision of each project, learning communities create a structured, usually highly interdisciplinary platform for fellows to discuss, create, and support various aspects of teaching.

This year’s honored learning communities included the Mid-Career & Senior Faculty Learning Community, Graduate Teaching Fellows Program, Faculty and Advisor Learning Community, and the Faculty Learning Community on Sustainability Across the Curriculum.

In the words of President Gee, "Great teaching…is not to be found in the first minutes or days of trying, but in a lifetime of learning and living and honing." Each learning community devoted the last year working on various projects to do just that - learning by collaboration, living by example as great teachers, and honing on their vision to create effective and productive communities that support teaching.

UCAT would like to congratulate each of these fantastic learning communities for their hard work and service to Ohio State and to the teaching community as a whole

If you are interested in learning more about OSTEP and its learning communities, please click here.

Members of the 2010-11 Mid-Career and Senior Faculty Learning Community
with President Gee

Participants enjoying breakfast

2010-11 Graduate Teaching Fellows with President Gee