Recently in General Announcements Category

I saw in the CDT an announcement of some talks that sound really interesting, but that might also give Institute consultants an opportunity to become a little more visible in The College of the Liberal Arts.  Receptions follow all talks.

Mon Oct 11, 5:15 pm, Paterno Library, Foster Auditorium
Western world relations with Africa

Tue Oct 12, 4:30 pm, Paterno Library, Foster Auditorium
"War and Instability in the 21st Century"

Wed. Oct 13, 4:30 pm, 262 Willard
"Slavery: An Introduction to a Theme in World History"

I had the pleasure of attending the Alumin Association's dinner last night in recognition of the three 2010 Teaching Fellow Award recipients.  Not only were this year's winners in attendance, several winners from 2000 to 2009 were also present.  Getting so many like-minded faculty together to talk about teaching left my head swimming with great ideas to apply to my teaching in the future.

The award winners each gave a speech after dinner and a few things stood out regarding each recipient.

Dr. Janet Lyon, Associate Professor of English
Janet talked specifically about the syllabus, and how the syllabus is a carefully crafted document and having a reason for every single line and where it is placed.  Janet also spoke about the importance of movement in a classroom and the ability to read body language and facial cues.  One of my favorite quotes of the night:

It is the height of rudeness to move forward in a lesson when a student doesn't 'get it'.

Each reward recipient received a grant of $9,000, and Janet plans on graciously using her funds to buy 9 very mobile projectors for her department, allowing her colleagues access to projectors for classes around the university.

Dr. Oranee Tawatnuntachai, Associate Professor of Finance
Oranee provided a moving speech, detailing her mother's determination as a student, sitting in elementary school classrooms at age 14, with other students half her age.  This determination was distilled in Oranee, as she detailed her own struggles through her Doctorate program and teaching in general, always with her mother continuing to encourage her not to quit and strive for excellence.  Oranee mentioned her focus on under-performing students, detailing that these students deserve a great deal of our attention to keep them on track for their future.

Dr. Matthew McAllister, Professor of Film/Video & Media Studies
Matt echoed Janet's words around the importance of a well crafted syllabus and movement in the classroom.  What I found interesting was that Matt (someone in a media field) elects not to use PowerPoint. "Some people use it very well, but I'm not one of them."  To put this in perspective, Matt teaches courses of 300-350 students.  He does use a computer, but instead of PowerPoint he simply uses things like Word Processing programs to construct things during class with the help of his students.  "Everyone has an opinion on media" he says, so getting students to contribute in such a large settings is possible.

We have a lot of great events in the coming months here at the Institute. Our New Instructor Orientation is currently underway, as well as two interactive workshops designed for Teaching Assistants. You can check out some of our events in the August newsletter. 

Throughout the summer I occasionally posted tidbits of data regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning, specifically blogs and wikis.  We're almost done with the first draft of the report and hope to release that shortly.  Also look for a workshop session towards the end of the Fall semester, where we will walkthrough some of the results and show examples of different pedagogies instructors are leveraging with these emerging tools.

Today, we held a noontime round table to watch a short video from "Conversations from Penn State" with Sir Ken Robinson on creativity and education.  Some of you may have seen his TED talk on education reform, and this video covered similar territory.  We had a handful of Schreyer people in attendance, as well as faculty and advisers.  A few interesting topics were discussed after the video, one being discovery majors.  Our Division of Undergraduate Studies does a fantastic job helping students identify good majors, but we were discussing more the idea of faculty and advisers encouraging students to go outside of a discipline track if they aren't happy, and try and discover majors on their own.  For instance, even within a College, a student might not be encouraged to enroll in courses that are somewhat tangential to her own major.  But, by doing so the student might discover she is much more excited and engaged in the tangential subject. 

Coincidentally, when I came back to my desk after listening to Sir Ken and talking about education reform, I had a chance to finally read an interview titled "What's Wrong With the American University System", an interview with Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, authors of Higher Education?  The interview, and likely the book, paint a bleak picture of higher education across America, specifically in the area of undergraduate teaching.  The authors specifically address tenure at one point in the interview, claiming that it doesn't preserve academic freedom, something they claim it was intended to do.  From the article:

They [faculty] have to do things in the accepted way that their elders and superiors require. They can't be controversial and all the rest. So tenure is, in fact, the enemy of spontaneity, the enemy of intellectual freedom. We've seen this again and again. And even people who get tenure really don't change. They keep on following the disciplinary mode they've been trained to follow.

I do find some interesting and curious aspects of the tenure process here at PSU, but is it as bleak as the authors describe in this quote?

Today, an article in InsideHigher (see: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/28/copyright) discussed how professors will now have an easier time showing videos in class for academic use.

Per the article:

"One change in particular is making waves in academe: an exemption that allows professors in all fields and "film and media studies students" to hack encrypted DVD content and clip "short portions" into documentary films and "non-commercial videos." (The agency does not define "short portions.")

This means that any professors can legally extract movie clips and incorporate them into lectures, as long as they are willing to decrypt them -- a task made relatively easy by widely available programs known as "DVD rippers.""

As far as general video resources go for faculty, here are some options that are popular for classroom use:

http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

http://www.teachersdomain.org/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/

http://www.learner.org/index.html

In today's InsideHigherEd posting, see: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/07/27/arvan), Lanny Arvan poses very interesting thoughts on the use of blogs as a teaching method. I highly recommend this article for professors who are considering using blogs in their classes. I like the fact that it dovetails with Chickering's and Gamson's Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.

July 15, 2010: "In a series of moves that could give a boost to an e-textbook industry that has been treading water for years, Blackboard announced Wednesday that it is partnering with a major publisher and two major e-textbook vendors to make it easy for professors and students to assign and access e-textbooks and other digital materials directly through its popular learning-management system."

"The company, which controlled about 60 percent of the learning-management market as of last year, said it is partnering with McGraw-Hill, a top academic publisher, as well as Follett Higher Education Group and Barnes & Noble, two major distributors that operate a combined 1,500 college bookstores in the United States and Canada."

"But can Blackboard, through these arrangements -- and other learning-management providers such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, and Sakai, through CourseSmart's Faculty Instant Access program -- help publishers move more e-textbooks? Despite substantial buzz, e-textbooks have so far failed to catch on in academe, capturing 3.5 percent of the total textbook market, according to last year's Campus Computing Survey. Recent polling by the Student Monitor reveals that student awareness of e-textbooks this spring was down from the previous spring, to 50 percent from 59."

See the rest of the story at:

In InsideHigherEd today, "they've found that students who study abroad have improved academic performance upon returning to their home campus, higher graduation rates, and improved knowledge of cultural practices and context compared to students in control groups. They've also found that studying abroad helps, rather than hinders, academic performance of at-risk students."

See: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/13/abroad

Penn State's Global Programs has many resources to help faculty engage with topics germane to overseas studies -- http://www.global.psu.edu/faculty_staff/faculty_toolkit.cfm

In particular, please refer to the: Embedded Education Abroad Faculty Toolkit

This toolkit has been developed to be used primarily by faculty to aid in the development and implementation of embedded programs. The toolkit complements university administrative and logistical services by offering a portfolio of tested and applicable instructional strategies that leverage the embedded international travel component of these courses to optimize academic learning and the development of global citizenship.

I think that concepts of global citizenship should be incorporated into as many Penn State courses as possible; what do you think?

Each month we release a short PDF newsletter that is distributed to the various Department Heads across Penn State.  I'll try and also post the newsletter here each month anyone interested.

July's newsletter introduces our two new team members, Chas Brua and Larkin Hood.  Although in a new position, Chas has worked with the Institute for a while, including a stint as a Postdoctoral Fellow.  Larkin comes from the University of Washington, where she coordinated educational outreach programming for the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. 

Other highlights include New Instructor Orientation, beginning August 19th, and a WikiEducator workshop offered online beginning July 21st. 

When I left IST and came to the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, one of the biggest challenges for me was the scope of work.  I was used to working within a single College here at PSU compared to working with the Institute, interacting with Faculty and administrators across the entire state-wide system.  Over the last 8 months, I've discovered many new centers or organizations within Penn State.  The latest discovery is the Methodology Center.  From their website:

The Methodology Center is an interdisciplinary center that comprises faculty, research associates, post-docs, and students from several academic disciplines, including human development, psychology, statistics, and public health. Our work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and by the National Science Foundation.

We recently received a methodological question here in the Institute and struggled to find an answer until Ann pointed us to the Methodology Center.  Thanks Ann!