Faculty Development
Teacher training and professional development never really ends, but is a career-long pursuit by educators and college administrators. Look to Faculty Focus for ongoing, self-directed learning opportunities.
April 16 - Professional Development for Adjunct Faculty Improves Teaching, Builds Community
By: Rob Kelly in Faculty Development
The Department of Behavioral Sciences at St. Louis Community College-Meramec is a diverse department with 16 full-time and 53 adjunct faculty. In an effort to connect those adjuncts to the department, Darlaine Gardetto and some of her colleagues created an adjunct professional development program focused on improving teaching based on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
March 22 - Reflections on Teaching: From Surviving to Thriving
By: Chris Palmer in Faculty Development
Editor’s Note: In part one of this article, the author shared openly some of the mistakes he made early in his teaching career. In this entry, he outlines some of the changes he’s made to his teaching over the years and the principles he uses to guide his teaching.
I had known it all along at some level, but now it suddenly became glaringly obvious to me. Deep down, sometimes out of conscious reach, students want to be transformed and their lives made more useful, productive, and powerful. I added the following new goal to my personal mission statement:
March 21 - Reflections on Teaching: Mistakes I’ve Made
By: Chris Palmer in Faculty Development
I started teaching at American University at the age of 56 after a rewarding career as an environmental and wildlife film producer. That was almost ten years ago, and I’ll be the first to admit that I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I had never taught before and I wasn’t even sure where to begin. I had no teaching philosophy beyond some vague, unarticulated feeling that I wanted my students to do well. And so, I started asking lots of questions.
February 7 - Role Reversal: Learning from a Master Teacher
By: Barbara A. Mezeske in Faculty Development
I had a most interesting experience last summer. I have taught college composition for many years, but I had not participated in a writing workshop as a writer for a long time. Of course, I had regularly run workshops in my classroom. But this time, I had written a short, 600-word essay, and it was workshopped (which to those of us in composition means reviewed and critiqued) by my peers as part of a larger in-service on curiosity and writing.
When the workshop was finished, I turned to a fellow English professor and said, “So that’s how it’s supposed to be done!”
December 3 - Academic Customer Service Shouldn’t be a Dirty Word
By: Christine M. Nowik in Faculty Development
Earlier this year, we kicked off the semester with a faculty development workshop on academic customer service. Academic customer service is a hot and contentious topic on many college campuses, with faculty often reeling at the suggestion that students are customers (and therefore “always right”) or that education is a product intended for consumption. The feedback from our session in August was prickly and some of the comments demonstrated that we were in worse shape than I imagined.
November 8 - Six Paths to More Authentic Teaching
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Faculty Development
Most frequently, authenticity is described as being “real” or “genuine,” and the advice often given to faculty wanting to develop authenticity in their teaching is to “just do what comes naturally.” But obvious definitions and easy advice frequently obfuscate deeper complexities, and that is definitely the case with authenticity.
October 25 - Helping Student Veterans Succeed in the Classroom
By: Mary Bart in Faculty Development
Student veterans bring to the college classroom a distinct set of strengths, including a level of maturity, experience with leadership and teamwork, familiarity with diversity, and a mission-focused orientation. While these strengths have the potential to help them succeed academically, many student veterans are also at risk due to unique physical, mental, and social needs.
September 14 - Signs You’ve Lost Your Joy of Teaching
By: Patty H. Phelps, EdD in Faculty Development
It’s 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning around mid-term. “Carrie James” (a fictional name) grabs her textbook and class roster and heads upstairs to her first class of the day. It starts at 9 o’clock. She makes a pit stop before arriving at the classroom. When Carrie enters the room, most students immediately stop talking. She quickly calls roll and says, “Let’s get started. We have a lot to cover today.” Carrie begins the lecture by displaying a list of key terms on the document camera. She lectures for most of the period, closely following the text outline and then announces a test to the moans and groans of students. As soon as class ends, Carrie returns to her office, shuts the door, and turns her attention to the manuscript that she was editing for publication. She has an hour before her next class which she puts completely out of her mind.
September 11 - Summer Refresher Helps Kickstart a New Semester
By: Vickie Kelly, EdD in Faculty Development
After a refreshing summer break, which included professional development and time to reflect on the mistakes and successes of the last academic year, the start of a new semester is, at least for me, an exciting time.
June 29 - Professional Faculty Development: The Necessary Fourth Leg
By: Alan Altany in Faculty Development
The well-known three-legged stool of academic life—teaching, research, and service—has been assumed to cover the main responsibilities of faculty in academic communities. But is there a missing leg that would add strength and stability to the stool? I propose there is. It’s professional faculty development, and I would also propose that faculty committed to teaching should be its most articulate advocates.
