January, 2007

The Teaching Professor - January, 2007 - Full Audio MP3
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The Teaching Professor - January, 2007 - Full Issue PDF
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The Teaching-Learning Trinity
By Steve J. Thien
I have found it significant to visualize teaching and learning not as a duality but as a trinity, a grouping of three processes linked as one. This linking seems to best validate the adage “It hasn’t been taught until it’s been learned.” First, learning to learn leads to self-awareness of learning, described as the essential stage of knowing that guides both teacher and learner in mastering relevant content. Second, teachers learn about teaching so that content can be developed into learnable formats.

The Last Class: A Critical Course Component
By Vianne Timmons and Brian D. Wagner
There has been significant and well-deserved attention paid to the first class. This class is critical in setting the tone and expectations of the course. Unfortunately, the same amount of attention has not been paid to the last day of class. To us, this class is as important as the first. It is the class where the professor has an opportunity to celebrate the learning of the students.

Teaching Awards: A Look at Selection Criteria
One of the staples for the recognition and reward of teaching excellence is the department or, more often, college-wide teaching award. Generally it comes with a stipend (often quite modest, considering how much work truly excellent teaching requires), some sort of plaque and public recognition. Frequently, nominations or letters of support for receipt of the award are solicited from current and former students. Many faculty find these student affirmations as meaningful as the money and public pat on the back. Surprisingly, or perhaps understandably, given how much teaching has been valued within the academic community, teaching awards have received very little systematic analysis.

Learning: The Times, the Ways, and the Places
By Alice Cassidy
I have fond memories of the start of the academic year, whether it was grade school or university. One such memory is bringing home my brand-new textbooks from the university bookstore. I love the feeling of opening up a new book—such promise, such potential. But the truth of the matter was that I never thought I learned much from books assigned in my university courses.

Student Engagement: A Different Perspective
The reasons why students need to be involved and engaged when they attend college are well established. Engagement can be the difference between persisting to degree completion and dropping out. Research has sought to identify what makes student involvement more likely. Factors like student-faculty interaction, active and collaborative learning experiences, involvement in extracurricular activities, and residency on campus have all been shown to make a difference.

Participation Blues from the Student Perspective
By Jon Cieniewicz
Most students seem to operate assuming that as long as the assigned work is completed on time, test scores are deemed acceptable, and attendance is satisfactory, participation is just not that important. But when participation does not occur in a class, its absence has a chilling effect on efforts to learn, motivation, and one’s general attitude toward that course.

Malpractice Insurance for University Professors?
By Daniel J. Klionsky
Imagine being sued by a student because your course did not do an adequate job of preparing them—for an upper-division course, to make an intelligent decision about their health, or for any number of issues they might encounter in the real world.