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April, 2009

The Teaching Professor - April, 2009 - Full Issue PDF
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The Teaching Professor - April, 2009 - Full Audio MP3
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Self-Assessment Does Not Necessarily Mean Self-Grading
Most faculty judiciously avoid having students self-assess because it seems hopelessly naïve to imagine them being able to look at anything beyond the desired grade. Even so, the ability to self-assess skills and completed work is important. Moreover, it is an ability acquired with practice and developed with feedback. It seems like the kind of skill that should be addressed in college. And perhaps there is a way.

Teaching Undergraduate Research: A Unique Model
Teaching undergraduate research when laboratories are involved is a time-consuming and costly endeavor, especially at those institutions without graduate assistants. One faculty member working alongside two or three students for four hours a week for one credit isn’t a particularly viable approach. For faculty who use undergrads to support their research programs, this approach slows down productivity as proficient students graduate and new ones must be trained in an unending cycle.

Do Problem-Solving Abilities Develop in Groups?
Problem solving: “what you do when you don’t know what to do.” What a simple, straightforward definition for something often defined in much more complex ways. But problem solving doesn’t always mean the same thing. It might be the solution to a specific problem, like those that appear on math quizzes, or it might be a collection of possibilities that respond to a complex open-ended problem. But however it’s defined, problem solving is one of those skills all teachers aspire to have their students develop.

Modular Assignments: Learning Episodes for Diverse Students
By Rolland Fraser, Missouri Southern State University, MO
On our campus, we have growing numbers of nontraditional students. The demands on their time out of class are numerous—work, family, and military obligations. Their lives are complicated to an extent that rivals television soap opera episodes. It is my job to meet them where they can learn and benefit.

Student Performance and Satisfaction: Online vs. Face to Face
Many faculty have questions about the relative merits of online courses versus the traditional face-to-face classroom experiences. Researchers also have an interest in the question, and a variety of studies have been conducted with the usual mixed results but overall accumulating evidence that online courses can provide rich learning experiences. But for many faculty, it is still an open and individual question. Many would like to have the opportunity Kathleen Dolan describes.

Assessing Internships
Internships are integral parts of many professional degree programs. Potentially, they make significant contributions to an educational experience. “Well-organized and carefully supervised programs enhance the student’s ability to integrate academic knowledge with practical application, improve job/career opportunities after graduation, create relevance for past and future classroom learning, develop work place social and human relations skills, and provide the opportunity for students to apply communication and problem-solving skills.” (p. 208) Deborah F. Beard identifies these contributions in an article on assessing internship experiences in the field of accounting.

The Student-Accessible Reading List
By David M. Dolence, Dominican University, IL
I have always been a huge supporter of reading lists and thus was excited to see the article “The Use of Reading Lists” in the Teaching Professor newsletter. The article raised some concerns and questions that I have asked often. In fact, just recently I changed my approach to reading lists and would like to share that adaptation. It’s too soon to know for sure, but anecdotal evidence makes me hopeful that student reading beyond course requirements is not a utopian dream.