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May, 2009

The Teaching Professor - May, 2009 - Full Issue PDF
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The Teaching Professor - May, 2009 - Full Audio Issue - MP3
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On Becoming a Teacher
By Huntly Collins, La Salle University, PA
The past three years have been a time of growth for me, some of it painful. I have become more humble and less arrogant. I have become less product-driven and more process-oriented. I have become less judgmental of my students’ learning gaps and more engaged in helping them make up those gaps.

What it Means to be a Self-Regulated Learner
“Self-regulation is not a mental ability or an academic performance skill; rather it is the self-directive process by which learners transform their mental abilities into academic skills.” (p. 65) That definition is offered by Barry Zimmerman, one of the foremost researchers on self-regulated learning. It appears in a succinct five-page article that offers a very readable overview of research in this area.

Grading Participation Fairly: Student Perceptions
If grading participation involves anything more than comment counting, it’s not an easy task. In addition to generating relevant criteria, the process requires that instructors make assessments at the same time they attempt to facilitate provocative and engaging discussion. Given that reality, it isn’t very surprising that many instructors grade participation “loosely,” relying on general impressions of what a student contributed across the semester.

Why Group Work Improves Problem-Solving Abilities
Last month’s issue contained an article highlighting an impressive study documenting the positive effects of group collaboration on the development of problem-solving skills. Researchers found students in the study improved their problem-solving skills by about 10 percent. Moreover, the benefits of group collaboration extended even when students went back to working problems on their own.

A Large Course with a Small Course Option
At a skills conference for teaching assistants, sponsored by the Institute for Teaching, Learning & Academic Leadership at the University at Albany (a research university within the SUNY system), Erica Hunter, a graduate student in sociology, did a presentation in which she shared an innovative course design whereby she creates a small class within a much larger one.

The Guest Scholar Project
By Alex MacDonald, Campion College at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan
Last year I received a grant to support bringing guest scholars to my class. The idea was to find students with some expertise relevant to my courses and invite them to present in class, thereby giving them the opportunity to teach or perform and giving the class a perspective on the material that I couldn’t provide. The grant enabled me to pay the guest scholars a stipend for their work. I had both the guest scholars and students complete questionnaires after these visits to class.

A Critique of Scaffolding
By Larry D. Spence, Penn State University
“So, what does that mean—‘I need to provide more scaffolding’?” a superlative teacher asked, with frustration in his voice. He was just back from a peer review debrief. “Maybe that’s more a suggestion than a criticism,” I offered. “Okay, but what do I do to provide more scaffolding?” he asked.