The Educational Development Centre has a library of books, and subscriptions to various journals and newsletters available for Faculty Members to borrow. The library includes books about higher education, assessment, learning, technology, teaching dossiers, specialty classes and activities, among other topics. Our journal and newsletter subscriptions include: STLHE Green Guides, The Teaching Professor, University Affairs, EDUCAUSE Review, Chronicle of Higher Education and many others. These resources are all available to faculty members through our office. We maintain a searchable online library of all of our teaching and learning resources.
Please visit the EDC Library in 410 Dunton Tower to sign out your selection.
The Things I Did Badly: Looking Back on My First Five Years of Teaching
By Graham Broad, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario
Like birthdays, anniversaries are occasions for reflection, and as I approach the fifth anniversary of my teaching career, I find that my thoughts are drawn to the things that I did badly. Here’s a list of five teaching mistakes I have made. I share them in the hope that they will cause others to reflect, and perhaps help new professors will avoid making these same mistakes.
What’s Not Being Measured on Student Rating Forms?
Learning methods are not being measured on student rating forms. That’s the conclusion drawn from a study done within the field of accounting. The researcher asked a random sample of 267 accounting departments for copies of the instruments they use to assess instruction. The request garnered 53 course evaluation instruments that contained 978 different statements and questions.
Those Long Years in the Middle
“Mid-career faculty can easily reach a plateau where professional goals are less clear, even while an array of attractive personal and professional options may be available. The absence of motivating professional goals can cause professors to settle into a dull routine or begin to invest their energies in activities outside of their professional lives.” (p. 49) So conclude the authors of a recent interview study that looked for answers to a number of questions that pertain to faculty in their mid-career years. The authors wondered about expectations for mid-career faculty and what they experienced, especially in the way of challenges. They asked about professional support—what mid-career faculty received as well as what they might wish to receive.
Written Feedback: What’s Most and Least Helpful
When graded papers get a quick glance before being shoved into a backpack or deposited into the trash can on the way out of class, it’s often hard for teachers to summon the motivation to write lots of comments on papers. That’s why I was pleased to find evidence in two studies that students do value written comments on their work.
The Use of Reading Lists
After more than 20 years of publication, you’d think every aspect of teaching and learning had been covered in some issue or another of this newsletter. That’s what I keep thinking, and just when I do, I discover an article or receive a submission on a topic never before covered in the newsletter. The case in point this time: reading lists.
The Benefits of Using Classroom Assistants
By Ken MacMillan, University of Calgary, Alberta
I work in a department that regularly enrolls 250 students in first-year classes, as do many other departments in colleges and universities. In my case, the situation is complicated by a small graduate program, too few teaching assistants, and an inability to break the larger classes into smaller sections for discussion. This makes for a very challenging teaching situation. I use groups in the large class one day per week, using activities I described previously in The Teaching Professor (March 2003). Since then, I have worked on solving the staff problem with senior undergraduate students. I call them classroom assistants (CAs).