Focus on Teaching: Spring 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011
Lake Shore Campus
Information Commons

Agenda

8:30-10:15: Check-In

8:55 - 9:00: Welcome — Provost John Pelissero

9:00 - 10:15: Key note — Dr. Adam Davis, Director of Training and Publications with the Project on Civic Reflection. "Deepening Teaching and Learning: Engaging Students Through Civic Reflection."

10:30 - 11:30:  Session I:

Clickers in the Classroom. Tim Walker, Classroom Technology Support, moderator; Diane Jokinen, Biology; Pamela Osenkowski, Biology; David Ensminger, Education. 
Clickers have the ability to increase faculty-student interaction, as well as keep students motivated and engaged with what's going on in class. The purpose of this session is to provide a forum for faculty to share information and exchange ideas about integrating clicker technology into the classroom. The three panelists will provide an overview of their experience with using clickers and respond to questions from the audience.

Graduate Students as Mentors. Jessica Horowitz, Graduate School, Moderator; Edin Randall, Clinical Psychology student; Eilleen Rollerson, Sociology student. 
Panel discussion about mentoring of undergraduate students from a graduate student perspective.  This panel will talk about mentoring in a research setting as well as in a classroom environment.

"Scaffolding" in the College Classroom:  Socio-Cultural Learning Theory and Practical Instructional Strategies for Building on Students' Existing Knowledge. Judson Everitt, Sociology.
This session focuses on ways of bringing socio-cultural learning theory – particularly in the tradition of Lev Vygotsky and the concept of ‘scaffolding’ – to the college classroom through practical forms of instruction.  In short, scaffolding can be used as an instructional strategy that uses students’ existing knowledge, experiences, and familiarities as the starting point for introducing and exploring new knowledge and content. The presenter will give a brief introduction to the theory and its application, followed by a demonstration of how he uses this strategy in his own classroom.  Discussion will follow. 

Adam Davis: small-group session on civic reflection. This session will provide participants with open, structured space to consider and reconsider their own and their colleagues' thoughts about teaching and learning. One of the session goals is to raise and ventilate deep questions about teaching and learning. Another goal is to get us listening to and talking with one another in fresh ways. A third goal is to demonstrate a practice that can be employed in the classroom. A good part of the session will revolve around Howard Nemerov's poem "Learning the Trees."

11:30 - 11:45: Ongoing Sessions 

11:45 - 1:00: Lunch--invocation by Fr. Kevin Gillespie

1:00 - 1:15: Ongoing Sessions 

1:15 - 2:15: Session II:

Expanding the Influence of the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy through Online MJ and LLM Education. Barbara Youngberg, School of Law.
Two years ago the School of Law’s Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy converted the campus based Masters in Jurisprudence (MJ) degree program to an online offering with the hope of increasing enrollment beyond the Chicagoland area. This session will describe the program, the challenges in designing an online curriculum, the differences in expectations of students and faculty and produced outcomes of the first three graduating classes.

Mentoring Doctoral Students. Patricia Mooney-Melvin, Graduate School, Dina Berger, History. 
Mentoring represents one of the essential elements in the successful completion of a doctoral program.  This session explores the differences among advising, supervision, and mentoring.  It highlights the challenges involved in the mentoring process and discusses best practices.

Our Courses, Their Lives: Inviting Students to Actualize Academic Discourse. Michael Meinhardt, English; Daniel Lorca, Modern Languages and Literatures.
This session explores both the particular methods faculty can consider to envision the framework for a course and the pedagogical techniques to complement that framework: to make knowledge real by applying it in a student-directed series of assignments that both build disciplinary appreciation and widen the student sense of personal and professional development. This interactive session will use presentation, handouts, facilitated discussion, and sharing of basic tools that can be of use to faculty in the management of writing assignments.

Adam Davis: small-group session on civic reflection. (repeat of breakout I session). This session will provide participants with open, structured space to consider and reconsider their own and their colleagues' thoughts about teaching and learning. One of the session goals is to raise and ventilate deep questions about teaching and learning. Another goal is to get us listening to and talking with one another in fresh ways. A third goal is to demonstrate a practice that can be employed in the classroom. A good part of the session will revolve around Howard Nemerov's poem "Learning the Trees."

2:15-2:30: Ongoing Sessions 

2:30 - 3:30: Session III:

Life Through a Different Lens: Management of Student Reactions to International Experiences. Karen Egenes, Nursing.
This presentation describes the impact of an international experience on students’ personal and professional development. It further describes students’ experiences and feelings as they progress through the various stages of culture shock, students’ reactions and coping mechanisms, and the role of faculty in facilitating the students’ progress through this phenomenon. While the focus of this presentation is the lived students’ experience, it also a description of the faculty role in such a program.

Colleagues Mentoring Colleagues: University Supported, Mid-Career Mentoring Project.  Ida Androwich, Nursing; Sarah Gabel, Fine and Performing Arts; Ellen Landgraf, Accounting; William Wasserman, Biology.    
This session is a reporting of the Alternate Sabbatical Program for mid-career faculty, supported by the Office of the Provost. The goal of the program was for each participant to develop a Professional Development Proposal. The Proposal should serve “professional development,” which is understood as broader than “research,” but able to advance the faculty member’s efforts in the areas of research/creative activity, including basic research projects resulting in books or articles, creative artistic work, etc. It can include the generation of research results and artistic endeavors and/or the analysis and presentation of such results or endeavors or in faculty professional development.

Researching Chicago's Street Gangs. Robert Lombardo, Criminal Justice; students from CRMJ 352.
Students from CRMJ 352 were broken down into 4 teams: Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, and Greaser Gangs (white gangs). The students had a lab day each Friday when they worked on their research paper. The assignment was to produce a 50 page report on their gang including pictures, interviews, and a PowerPoint presentation.  Students interviewed gang members who came to class and at the “MAGIC" program at the University of Chicago.  We also worked with students from the School of Communications who filmed lectures and interviews with gang members. The session will have participating students from both CRMJ and Communications talk about their experience and present our film.

FOT, Spring 2011 is sponsored by: Academic Technology Services, The Center for Faculty Professional
Development, The Graduate School, The Center for Experiential Learning, The Office of Learning Technologies and Assessment and University Libraries.