Teaching Tip: Collaborative Test-taking

Although “collaborative test-taking” might sound like a euphemism for cheating, many faculty find that introducing collaborative elements into testing improves student understanding, retention, and motivation. It allows testing to be a learning opportunity as well as a means of evaluation.

“Second chance” testing: For this approach, students take the test individually, but they are then given a “second chance” to correct any errors.

The instructor returns the test with all the problems marked that contain one or more errors — but with no other feedback about what the error is or how to correct it  (the instructor may choose to provide a hint as to whether it’s a small or large problem).  The students are then given a limited amount of time to collaborate with each other to revise their errors.

Next Junior Faculty Brown Bag Feb 25

Please join us for the next Junior Faculty Brown Bag on Thursday, February 25th from 11:45 – 1:45 in the Cleary Dining Room (drop in anytime). Lunch is not provided, so please bring your own.

Pre-tenure faculty — as well as faculty on visiting and term renewable appointments — are encouraged to come for informal conversation and networking on the 4th Friday of every month.

Teaching Race and Gender Beyond Diversity (May 6-8)

The University of Oregon is hosting a conference this May on “Teaching Race and Gender Beyond Diversity“:

The conference, co-sponsored by the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, will draw scholars from across the country with shared interests in novel approaches to teaching and learning about race and gender in college and university classrooms.

The conference will include a series of collaborative workshops rooted in teaching race and gender within intersectional and interdisciplinary frameworks. The interactive workshops will provide a setting for instructors at all levels and backgrounds to share innovative syllabi, frameworks, and exercises covering a range of topics.

Find full details on the conference website.

Come Learn More About Community-Based Learning!

Want more information on how you can turn your course into a Community-Based Learning experience for your students?

 

The Office of Community-Based Learning is offering a workshop for faculty interested in learning the nuts and bolts of creating a community-based learning class.  Last semester, we focused on conceptualizing CBL and what our day-to-day work in the office entails. This semester, the workshop will focus on best-practice methodologies and how you can address issues of course contact, community partnerships, student reflections, etc.

After getting some feedback from many of you in terms of dates and times, there will be two sections of this workshop:

Wednesday, February 17 4:00-6:00pm and Friday, February 19, 1:00-3:00pm in Duffy 135.

If you would like to attend but have not RSVP’d yet, please email krafey@stonehill.edu or call 508-565-1959. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Kate Rafey or Corey Dolgon.

Workshop: “Supporting Community Engaged Scholarship” (2/17)

The Office of Community-Based Learning is offering to cover registration costs for any faculty who would like to attend the following workshop on “community engaged scholarship”:

Supporting Community Engaged Scholarship
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
10am – 3pm (lunch provided)
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

Faculty community engaged scholarship offers opportunities for deeper community partnerships and research experience for students. Community engaged scholarship is part of the same institutional mission as service-learning, and can benefit from the expertise of campus service centers and offices.

Facilitated by Margaret A. Post, Director of the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning, this session will cover how service centers and offices might support and benefit from this aspect of community engagement. This workshop is intended for teams of staff members and faculty who work on community engaged scholarship initiatives in collaboration.

Contact Stonehill’s Director of Community-Based Learning for more information: cdolgon@stonehill.edu

Deadline approaching: Summer CASTL Institute

Every June, Creighton University hosts a Carnegie Foundation-sponsored institute for faculty working on scholarly projects related to teaching and learning.

Part of Carnegie’s CASTL Leadership Program, the institute consists of three days of SOTL workshops as well as opportunities to present work-in-progress for feedback.

The theme for this year’s institute is “Creativity,” though they also welcome proposals that address topics beyond the theme.  Read more about the institute and this year’s theme on the CASTL Institute website.

To apply to participate as a “scholar” in the institute (so that you can present your work-in-progress), submit a proposal describing your project by February 12, 2010.  Read about proposal guidelines here.

Service Learning Resources

Learn and Serve America’s National Service-Learning Clearinghouse has developed an online database of syllabi and other resources related to community-based learning.

Find the database here:

http://servicelearning.org/slice

Video Game Pedagogy

In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Young writes about how research into video game use can translate to the classroom:

Ms. Steinkuehler, an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, studies video gamers. In one recent case study, she noted how players in a chat room had used complex mathematics to argue for a certain plan of attack against some unruly beast.

“People were actually—no kidding—gathering data on things like the game monster’s behavior, putting it in an Excel spreadsheet, and building little mathematical models to try to beat the monster,” she told me recently. The game teaches complex problem solving and collaborative learning, Ms. Steinkuehler argues.

Young identifies five lessons about teaching that faculty can learn from video games.  Among them are:

• provide frequent and detailed feedback
• narrative can answer the question “Why are we learning this?”
• don’t be a afraid of fun

Read the full article online here.

New CTL Fellows Program

The Center for Teaching and Learning is excited to announce that we are piloting a new “CTL Fellows” program this semester. CTL Fellows are Stonehill faculty members who partner with the Center to help us further our mission and our services to faculty.

The goal is that the CTL will benefit from the expertise and insights of the Fellow and that the Fellow will benefit from the opportunity to explore in new ways his or her interests in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

We are especially happy that Professor John Lanci (Religious Studies) has agreed be our inaugural Fellow, starting this semester. John will be focusing his attention on gauging faculty participation and interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) at Stonehill. He will be assessing Stonehill’s current level of SOTL participation and developing resources and programs meant to support faculty engagement with SOTL.

Please join us in welcoming John to the CTL and in celebrating this promising new program.

CFP: UConn’s Conference on the Teaching of Writing (due 2/22)

University of Connecticut’s Fifth Annual Conference on the Teaching of Writing: “Local Knowledge”
Friday, 26 March 2010 @ University of Connecticut, Storrs Campus

The University of Connecticut’s Freshman English Program is calling for presentation/panel/roundtable proposals from instructors of writing (in all disciplines and programs) for the Fifth Annual Conference on the Teaching of Writing.

While the theme for this year’s conference invites reflection on local knowledge and the role of archives in composition instruction, we encourage presenters to interpret “local knowledge” and “archives” broadly. We also invite proposals on other related topics. Suggested categories and topics include: