Check out the Office of Community-Based Learning Blog!

If you missed the Office of Community-Based Learning’s Open House, don’t fret! You can check out our blog: http://communitybasedlearning.wordpress.com/

The latest entry is about a trip to the Common Ground Faire in Maine.

Happy Reading!

Teaching Tip: Applying Ideas with Found Objects

Roben Torosyan (of Fairfield University) shared this idea at the New England Faculty Development Consortium conference.

He asks students to use “found objects” to explain and apply new ideas presented in class.

After introducing a particular concept or theory in lecture, he’ll then ask the students to divide into groups and find an object they have with them that can be used to illustrate that concept.

Students are encouraged to use the object in unintended ways.  After taking a few minutes to prepare their explanations, each group presents their object to the class.

The activity encourages students to put new concepts into their own words and to connect them to existing knowledge, helping students to process what they’ve learned.

Torosyan describes examples from his own classes:

In my own intro to modern philosophy class, found objects have ranged form a pen (its multiple uses demonstrated multiple ways of framing problems) or paper clips (its malleability symbolized the way theory can be adjusted to fit anomalous data) to an empty plastic bottle coupled with crumpled paper and a candy wrapper (students described the tension between freedom and determinism by telling of a deadly accident that was averted when a person [bottle] slipped on a banana [wrapper] but was cushioned in their fall by a mattress [paper] opportunely placed by the sidewalk).  Easy entry to challenging material and a way to capture knowledge soon after it’s learned.

Read more about this strategy here.

NESA Conference: “Innovative Approaches to Teaching”

The New England Sociological Association is hosting its fall conference at Northeastern University on November 7, 2009.  With a focus on “Innovative Approaches to Teaching: Sharing Best Practices,” it promises to have a wider disciplinary interest than you might expect.

Jack Levin, PhD will be speaking as the keynote.  Dr. Levin is the Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University in Boston, where he co-directs the Center on Violence and Conflict and teaches courses in the sociology of violence and hate.

Proposals for presentations are being accepted through October 1st.  Find more details here.

And registration is also now open.  Registration details are here.

NEFDC Conference (Nov 13th)

Registration is now open for the New England Faculty Development Consortium’s fall conference, held November 13th at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA.

This fall’s theme is “When Questioning is the Answer: Reflective Practice for College Faculty.”  The keynote speaker is Stephen Brookfield, author of numerous books on teaching and learning, among them Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (1995) and Discussion as a Way of Teaching (2005).

For more details and to register for the event, please visit the NEFDC Fall Conference website at http://www.nefdc.org/events.htm.

CFP: Team Based Learning Conference (due Oct 1)

The Team Based Learning Collaborative is hosting its ninth annual conference March 9 – 10 in New Orleans.

Their call for abstracts is now open (with a deadline of October 1).  They are looking for proposals for oral presentations, poster presentations, and workshops.

Find more details at the conference website.

CFP: Niagara Conference on Teaching and Learning (Oct 5)

Niagara University is hosting its 9th annual conference on Teaching and Learning on January 12 – 13, 2010. They are currently accepting proposals for presentations and posters (with a deadline of October 5):

Educators from across the United States and Canada who can contribute their experience and expertise with active and integrative learning in its many varieties and discuss how it is best encouraged and assessed are invited to submit proposals for presentations and panels focusing upon their efforts to promote learning within individual courses, curricula or programs.

Presentations will occur during concurrent sessions on Tuesday, Jan. 12, and Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. Proposals should include a 75-word description of the proposed session including the title, author(s) and credentials. The description should include a statement of how the audience will be engaged. There will be a poster session on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010. Poster proposals should be in the same format as concurrent session proposals and should describe the content of the poster.

Full details can be found at the conference website.

CFP: “Interdisciplinary Pedagogies”

Guest editors Michelle Gibson (U of Cincinnati) and Johnathan Alexander (UC-Irvine) are seeking papers for a special issue on “Interdisciplinary Pedagogies” for the journal Pedagogy.

They are currently accepting proposals for review and will want full drafts by January 31, 2010.

Pedagogy is typically more geared towards the study of literature/language/culture, so this is a special opportunity to bring other (inter)disciplinary perspectives to its pages.

CFP: Teaching Professor Conference due Oct 31

The Teaching Professor conference is well-known for being a faculty-centered conference that addresses a wide range of teaching-related topics and questions.

The 2010 conference is being held right next door in Cambridge, MA from May 21 – 23.

They are currently accepting proposals for workshops and poster sessions. Proposals are due October 31, 2009:

The Teaching Professor offers seven topical areas, presented as multiple concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the various roles and concerns of teaching professors. We invite submissions for 75-minute presentations and panel discussions focusing on the agenda of “Educate. Engage. Inspire.” Your submission may fall within one of the topical areas listed below; however we welcome compelling ideas that may not be addressed in these topical areas:

• Scholarship of Teaching
• Learning
• The Pedagogies of Engagement
• Teaching Unique Types of Courses
• Faculty Growth, Resilience, and Change
• Teaching and Learning with Technology
• Undergraduate Research

To read the full call for proposals or to submit a proposal, visit the Teaching Professor website.

Come to the Community-Based Learning Open House!

The new Office of Community-Based Learning is hosting an Open House to introduce itself to faculty and community partners.

Wednesday, September 23, 3-5 in the Cleary Dining Hall

There will be light refreshments and a chance to meet the CBL staff, new & old faculty, as well as many community partners from the southeastern Massachusetts area.

If you have any questions, please contact Kate Rafey, krafey@stonehill.edu or 508-565-1959

 

Hope to see you there!

 

New Faculty Seminar Oct 5

Engaging Students Through Discussion
Monday, Oct 5, 11:30 – 12:45
Duffy 114 Conference Room

The New Faculty Seminar is meant to continue the discussions begun at New Faculty Orientation about teaching and the other professional obligations of new faculty at Stonehill — as well as to provide new faculty a “safe” place for discussing their experiences (good and bad) throughout the year.

For our first seminar, we’ll discuss the role discussion can play in student learning: How can we create situations in which students want to engage in discussion? What can I do when all I get is silence? What other options are there for encouraging active, rather than passive, learning from our students? What options are there for evaluating students’ participation in discussion?

Suggested reading: “Week 4: In the Classroom: Discussions” in On Course
Guest: Chris Ives (Religious Studies)