The Teaching Professor: 8th Annual Conference

The Teaching Professor will be holding a three day conference in Atlanta, Georgia from May 20 – 22.  Faculty from across the country will gather to explore the newest ideas in teaching and learning, hear the latest research, and discuss the state of today’s changing classroom.

Over 800 faculty attended last year’s conference in Cambridge.  The 2011 Conference will also feature a cross-disciplinary flavor and attendees will be able to choose from over 50 workshops and luncheon sessions.  Past conferences included such positive feedback: “This was one of the best organized, [most] informative conferences I have ever attended.  Each session, each activity was rich in content and well worth the time.”  Check out The Teaching Professor’s brochure to view more testimonials and event description including pricing.

Leading speakers will touch on topics like:

Student performance	Mentoring
Academic integrity	Faculty development
Technology	Group work
Self-assessments	Rubrics
Motivating students	And many, many more

Guests will be housed in the luxurious Sheraton Atlanta Hotel – recently redesigned and now including complimentary wireless internet service throughout the conference.  Register before April 29, 2011.

Professors can register online at www.teachingprofessor.com or call 800-206-4805.

Teacher’s Bookshelf: The Skillful Teacher

Stephen D. Brookfield. The Skillful Teacher. On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. 2nd. Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

If I were asked to recommend one book that I think every faculty member of the college should read, it would be Brookfield’s classic in its second edition, an engagingly written introduction to teaching, which combines a gentle introduction to pedagogical theory with numerous practical suggestions for every teacher—from the newly minted Ph.D. to the seasoned veteran—that will improve performance in the classroom.

From “core assumptions of skillful teaching” and a chapter on how to survive emotionally the onslaughts of our chosen profession, to sections on how to lecture creatively, increase students’ participation in discussion, or respond to resistance, it’s all here.

To my mind, though, the best chapter is the fourth, where Brookfield addresses “what students value in teachers,” asserting that they learn best when credibility and authenticity are held in a state of ”congenial tension” (57).

The attributes that establish credibility include expertise, experience (in one’s field as well as in the classroom), conviction (our sense of the importance that students “get” what we are teaching), and rationale, which Brookfield defines as the ability to “talk out loud the reasons for . . . classroom decisions, course design, and evaluative criteria” (63).

Sections of Brookfield’s  discussion of authenticity may raise some eyebrows.  He claims we must manifest congruence between what we say we will do and what we do; full disclosure (“regularly making public the criteria, expectations, agendas and assumptions that guide [one’s] practice”); responsiveness (convincing students that what you are teaching actually will help them); and personhood (the more controversial part): one’s ability to allow students to know that we are indeed human beings with personal lives outside the classroom (67-71).

Brookfield’s reflections on this final attribute and the problem of balancing self-disclosure and professional boundaries is typical of the book as a whole—nuanced, clear, and brief.

John Lanci
Professor, Religious Studies

Economists take on motivation

In this animated version of a lecture he gave for the RSA, Dan Pink discusses some of the less-than-intuitive findings about rewards and motivation put forth by economists in recent years.  Although Pink’s focus is on the workplace, his conclusions about the motivating power of autonomy, purpose, and mastery have interesting implications for the classroom, as well.