Many universities now encourage, and some even require, faculty to submit a teaching portfolio as part of their tenure application package. How to evaluate these portfolios, however, remains an unresolved issue, particularly if the task is to make a judgment about whether what is demonstrated in the portfolio reflects engagement in the scholarship ...
Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida, has created a faculty development program underwritten for the past five years by a US Department of Education Title III Strengthening Institutions Grant. Our program rose from a deliberate desire to build active, collaborative faculty teams that would, in turn, build active, collaborative classrooms;...
This essay provides a detailed presentation of the perspectives, approaches, activities, materials, and evaluative information that characterize and distinguish a formal, credit-earning, semester-long graduate course in college teaching. This report is based on the author’s experiences and reflections drawn from, and expressed after, 12 years of te...
Fortunately, hospitality is practiced more than it is preached. A cardinal academic virtue, hospitality is essential in the classroom as well as in relationships with colleagues. This essay looks at why this is so.
Just as the last thing a fish would notice is water, academics tend to overlook the value of a comprehensive course syllabus. It seems too prosaic for some instructors to take seriously. Despite operating largely in obscurity, a nascent body of literature appreciative of the syllabus’ latent potential is emerging. The distinguishing features of mod...
In this study, six focus groups of faculty and students addressed issues of how race, ethnicity, and gender affected their classroom experiences. Consistent themes emerged across all groups, including feeling unsafe and vulnerable, concerns about equity, power, and role modeling. As importantly, the research process itself became a vehicle for grow...
Higher education professionals need clearer, stronger frameworks for the integration of both civic and moral learning and the more common cognitive learning that occurs in traditional classrooms. This article addresses when and why this author chose to focus on community service-learning as a way to reengage in direct work with students and other c...
This essay describes the evolution of a program for the development of new faculty at a public teaching university. The year-long process of orienting the newest professors to the campus and assisting them with their scholarship and teaching results in additional (albeit unplanned and unexpected) benefits, such as professional renewal of senior fac...
Faculty often believe that if they do not publish, they will perish. Faculty developers can respond to this need by helping faculty increase their scholarly productivity. Research shows that faculty are more productive if they write for 15-30 minutes daily, organize their writing around key sentences, and get extensive feedback on drafts. This arti...
To enhance the multicultural understanding of students, this essay offers conceptions and suggestions relating to course and curricular change. We can indeed all practice multicultural teaching!
