Autumn 2005

Coordinators:
Nola-Jean Bamberry, Lewis 317, 685-9608
Kathy Hertz, Lewis 217, 543-9736

hertzk@u.washington.edu

Meetings: Fridays, 8:30-10:20, Balmer Hall (room t.b.a.)

How much confidence would you have in a physician with no understanding of how bacteria and viruses cause infection, one who believed that biochemistry was irrelevant to her practice? If by some terrible mistake you were arrested and put on trial, would you hire a lawyer who thought that keeping up with the research on jury selection, effective defense strategies, and sentencing patterns was a waste of time?

These questions are obviously rhetorical, because we all expect -- or at least hope -- that professionals will be knowledgeable and keep current in the research that informs their practice. But, as college teachers, do we expect as much of ourselves? Unless you're in a field such as cognitive science or educational psychology, chances are slim that your graduate education included any survey of the research on how humans learn.

Thomas Angelo

School of Education, Higher Education Program

University of Miami

The teaching effectiveness seminar has two primary goals. The first is to help you prepare for your teaching assignments. The second is to introduce strategies for developing as a teacher throughout your academic career. The seminar will cover several instructional approaches, the rationale for each, self-assessment techniques, and campus resources for improving your teaching.

Objectives

At the end of this quarter, you should be prepared for your first teaching assignment. You should have a syllabus that reflects the instructional approach you have chosen, based on observing classes, selecting among strategies presented in the seminar, and evaluating which approaches suit you.

You should also have the grounding for continually improving your ability to -

1) Write clearly defined learning objectives and choose teaching methods suited to these objectives.

2) Write a course syllabus that clearly communicates your expectations for the course.

3) Employ a range of teaching methods including lectures, group discussions, exercises, cases, writing assignments, group projects, and simulations.

4) Choose evaluation methods for self-assessment and professional development.

5) Demonstrate speaking and presentation skills that improve classroom delivery.

6) Develop strategies for dealing with difficult situations in and out of the classroom.

7) Relate current issues in post-secondary and adult education to your own teaching.

Seminar Description

The seminar meets nine times during Autumn Quarter, on Fridays, 8:30-10:20 a.m. in Balmer Hall.

Business School Faculty will lead several seminar sessions on various teaching approaches. In addition, class members will be assigned to groups by department to prepare a brief presentation on the topic for the week. The assigned readings will complement these presentations, so please come prepared to apply them to the week’s discussions. We added group presentations to the seminar because TAs have suggested that more opportunities to present during the seminar would help prepare for the first quarter of teaching. These presentations are a chance to teach a supportive class of “students.” Very brief presentations throughout the quarter are further opportunities to practice speaking to a class and to ask for feedback.

The fifth week is microteaching. These short, videotaped teaching sessions give the opportunity to view yourself from the perspective of students. Videotaping may not sound like an attractive way to spend a seminar session, but TAs always come away from this session saying it was extremely useful.

In weeks six, eight and nine, you will take part in cooperative learning groups organized to explore specific issues in class planning and day-to-day teaching. These three weeks you will once again be teaching the rest of the class members.

Week ten focuses on continuous improvement from student feedback, peer observation and in-course assessment. We will also cover tips on what to do the first day of class, along with a checklist of the logistics of teaching at the UW, from booking classroom equipment to getting free textbooks and cases.

Requirements and Other Notes

Attendance: If you have a schedule conflict with one of the seminar sessions, please check in advance with Nola-Jean or Kathy. Attending the seminar is part of your RA appointment for Autumn Quarter.

Course Observation: During the quarter, you will observe an experienced instructor teaching the course or quiz section that you will be assigned to in the future.

Readings links to the online readings associated with various sessions’ topics are in the schedule on the course webpage.

Teaching Practice by Departmental Groups: Each departmental group will teach the class a lesson connected with a teaching issue we are examining. These presentations both construct a portion of the seminar and provide more opportunities for teaching practice.

Microteaching: Mid-quarter we will do a microteaching workshop, which includes the following three steps: 1) Each person teaches a 3-5 minute lesson to a group of three or four people from the seminar. To make the practice most useful, you can teach a lesson related to the class you will be assigned. 2) The presentations are videotaped. 3) The group views each presentation, identifies strengths, and suggests improvements.

Cooperative Learning Groups: For the last few sessions of the seminar, you will participate in a cooperative learning exercise to study a cluster of important teaching tools and issues. Jigsaw cooperative learning involves the following processes: 1) groups of 3- 4 class members are each assigned one topic to become ‘experts’ in; 2) groups re-form to create 4 teams with one expert on each topic; 3) each expert teaches the other members of the new team his/her topic of expertise; 4) the new teams apply their expertise to complete a skeleton syllabus; 5) each new team presents a syllabus to the class and a panel of faculty members.

Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID): Mid-Autumn Quarter, we will do an SGID for the seminar. This form of mid-quarter assessment is designed to give an instructor feedback about a course before the quarter ends so the instructor knows what's going well and what could be improved. A consultant from the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) will conduct the SGID. At the end of the quarter, the consultant will return so you can schedule an SGID for the class you will be teaching, if you are teaching winter quarter.