Spring 2006 - Teaching Large Classes - Individual Faculty Fellows
Overview
Applications for the Spring 2006 Fellows were accepted in October 2005; the program was conducted from January to April, 2006. For this Fellowship program, the focus was on improving teaching and learning in large classes. Applications included a written statement of the educational challenges faced by the applicants in teaching large courses they wanted to address in the program, an outline of their technology skills, and an endorsement from an academic dean or department chair.
Fellows were expected to attend a one day orientation at the beginning of the program and two-hour monthly meetings for the rest of the semester. The orientations and monthly meeting focused on various pedagogical issues pertaining to teaching large classes, such as improving lectures and increasing student engagement, obtaining student feedback, designing collaborative group projects and assessment in large classes.
Participants in the program received a $1,00 stipend at the end of the program term. Graduate students participating in the program received a $500 stipend.
Participants
Martha Reeves, Visiting Assistant Professor
Sociology/MMS
Reeves explored the use of discussion boards and a group project that analyzed advertising campaigns for a group presentation in WS 150, Women at Work, and Soc 158, Markets and Marketing.
Robert Malkin, Professor of Practice
Biomedical Engineering
Malkin tried the use of discussion boards in his classes and the use of a software package to allow students to design electrical circuits.
Sherryl Broverman, Assoc Professor of the Practice
Biology
In a Spring course, Reeves explored the use of several classroom activities including surveys to obtain student feedback, concept maps for outlining student papers, and "inverted dialogs" where students had to present multiple points of view about controversial issues.
J. Kameron Carter, Assistant Professor
Divinity School
For a 35-student course on Christology, Carter explored the use of surveys to gauge student understanding of concepts in the course; he also created a concept map of the course content to clarify the goals and content of the course for his students.
Anathea Portier-Young, Assistant Professor
Divinity School
Portier-Young developed a grading rubric for one of her courses used in a book review assignment to help students focus on goals of the course and explored the use of a wiki for collaborative work in her classes.
Catherine Admay, Visiting Lecturer
Public Policy
In Arts and Human Rights, a 36 student lecture course, and a Capstone Seminar for professional graduate students, Admay developed multimedia readings for each unit of the class on Arts and Human Rights with graduate student partner Neta Barr. Admay also explored the use of discussion boards, wikis and surveys in the Blackboard course web site.
Queen Utley-Smith, Assistant Professor
School of Nursing
Utley Smith explored the use of blogging through the Blackboard journal tool and TabletPCs for more accurately and efficiently grading student essays.
Elizabeth Hill, Assistant Professor
School of Nursing
In N303, Health Services Program Planning and Outcomes Analysis, Hill designed a problem based learning project activity for the students that included a detailed planning process and final presentations by the students.
Kathy Trotter, Assistant Professor
School of Nursing
In a clinical Nurse Practitioner course covering Sexual and Reproductive Health content, Trotter used surveys to get student feedback and blogs for a student weekly personal clinical journal.
