The Daily Bulletin Archive

The 2009–2010 Faculty Development Workshop Serieshas been developed by Susan McMillen, director of faculty development, and her advisory board. Activities are geared to faculty members because of their typical responsibilities, but all activities are open to those interested in delivering instruction or working on their writing/publishing careers. “Classes are really open to anyone,” said McMillen. “If any activity fills up, we will try to schedule a second section.”

This year, she has reserved certain times for certain series. The “Aspects of Teaching” workshops, covering a variety of topics related to teaching, will be held on the first Friday and third Thursday of each month. McMillen will lead “Teaching Underprepared Students,” the first workshop in this series, on Friday, September 4, at noon in Cleveland 418. Registration is requested; a light lunch will be provided.

“We choose topics based on data from several sources,” said McMillen. “The faculty took part in a survey conducted by EduVentures last fall, and that’s been an important resource. The advisory board makes suggestions, and we ask for input at the workshops. We also turn to the college’s strategic plan. Its emphasis on active learning gives us additional direction.”

Three different series will take place on Tech Tuesdays, during Bengal Pause. The first is SPSS workshops, led by Kelly Marczynski and Sheldon Tetewsky from the Center for Health and Social Research. Four workshops covering basic topics will take place this semester, and three more advanced workshops, whose topics will reflect faculty input, will take place in the spring.

The second series is Emerging Technologies. “These are hands-on workshops led by librarians from Information Commons,” said McMillen. Participants will learn how to use emerging Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies available online for free, such as Google documents, Picasa, Twitter, and RSS feeds.

The third series is Pedagogy 2.0, presented by Melaine Kenyon, associate director for instructional technology, and Meghan Pereira, instructional technology specialist, both of Instructional Resources. “They will introduce state-of-the-art technologies such as image and video resources that a faculty member might choose to meet their own pedagogical goals,” McMillen said. “For example, I might want my students to use free Google software to build an interactive timeline showing the contributions of famous mathematicians in history.”

Faculty development also sponsors two discussion groups: The first, “Courageous Conversations: Teaching All Students,” is cosponsored with CEURE and the Teacher Education Council. The group meets once a month to discuss the challenge of preparing students to work with many different kinds of people, including fellow students. The second, moderated by Ken Fujiuchi, emerging technologies librarian, discusses the impact of the new Web tools on society. “It’s a nice companion to the hands-on series,” said McMillen. “In each discussion group, participants choose their own topics.”

McMillen officially became director of faculty development in September 2008, but most programming did not start until February 2009. “We found that the numbers grew throughout the year,” she said. “This year, we will collect more data and input to help us in the future.