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Talking About Teaching
Conversations will be held in the CST, DeWitt Wallace
Library Suite 338 on Thursdays from 12:00-1:00.
Thursday, September 11, 2008 - Portraits
of Macalester Students. Terry Boychuk (Sociology)
Professor Terry Boychuk (Sociology) paints "Portraits of Macalester
Students" How do students choose their majors? Why do students
feel troubled about how to address their professors? How do students
perceive their workloads? This session provides an overview of findings
of student surveys conducted in the Sociology Department's Science
and Social Inquiry class in the spring 2008 semester. These polls
suggest ways of improving our advising skills, how to establish
more transparent conventions for conversing with our students, and
rethinking the way we apportion assignments in our classes.
Thursday, September 18 – Keith Edwards,
Campus Life, “Student Learning Beyond the Classroom: What
Happens In The Other 21 Hours A Day?
Macalester students receive a top-notch education from
exceptional faculty. How can we best capitalize on the pedagogical
potential of the student experience beyond the classroom to match
their excellent academic experience in an effort to foster holistic
student learning? Edwards will discuss the latest research on learning,
development, and brain science that clearly encourages a blended
approach to educating students across curricular and co-curricular
lines.
Thursday, September 25th (no discussion)
TUESDAY, September 30 - Erik Larson, Sociology,
“Puzzling Over Assessment Evidence: Urban Engagement Courses
and Students' Skills for Community Involvement”
As part of a Spencer Foundation grant and Harvard’s Forum
for Excellence in Higher Education, Macalester agreed to assess
recent curricular initiatives. Here, Larson will discuss one component:
pre- and post-test assessment of student skills associated with
urban engagement. He will describe the assessment methods and present
a summary of results, including some rather puzzling patterns.
Thursday. October 2 (no discussion)
Thursday, October 9 - Patrick Schmidt,
Political Science, “The Written and the Oral: Integrating
Tutorials into Courses”
Written work commonly remains a private ‘conversation’
between the instructor and student—a process that faculty
and students frequently find dissatisfactory. Schmidt will describe
the use of "Oxbridge-style" tutorials in courses as a
way of extending and enhancing the benefits of written work, along
with the costs of the approach. He will also suggest ways to modify
tutorials for various ends. Discussion can turn more generally to
how we can wring "more learning" out of the exercise of
writing a paper, including using tutorials' cousin, the oral defense.
Thursday, October 23 - Eric Wiertelak,
Psychology, “The Neuro-Conversations: Talking Across The Liberal
Arts”
How might students be brought together to discuss their particular
path through the curriculum and how that path relates to other majors,
such as Cognitive and Neuroscience Studies (CNS)? Wiertelak will
discuss how the CNS major curriculum is intended not only to provide
training in neuroscience, but also to examine the intersection of
a neuroscience education with that of the rest of the liberal arts
and how we structure other inter-disciplinary conversations of value
across major curricula at the college.
Thursday, October 30 – Paru Shah,
Political Science, and Dan Trudeau, Geography, “Using Service
Learning To Foster Civic Engagement”
Civic engagement is an important part of Macalester's educational
mission and there are many ways in which it is promoted. We will
describe our experiences with incorporating service learning into
our classes as a way of facilitating civic engagement. We identify
risks and rewards of using this approach as well as some practical
concerns of integrating service learning into courses. We will also
discuss how our approaches can be transferred to other disciplines,
including assessing civic engagement as a learning experience.
Thursday, November 6 – Terri Fishel,
Library, and Barron Koralesky, Information Technology Services,
“A Vision of Students Today”
We will begin by watching a short video summarizing the most important
characteristics of students today – how they learn, what the
need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, and what kinds of changes
they will experience in their lifetime. We will then discuss how
much of this rings true for our students and what kind of classroom
experience and technology will enhance both their experience and
our teaching.
Thursday, November 13 - Karl Wirth, Geology, “Guiding
Principles for Designing Significant Learning Experiences”
We frequently are tempted to concentrate on content when we design
learning experiences. Unfortunately, students retain very little
content even a few months after the end of a course. What then do
we want our students to take away from their experiences in our
classrooms? How should we design our instruction and curricula to
maximize learning that will be significant throughout a lifetime?
This discussion will consider four different perspectives that provide
some insights to these questions.
Thursday, November 20 - "Moodle Showcase"-
Theresa Krier, English; John Cannon, Physics & Astronomy;
and Cynthia Kauffeld, Hispanic and Latin American Studies
Three faculty members will show novel uses of Moodle in
their teaching. Topics include linking ArtStor imagery to Moodle,
mini-quizzes to ensure student preparation and determine topics
that need clarification, and recording student recitations for language
learning. Come see and discuss innovative uses of Moodle with your
colleagues.
November 27 and December 4 (no discussion)
Lunch provided; no RSVP necessary
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