Links on Teaching

Convocation & University Focus | Teaching Tips Newsletters | Teaching Resources | Teaching & Learning Conferences | SoTL Journals | Publications

Convocation & University Focus Resources

• Area Focus 2012-2014: Cities

The annual focus is designed to highlight and promote interdisciplinary learning via a campus-wide conversation on a specific issue. To learn more about cities-focused courses and events visit the Areas of Focus. All Fairfield faculty are able to access the CITIES SANDBOX on Blackboard which features faculty and staff created curricular resources on Cities available for all to use in their teaching and scholarship. This interdisciplinary community resources was created by the 2011-2012 Faculty & Professional Learning Community (FPLC) on Cities. Since numerous faculty and professional staff have added resources to the sandbox.

• Convocation 2011-2012

In keeping with the Class of 2015 theme, Worlds Imagined, the Convocation Committee has selected a number of materials for faculty and staff to consider for use in curricular and co-curricular programming throughout the year. Materials include streaming videos, articles, books, documentaries, websites and more centered around the theme of global citizenship. These materials were selected to inspire students to imagine, create, and be actors in our world.

• University Focus: Global Citizenship 2010-2012

Through Spring 2012, the University's will continue to be Global Citizenship. For information on this focus and cultural programs available, visit the Areas of Focus website. The 2012-2013 University-wide focus will be "Cities."

• Convocation 2010-2011

To help you integrate the 2010-2011 convocation theme "From Activism to Global Citizenship" and the common film "From RFK to Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope" into your teaching, the Convocation Committee has made available an Instructor / Facilitator Guide (Guide formats: .doc or .pdf). If you have questions about Fall Convocation contact the Dean of Academic Engagement, or for questions about the film contact the Center for Faith and Public Life.

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Teaching Tips Newsletters

• Tomorrow's Professor - postings and listser, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning

• The Teaching Professor - monthly newsletter devoted to the art and science of better teaching.

• The National Teaching & Learning Forum - monthly newsletter

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Teaching Resources

• POD-IDEA Center Notes
  One-page briefs to help employ different teaching methods, based on the IDEA student rating system, such as the following: "Found ways to help students answer their own questions," "Demonstrated the importance and significance of the subject matter," or "Explained course material clearly and concisely."

• Solve a teaching problem
  This award-winning tool, from Carnegie Mellon provides practical strategies, firmly grounded in educational research and learning principles, to address teaching problems across the disciplines. Select the problem that best matches your situation, whether Students don't keep up with the reading or Students' background knowledge and skills vary widely.

• Designing a Course, Start to Finish
  Dee Fink's free 30 page synopsis and workshop handouts from his phenomenally helpful book Creating Significant Learning Experiences (copies available for loan). A must read for "backwards" design and other brilliant conceptions.

• Design & Teach a Course
  Course design requires the alignment of three major components: (1) learning objectives, (2) instructional strategies, and (3) Assessment. This Carnegie Mellon site provides strategies and tools to assist with each of these components.

• EDUCAUSE's 7 Things You Should Know About...
  This series provides brief information on emerging learning technologies tools like blogs or clickers. Each brief focuses on a single technology and sums up: what it is? how it works? where it is going? why it matters to teaching and learning?

• Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD)
  The world's premier faculty development association, POD features an annual conference we attend every fall and a searchable listserve archives full of answers to common questions about every kind of teaching and learning challenge.

• JesuitNET
  A collaboration of Jesuit institutions sharing resources for online programs, including Competency Assessment in Distance Education (CADE) Workshop - free for Fairfield faculty.

• The Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC)
  Offers a variety of online training programs as well as grants.

• Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)
  Free and open resource that includes sample assignments, teaching methods and activities.

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Teaching & Learning Conferences

The Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning at Kennesaw State University hosts a listing of Teaching Conferences. Browse their website or view the listing in PDF format.

• Professional and Organization Development Network in Higher Education (POD): POD Network Conferences

• Lilly Conferences on College & University Teaching: National and International Lilly Conferences, and Institutes

• Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U): AAC&U Meetings and Institutes

• International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (ISoTL): ISoTL Conferences

• New England Faculty Development Consortium (NEFDC): NEFDC Confences and events

• The Teaching Professor: Conference

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Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) Journals

The Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning at Kennesaw State University hosts a listing of journals that publish the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning. Browse their website or view the listing in PDF format.

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Community Engaged Scholarship

The DiMenna-Nyselius Library Best Bets page on "Publishing Community Engaged Scholarship" provides resources on finding journals, acceptance rates, and immediacy and impact factors.

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Publications

• Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U): Liberal Education and Peer Review

• Journals published by Miami University, Ohio: The Journal on Excellence in College Teaching; Learning Communities Journal