Taking college teaching seriously : pedagogy matters! : fostering student success through faculty-centered practice improvement / Gail O. Mellow [and three others] ; foreword by Rosemary Arca.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mellow, Gail O'Connor, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

College teaching.

Critical pedagogy.

Physical Description:

xxii, 124 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Sterling, Virginia : Stylus Publishing, [2015]

Summary:

College faculty stand with their students at the coalface of learning, wishing for more to succeed and disappointed at how illusory academic success is for so many. Among the array of investments colleges are making to improve student outcomes, too little attention is paid to supporting faculty. This book presents the pedagogy matters practice improvement model, which capitalizes on the affordances of technology to enable groups of faculty to examine their practice in a nonevaluative context and with a clear focus on improvement. The core of the work involves individual reflection and the design provides for an accessible way to "see" into the classrooms of discipline peers. Most importantly, the model is not an intense one-shot, but rather a structured opportunity for a faculty member to examine and adapt practice over time and to assess the impact of changes on student learning. This book breaks new ground in professional development and illuminates the link between faculty teaching expertise and improving student outcomes. Faculty members who have participated in this model found it to be transformative: English Professor, Kentucky: Participating in [the project] this year has helped me to be more reflective in every single action. I constantly analyze how each session went. ... [It] gave me the tools to think about every minute detail of a classroom. Adjunct Math Professor, Mississippi: Speaking as an adjunct, I also have valued the chance to share my teaching and get ideas from others. I can honestly say that this experience has been a lifeline of sorts this year. In a "magic wand" instructional setting, I'd wish for the kind of honest, respectful, and professionally challenging discussions we have [through this process] at weekly staff meetings. Math Professor, New Jersey: The continual self-evaluation and reflection allowed us to work together to brainstorm improvements and positive tweaks to be more purposeful in our classrooms as opposed to just randomly reaching in the dark for ideas and techniques in hope of success. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Contours of Practice Improvement 20

2 Theory of Change 31

3 Pedagogy Matters Tools and Routines 39

4 Scaffolding the Community 1: Coaching and Sharing 66

5 Scaffolding the Community 2: Norms and Infrastructure 76

6 Taking College Teaching Seriously: A Call to Action 89.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781620360798

1620360799

9781620360804

1620360802

OCLC:

900799249