Scholarship Teaching
The Scholarship of Teaching Series provides a venue for faculty to share and discuss best practice strategies for enhancing teaching and learning on campus through seminars, panel discussions, and workshops. This series brings together instructors across the disciplines and teaching levels from experienced tenured faculty to graduate student interested in sharing pedagogical innovations and successes. Topics of discussion include:
The effective use of current and emerging instructional methodologies and technologies.
Strategies for the introduction of active learning, peer to peer learning, and collaborative approaches in teaching.
Pedagogical approaches to enhance student engagement and optimize student learning outcomes.
Effective approaches to teaching and learning in and outside of the classroom.
Successful and innovative practices that engage students in a critical analysis of course material, or which promote their involvement in research or scholarly activity.
The engagement of a teaching community in the collaborative, scholarly examination of their practice as teachers.
The development of assessment tools to measure student learning outcomes.
The development of a campus culture of evidence regarding our academic programs.
Winter 2010 Session
1. The Peer Mentor
DATE: March 31, 2010
TIME: 11:30-1:30
LOCATION: 367 Surge Bldg.
RSVP is requested by Monday, March 29, 2010 - Send RSVP to nancyk@ucr.edu
"The Peer Mentor" panelist at this session will address the following topics:
o What is the role of a peer mentor?
o How do departments train and monitor mentors?
o How do faculty work with mentors?
o What are the strengths and weaknesses of our peer mentor programs?
PANELISTS:
Geoff Cohen, CHASS F1RST, Dr. Tom Miller, Entomology, Dr. Len Mueller, Chemistry, Kathryn Jones, Honors, Student Peer Mentors (David Torres, Vicki Dasakis)
2. Innovative Teaching Award Lecture and Reception
DATE: Thursday, March 4, 2010
TIME: 2:30 PM
LOCATION: Bourns A265
RSVP is requested by Monday, March 1, 2010 - Send RSVP to gladis@ucr.edu
AWARD RECIPIENTS:
- Andrew Winer, Department of Creative Writing, UC Riverside
Can Creativity Be Taught? : Reflections on a New Writing Pedagogy
Do writing workshops and reading courses sufficiently prepare students to become writers? In this talk, Andrew Winer will discuss the new teaching paradigm he developed in response to his dissatisfaction with traditional creative writing curricula.
- Dr. Ward Beyermann, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UC Riverside
Innovative Pedagogy for Introductory Physics Instruction
Research on science learning shows that techniques utilizing active-student engagement enhance student learning outcomes in comparison to the traditional passive lecture style of instruction. Different implementations of this pedagogy have been developed that are oriented toward a variety of teaching environments (i.e., large classrooms, small classrooms, discussion sections and laboratories). To be successful, students must spend much of their class time actively engaged in doing, thinking and talking about the material, not listening to lecture. In some cases, attempts to incorporate interactive engagement failed to deliver significant improvements. So it is important to have a reliable quantitative mechanism for assessing the outcome with a change in pedagogy. One valuable tool for measuring teaching effectiveness is to use a pre- and post-instruction standardized exam. For the introductory physics series taken by life-science majors at UCR, elements of interactive engagement have been incorporated into both the large lectures and the discussion sections. We have observed a significant level of improvement in several parameters even though the magnitude, as determined with the standardized exams, is still below that expected for this new pedagogy.
Fall 2009 Session
1. Are There Real Effects of Grade Inflation?
DATE: Thursday, November 19, 2009
TIME: 11:30 - 1:30 (11:30-12:00 Lunch, 12:00-1:00 session, 1:00-1:30 Q&A)
LOCATION: ENGR II - Room 206
RSVP is requested by Monday, November 16, 2009 - Send RSVP to gladis@ucr.edu
SPEAKER: Dr. Philip Babcock, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara
Though a rise in college grades between the 1960's and the 2000's has been well documented, and alleged repercussions widely debated, there has been little research or evidence on observable effects of grade inflation. This research uses a 12-quarter panel of course evaluations to discern whether changes in grading influence student study times. Findings indicate that average study time would be about 50% lower in a class in which the average expected grade was an "A" than in the same course taught by the same instructor in which students expected a "C". Simultaneity suggests that the estimates are, if anything, biased toward zero. Class-specific characteristics that generate low expected grades appear to produce higher effort choices-evidence that changes in grading standards may lead to real changes in effort investment. In addition, the data reveal a strong association between students' ratings of an instructor and the grades they expect from the instructor, which may be evidence of a perverse incentive.
Helpful links to locate Scholarship of Teaching sessions: