Resources and practices to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows write statements of teaching philosophy

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine D. Kearns ◽  
Carol Subiño Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Teaching Philosophy ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
The Many ◽  
Faculty Mentors

students and postdoctoral fellows currently encounter requests for a statement of teaching philosophy in at least half of academic job announcements in the United States. A systematic process for the development of a teaching statement is required that integrates multiple sources of support, informs writers of the document's purpose and audience, helps writers produce thoughtful statements, and encourages meaningful reflection on teaching and learning. This article for faculty mentors and instructional consultants synthesizes practices for mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members as they prepare statements of teaching philosophy. We review background information on purposes and audiences, provide writing resources, and synthesize empirical research on the use of teaching statements in academic job searches. In addition, we integrate these resources into mentoring processes that have helped graduate students in a Health Sciences Pedagogy course to collaboratively and critically examine and write about their teaching. This summary is intended for faculty mentors and instructional consultants who want to refine current resources or establish new mentoring programs. This guide also may be useful to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members, especially those who lack mentoring or who seek additional resources, as they consider the many facets of effective teaching.

In the Eye of the Beholder: Students’ Views of Mentors in Psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry A. Cronan ◽  
Charles Van Liew ◽  
Julia Stal ◽  
Nicole Marr ◽  
Alan Patrus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Teams ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Faculty Mentors

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether students’ views of mentors have changed as a function of the increased number of faculty members conducting research and the inclusion of undergraduate students in faculty mentors’ research teams, using reports from current students. The participants were 227 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students at two large, Western public universities located in the United States. One institution was a research-intensive university and the other was not. Students were asked to complete a questionnaire about whether they had a mentor, the characteristics of their mentors, and their perceptions of their mentors. The findings indicated that 28.5% of undergraduates and 95% of graduate students had mentors. Undergraduate students were significantly more likely to choose mentors for being inspiring instructors, and graduate students were significantly more likely to choose mentors because of interest in their research. The most important characteristic of both good and bad mentors was personality. Students at all levels perceived their mentors as very interested in their futures. Mentor satisfaction was high among students at all levels. The findings are encouraging, and they provide evidence that psychology has adapted well to the increased number of faculty conducting research and to the inclusion of undergraduate students in research.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Dewar ◽  
Curtis Bennett ◽  
Matthew A. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Scholarship Of Teaching ◽  
Inquiry Process ◽  
Collegiate Level ◽  
And Mathematics

This book is a guide to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians teaching at the collegiate level in countries around the world. It shows instructors how to draw on their disciplinary knowledge and teaching experience to investigate questions about student learning. It takes them all the way through the inquiry process beginning with framing a research question and selecting a research design, moving on to gathering and analyzing evidence, and finally to making the results public. Numerous examples are provided at each stage, many from published studies of teaching and learning in science, engineering, or mathematics. At strategic points, short sets of questions prompt readers to pause and reflect, plan, or act. These questions are derived from the authors’ experience leading many SoTL workshops in the United States and Canada. The taxonomy of SoTL questions—What works? What is? What could be?—that emerged from the SoTL studies undertaken by the Carnegie scholars provides a useful framework at many stages of the inquiry process. The book addresses the issue of evaluating and valuing this work, including implications for junior faculty who wish to engage in SoTL. The authors explain why SoTL should be of interest to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty at all types of institutions, including faculty members active in traditional STEM research. They also give their perspective on the benefits of SoTL to faculty, to their institutions, to the academy, and to students.

scholarly journals Starting Out: The Dilemma of the Beginning College Astronomy Teacher

1990 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 73-76
Author(s):  
Harry L. Shipman
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Teacher ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
College Professors ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
College Astronomy ◽  
Astronomical Research ◽  
Department Chairman

Most beginning college professors in the United States receive little if any help in the important task of learning how to teach well. Occasionally, a colleague or department chairman can provide some guidance, but in general most American college faculty are taught how to teach by the “sink or swim” method. There are many resources that can help the new professor swim, rather than sink, but in my case at least, I found out about them many years after I needed them the most. This paper will identify some of the literature, journals, and on-campus facilities that can help both new and experienced faculty members develop and hone teaching skills.The literature on teaching and learning is vast. Fortunately, the new teacher need not spend years becoming an expert on this literature; much of it is like the astronomical research literature in that it is full of jargon and it requires some expertise to distill useful, easily implementable ideas from it. Fortunately, there are a few (too few!) books that distill this vast literature into practical advice from it.

scholarly journals 29. Two Models for Introducing Graduate Students to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Natasha Patrito Hannon ◽  
Svitlana Taraban-Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Effective Teaching ◽  
Student Learning ◽  
Graduate Student ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Development ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Scholarship Of Teaching

Graduate students aspiring to become faculty members should be provided with meaningful opportunities to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and to formulate questions about student learning and effective teaching. To this end, teaching and learning centres should incorporate SoTL-oriented components within the framework of educational development programs to prepare our future faculty. This article briefly reviews the emerging literature on graduate student engagement with SoTL and highlights two possible approaches for incorporating SoTL into educational development programs for graduate students.

scholarly journals Success in Student-Faculty/Staff SoTL Partnerships: Motivations, Challenges, Power, and Definitions

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Acai ◽  
Bree Akesson ◽  
Meghan Allen ◽  
Victoria Chen ◽  
Clarke Mathany ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Scholarship Of Teaching ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Successful Student

Partnerships with students are considered one of the principles of good Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) practice. However, not all partnerships are equally successful. What characteristics are common to successful partnerships and what preparatory elements can lead toward more successful partnerships? In this article, our team of graduate students, educational developers, and faculty members engage in detailed self-reflection on our past and ongoing SoTL projects as an inquiry into what it means to be in a successful student-faculty/staff partnership. Using thematic analysis, we identify and describe four distinct domains that can shape partnerships: (1) motivations to participate, (2) challenges, (3) power, and (4) definitions of success. The article concludes with a set of questions to stimulate initial and ongoing conversations between partners to guide new partnerships in defining the parameters for success in their proposed collaboration. Les partenariats avec les étudiants sont considérés comme l’un des principes de bonne pratique de l’Avancement des connaissances en enseignement et en apprentissage (ACEA). Toutefois, tous les partenariats ne connaissent pas le même succès. Quelles sont les caractéristiques communes des partenariats réussis et quels sont les éléments préparatoires qui peuvent aboutir à des partenariats mieux réussis? Dans cet article, notre groupe, consistant d’étudiants de cycles supérieurs, de conseillers pédagogiques et de professeurs, se lance dans une auto-réflexion détaillée sur nos projets passés et présents en ACEA qui constitue une enquête sur ce que cela signifie de faire partie d’un partenariat réussi entre étudiants, professeurs et membres du personnel. Par le biais de l’analyse thématique, nous identifions et décrivons quatre domaines distincts qui façonnent les partenariats : 1) la motivation à participer, 2) les défis, 3) le pouvoir et 4) les définitions de la réussite. En conclusion, nous posons un groupe de questions pour stimuler les conversations initiales et continues entre les divers partenaires afin de guider les nouveaux partenariats à définir les paramètres menant à la réussite dans leur collaboration proposée.

scholarly journals Virtually Authentic: Graduate Students’ Perspective Changes toward Authentic Learning while Collaborating in a Virtual World

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Songhee Han ◽  
Paul E. Resta
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Authentic Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Small Sample

This qualitative case study investigates graduate students’ perspective changes apropos their cross-national collaborative learning experience while participating in an online teaching and learning course jointly taught by graduate schools in the United States and Israel. The participants met virtually, on a weekly basis between November and December 2018, on a platform called Second Life, to design and participate in collaborative learning activities. On completion of the course, interviews were conducted with a small sample of student-participants regarding their experiences. During the design phase, participants’ dominant perceptions of their learning experiences were characterized by genuine “excitement” at the novelty of collaborating virtually with colleagues on the other side of the world. Their initial perceptions evolved during the participation phase to realization as learning communities emerged and students’ roles expanded beyond the scope of mere participants. In this study, the authors argue that participants’ construction of new knowledge resulted in authentic learning from the standpoints of social constructivism and online collaborative learning theory and further discuss the factors that enabled the participants’ authentic learning experience.

scholarly journals The Many Lives of Victorian Fiction

2010 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Teresa Mangum
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
First Century ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
The Past ◽  
University Communities ◽  
Collective Reading ◽  
The Many

Abstract Can Victorian literature speak to non-academic publics of the twenty-first century as it did to “common readers” of the past? This essay discusses several experiments in which faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduates find creative means to engage local as well as university communities in the study of Victorian and Edwardian texts. In particular, the essay considers the power of public performance—in this case of Elizabeth Robins’s suffrage play, The Convert—to inspire collective “reading,” interpretation, and reflection on the future as well as the past.

scholarly journals Inclusive Online Teaching and Digital Learning: Lessons Learned in the Time of Pandemic and Beyond

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. i-iii
Author(s):  
Kelsey Evans-Amalu ◽  
Eric B. Claravall
Keyword(s):  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Inclusive Curriculum ◽  
Virtual Teaching ◽  
The Many ◽  
K 12

When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world in 2020 and into 2021, the entire system of education faced the most challenging task to provide education to students using virtual instruction. Within the United States specifically, the pandemic transformed teaching. Teachers were and have continued to be compelled to learn digital technology and integrate varied digital tools into their instruction. As guest editors, Eric and I had the opportunity to reflect on the many instructional challenges and valuable lessons learned about virtual teaching and learning in k-12 and higher education. One of the biggest lessons observed was exposure of huge equity gaps between the tech haves and have nots, regarding access to digital devices and reliable Wi-Fi. It was from this observation that the call for proposals of this special issue was developed. What does inclusion look like in the era of digital and virtual teaching?  With this in mind, we were tasked to coedit this special issue of JCSR focusing on the theme “Inclusive Curriculum in the Era of Digital & Virtual Learning.” We had the opportunity to review five exemplary articles responding to the theme.

Measurement in Education in the United States

Education ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Cizek ◽  
Charlotte Agger ◽  
Slki Lim
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Incorrect Response ◽  
Educational Measurement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Student’S Performance

Educational measurement is the science and practice of obtaining information about characteristics of students, such as their knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests. Measurement in education includes the development of instruments or protocols for obtaining information, procedures for analyzing and evaluating the quality of that information, and strategies for communicating the information to audiences, such as educators, policymakers, parents, and students. All measurement in education has the common aims of (1) arriving at defensible conclusions regarding students’ ability, achievement, or interests, (2) gauging student progress toward specified educational goals, and (3) improving teaching and learning. Educational measurement is closely related to the concepts of testing, assessment, and evaluation. Measurement is the process of assigning numbers to events based on an established set of rules. In educational measurement, the “events” under consideration are students’ test performances and, in the simplest case, the numerals assigned might be the students’ numbers of correct responses. An example of a set of “rules” in this situation would be that one point is earned for each correct response, zero points are earned for an incorrect response, and the sum of these values is the student’s total test score. Percentage correct is another commonly used metric, although a variety of transformations of raw scores may be used. Testing uses measurement to support inferences about students’ knowledge, skills, or abilities. A test is any systematic sample of behavior obtained under controlled conditions. In educational measurement, the behaviors of interest would encompass, for example, mathematics problem solving, interest in various occupations, proficiency in reading narrative texts, skill in giving a speech, building a birdhouse, writing an essay, and so on. Because it is not possible to observe all of what a student knows or can do, educational measurement is based on samples of these behaviors. Consequently, when a test is administered, inference is always required. Because it is typically not the student’s performance on the specific math problems or on the specific essay that is of interest, those behaviors are considered to be samples of the student’s underlying problem-solving skill or writing ability. Inference is an informed conclusion, based on the sample of behavior, about the student’s more fundamental level of knowledge or skill. In educational testing, the conditions of testing are controlled so that inferences about differences in students’ knowledge, skill, or ability can be confidently attributed to the underlying characteristics being measured and not to variation in testing conditions. Evaluation is ascribing value or worth to the information collected via measurement or testing. A common form of educational evaluation is grading, where a value label (such as “Pass,” “Fail,” or “A”) is used to connote information about the merit of the student’s performance. Finally, assessment refers to the process of gathering and synthesizing information from multiple sources—some or all of which may be tests—for the purposes of discovering and documenting students’ strengths and weaknesses, planning and enhancing instruction, or evaluating and making decisions about students.

scholarly journals Engaging Actively with Issues in the Responsible Conduct of Science: Lessons from International Efforts Are Relevant for Undergraduate Education in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 596-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Clements ◽  
Nancy D. Connell ◽  
Clarissa Dirks ◽  
Mohamed El-Faham ◽  
Alastair Hay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
National Research Council ◽  
Undergraduate Curriculum ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Responsible Conduct

Numerous studies are demonstrating that engaging undergraduate students in original research can improve their achievement in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and increase the likelihood that some of them will decide to pursue careers in these disciplines. Associated with this increased prominence of research in the undergraduate curriculum are greater expectations from funders, colleges, and universities that faculty mentors will help those students, along with their graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, develop an understanding and sense of personal and collective obligation for responsible conduct of science (RCS). This Feature describes an ongoing National Research Council (NRC) project and a recent report about educating faculty members in culturally diverse settings (Middle East/North Africa and Asia) to employ active-learning strategies to engage their students and colleagues deeply in issues related to RCS. The NRC report describes the first phase of this project, which took place in Aqaba and Amman, Jordan, in September 2012 and April 2013, respectively. Here we highlight the findings from that report and our subsequent experience with a similar interactive institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our work provides insights and perspectives for faculty members in the United States as they engage undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows, to help them better understand the intricacies of and connections among various components of RCS. Further, our experiences can provide insights for those who may wish to establish “train-the-trainer” programs at their home institutions.

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