Congratulations to two CIRTL Scholars for presenting their Teaching as Research projects on the CIRTL network to the national cross network community.

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Congratulations to two CIRTL Scholars for presenting their Teaching as Research projects on the CIRTL network to the national cross network community.

Elizabeth Mills: “Mixed Methods Assessment of Introductory Physics for Life Sciences Labs at UCLA” and Elizabeth Reid-Wainscoat: “Does temperament composition impact group dynamics in an upper division biology lab course?”

Elizabeth Mills

Elizabeth Reid-Wainscoat

Check out the videos of their presentations on the CIRTL.net website!

Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis Online Professional Development Opportunities

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Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) project offers an online platform to facilitate faculty professional development and sharing open educational resources for teaching quantitative skills. QUBES offer professional development opportunities called Faculty Mentoring Networks (FMNs). FMNs are semester-long professional development opportunities designed to engage you with other faculty to enhance your teaching.
This Spring 2019, QUBES are offering four different FMNs! The options are:

AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative: Matrix of Summative Evaluation of Teaching Strategies

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AAU is aware that there is a large body of literature on how people learn as well as a number of valid ways for faculty members to engage in formative assessment of their teaching. AAU has created a matrix that is intended to capture strategies campuses are using to incorporate evidence beyond student course evaluation in the summative evaluation of faculty members’ teaching (e.g., promotion and tenure, and annual/merit reviews).
AAU is continuously developing the matrix and considers it a living document. If you are aware of an effort not included in this list and would like to add it, please visit http://bit.ly/AAUmatrix. As a critical lever for change, AAU is intentionally working to highlight these strategies. They are also engaged with national projects focused on this topic.
The matrix can be found online by following this link.

The Promoting Active Learning and Mentoring (PALM) Network is Now Accepting Applications for the Next Cohort of PALM Fellows and their Mentors.

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PALM Fellows Will:
  • Gain mentorship from leaders in undergraduate biology teaching and learning
  • Learn best practices in teaching and in assessing active learning
  • Create an original teaching module that engages students in active learning
  • Join a community of scientists dedicated to active teaching and learning, and share ideas and support
  • Participate in Fellow-mentor journal clubs, meetings, and networking opportunities
  • Obtain invaluable career development for faculty careers
More information about the program and application materials are here.
Application Deadline: January 31, 2019

Evaluating the Extent of a Large-Scale Transformation in Gateway Science Courses

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–Science Advances

Science Advances evaluate the impact of an institutional effort to transform undergraduate science courses using an approach based on course assessments. The approach is guided by A Framework for K-12 Science Education and focuses on scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas, together called three-dimensional learning.

Availability of Cookies During an Academic Course Session Affects Evaluation of Teaching

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–NCBI

Results from end-of-course student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are taken seriously by faculties and form part of a decision base for the recruitment of academic staff, the distribution of funds and changes to curricula. However, there is some doubt as to whether these evaluation instruments accurately measure the quality of course content, teaching and knowledge transfer. We investigated whether the provision of chocolate cookies as a content-unrelated intervention influences SET results.

Make Learning Immediately Relevant with Scenarios

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–eLearning

One way to engage learners is to make content immediately relevant. People naturally pay more attention to information they can use right away than information they “might need someday.”

Conflicted Views of Technology: A Survey of Faculty Attitudes

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–Inside Higher Ed

The proportion of college instructors who are teaching online and blended courses is growing. So is their support for using technology to deliver instruction. But their belief in the quality and effectiveness of online courses and digital technology isn’t keeping pace. Those are among the findings — conflicting and confounding, as is often the case — of Inside Higher Ed’s 2018 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, published today in partnership with Gallup.