Calendar of UW Teaching and Learning Events

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February SoLT Meeting 2006

Calendar of UW Teaching and Learning Events

The Teaching Academy would like to announce a name change for our monthly meetings. We needed a new name for a wonderful group of presenters that regularly challenges our minds with new and scintillating information. SoLT or the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching represents the core values of the Teaching Academy. We hope you find our meetings insightful and along the way find a community of people who are diligently working to integrate these core values into their practice.

"Teaching Talk" with Professor Craig Gjerde

When: Monday, February 10
Time: 12:30 to 2:00

Location: 1047 Center for Engineering (New Beautiful Building on corner of Old University)

Dr Gjerde will discuss issues related to outcome-based/ competency-based programs and implications for teaching and testing.

December 2005 Monthly Meeting
Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise and the Scholarship of Teaching

Please join Dr. Michel Wattiaux and the UW Teaching Academy for a discussion on: “Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching” Dec. 9 (12:30, 1047 Engineering Centers Building). The distinction among excellence, expertise and scholarship of teaching has been published in a recent article by C. Kreber [Innovative Higher Education 27(1):5-23]. A pdf version of this paper is available at http://www.dairynutrient.wisc.edu/page.ph?pid=87 . We will use mini case-studies to explore these concepts and we will wrap-up our conversation with a discussion on “Research in Teaching”.
Hope to see many of you on Dec. 9.

Creating Valid and Reliable Classroom Tests

This four-week workshop will introduce you to the essential information and skills necessary for writing high-quality classroom exams. For all the time and energy that go into developing and teaching a course, it is all too often the case that exams and assessment tools are developed without the proper attention and level of sophistication necessary to have them yield useful information. Accurately assessing how well students have achieved the important course goals is both a science and an art. Developing good tests and assessments does not naturally flow from a solid understanding of the course material. Test construction requires a separate skill set that can be taught but requires lots of experience to master.

This free workshop will be led by educational testing and measurement experts James Wollack, Taehoon Kang, and Hyun Jung Sung from the Department of Testing and Evaluation Services.

To register go to: http//www.ohrd.wisc.edu/reg/catalog_series.aspx?serieskey=162

The Inclusive Learning Exchange (TILE)

E-learning to Meet Individual Needs and Preferences

Thursday and Friday, October 13th & 14th

We know from research that all students have strengths or styles of learning. We also know that some students have limitations to the amount and type of content that they can process.

As a Teaching Academy member, please join us for some or all of this interesting upcoming event (agenda below). TILE is a revolutionary schema in which each user defines his/her learning preferences and/or physical needs and then receives relevant content. The purpose of TILE is to allow faculty to make available a variety of content and allow

students to select the medium (visual, verbal), size (normal, zoom), speed and/or amount (pause, repeat) to maximize their learning. For additional TILE information see http://barrierfree.ca/tile/ .

This campus event is funded by an Academic Staff Professional Development Grant and Provost Peter Spear.

Fall 2005 Monthly Meetings
The 2005 fall semester monthly meetings are scheduled for the second Friday of each month from 12:30 to 2:30. The locations will be announced closer to the meeting dates. Fall dates and times are:
Friday, October 14 from 12:30 to 2:30
Friday, November 11 from 12:30 to 2:30
Friday, December 9 from 12:30 to 2:30

The monthly meetings address two new Teaching Academy initiatives. The first initiative is to develop a workable means to enagage interested Teaching Academy members (and others) in scholarship on both the University and teaching and learning. In this case, we hope that the group will engage in scholarly activity resulting in publication on issues of importance to the institution and to teaching and learning at the institution. The second new initiative has the purpose of promoting the participation of the Teaching Academy in policy decisions affecting teaching and learning on campus. The objective here is to study, develop, and perhaps, promote policies that would improve teaching and learning at the University. For example, it is common to hear that teaching is not valued or rewarded here. If this is in fact true, this group would determine what policy or policies could be implemented that might effect change, and then consider means of implementing such policies.

The October Executive Committee Meeting
is on Monday, October 10 from 9:00 to 10:30 in the Engineering Centers Building, Room M1012.

The November Executive Committee Meeting
is on Monday, November 14 from 9:00 to 10:30 in the Engineering Centers Building, Room M1012.

Fall 2005 and Spring 2006 Executive Committee Meetings
The Executive Committee meets one time per month for one and one-half hours. Times are set at the beginning of each semester to accomodate Committee members' schedules.

Other Teaching and Learning Activities at UW:

Expeditionary Learning
Expeditionary Learning is a semester long program for you to work with a group of 7-9 colleagues to explore the vast array of teaching and learning resources on campus, and engage in facilitated discussions about your experiences. Every other week, participants will head out on campus on an "expedition" to experience a learning activity or environment that will help to stretch your understanding and answer some questions of how learning occurs. In the weeks between the expeditions, your small group will come together to engage in a facilitated discussion of what you experienced, what you learned, and the implications it may have on your teaching. Occasionally, the discussions will be supplemented by a short reading.

The motivation behind this program is to address the increasing need for us, as teachers, to experience, understand and value differences in people so that we can be more effective in helping our students learn. The expeditions in this program will help you experience these differences rather than just reading about or discussing them. New questions will arise as you think about learning in a different way. These new questions will ultimately give rise to new approaches to teaching. Visit the Expeditionary Learning web page for more information or to register.

Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment (CCLE)
Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment (CCLE) is a year long program for you to meet weekly with a group of 7-9 colleagues to collaboratively explore learning and its implications for your teaching. Using teaching-as-research as an framework for asking new questions about our teaching, a facilitator will help guide you through readings, activities, and discussions to learn about the complexities of the learning process, different learning styles, and individual differences. At the end of the program, the group will collaboratively design a course module to put into action all that was learned throughout the year.

The motivation behind this program is the assumption that before we can appropriately focus on new approaches to teaching, we must first have a fundamental understanding of the complexities of learning. The program is designed to expand upon the existing literature by using each individual's personal experiences with learning, and to do so in a collaborative setting where all voices can be heard. Visit the CCLE web page for more information or to register.

The Expeditionary Learning and CCLE programs will begin in mid-September with meeting times scheduled around your availability. Space is limited, so please respond with interest as soon as possible.

We hope you can join us for one or both of these programs. If you have questions, please contact Chris Carlson-Dakes at cgcarlso@wisc.edu, or 263-4259.

Integrated Learning in Science Education (ILSE)
ILSE consists of multiple opportunities for graduate students and post-docs to meet and discuss issues relevant to their career development. The group also serves as a source of information on campus-wide events related to teaching and learning that are available to graduate students and post-docs. Time commitments will vary. For example, past activities have included one time panel discussions that focus on how to get a teaching position at a primarily undergraduate institution and workshops on using collaborative learning in the classroom. Other activities have been conducted over 1-2 semesters. For instance, participants created and conducted a course for undergraduates.

International Teaching and Learning Project:
Become involved in a Fulbright-funded teaching and learning project with Vidzemes University College in Latvia. UW faculty are needed who would be interested in conducting a 2-hour Interactive TV session with faculty and/or staff in Latvia. Click here for more information.