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Interdisciplinary Courses and Team Teaching: New Arrangements for Learning

James Davis offers a realistic and stimulating examination of interdisciplinary theory and practice. In addition to providing specific tips on successful team teaching, the book features information drawn from the professional literature, survey results, and useful examples from the author's personal experience. It also includes a listing of nearly 100 interdisciplinary, team-taught courses currently being offered at colleges and universities throughout North America. The book demonstrates that team teaching, when effectively implemented, is fulfilling for both educator and student. (From the Publisher)

bell hooks’ Engaged Pedagogy

Offers a critical analysis of hooks' engaged pedagogy and its promise for the teaching/learning process, and assesses the relevance of strategies entailed in her engaged pedagogy to a Third World context. Part I presents her social theory as expressed in her critique of capitalism, patriarchy, and White supremacy in American society. Part II presents her education theory, and Part III discusses issues arising from application of engaged pedagogy to the educational system of Kenya. (From the Publisher)

Tracing Common Themes: Comparative Courses in the Study of Religion

This volume focuses theoretically and practically on thematic approaches for teaching comparative courses in religion. It seeks to address the impact that the comparative study of religion has had on the humanities, how it has fared in the various pedagogic shifts discerned in the liberal arts over the last decade, and how the study of religion can serve to globalize humanities education in our increasingly culturally and religiously plural world. (From the Publisher)

The Teaching Professor, Volume 14, Number 4
The Teaching Professor, Volume 15, Number 3
The New Faculty Member : Supporting and Fostering Professional Development

For the first time in decades, most American campuses are in the midst of hiring large groups of new faculty. As competition for the most qualified candidates increases, institutions must work harder than ever to attract and retain the best and most diverse prospects. This often requires investing considerable resources in recruitment and hiring--and makes it imperative that new hires are not lost to competitors or to unhappy or unproductive beginnings. In this book, Robert Boice offers a range of proven support strategies designed to help new faculty thrive--from campuswide programs for nurturing newcomers to projects that help them to help themselves. Boice identifies the major challenges facing most new faculty--teaching, scholarly writing, and simply fitting in as colleagues--and provides tested solutions for helping them cope. He outlines a structured mentoring program to build collegiality through social support networks. And he presents specific techniques for helping new faculty find time, fluency, and balance as writers, including advice on dealing with editorial evaluations or rejections. The author also details a variety of self-help projects, including exercise and mood management groups run largely by new faculty, as well as faculty handbooks and newsletters. And perhaps most important, he tells how to gain the crucial support of department chairs, deans, and other administrators, secure funds to get programs off the ground, and keep new programs manageable and successful. (From the Publisher)

There appears to be a significant gap between faculty expectations for incoming college students and these same students perceptions of their abilities. Incoming college students are not very confident of their critical thinking abilities, yet faculty expect students to enter college already being able to critically evaluate information and to reach conclusions based on a critical analysis of the data. The current study challenges the preconception that critical thinking cannot be taught and delineates a model for critical thinking that can be employed regardless of one’s discipline. Outcome data strongly suggests critical thinking can lead to both proximal and distal increases in student success.

Short essay acknowledging the critique of PowerPoint, but arguing for its more effective use.

Adjudicating

Wabash Center Staff Contact

Sarah Farmer, Ph.D
Associate Director
Wabash Center

farmers@wabash.edu