Resources

Initial findings from this exploratory study indicate significant questions, such as: why does the focus of faculty work appear to shift and, in later career? How do the administrative and leadership roles often assumed by midlife and mid-career faculty affect other dimensions of faculty work? Is the level of work satisfaction of mid-career faculty a function of the job demands or of life assessment and career questioning? What roles do institutional context and disciplinary field play in the experiences and perceptions of the middle years of the academic life cycle?

Policies should encourage senior professors to engage in periodic review of their performance and professional goals and allow deans and department chairs to negotiate revised responsibilities are necessary to take fuller advantage of the gifts senior faculty can share with their institutions – and to ensure that senior faculty are treated fairly and consistently. 

Tools to prepare students to function effectively in teams. And support for faculty as they manage their students’ team experiences.

Assessments of student behavior in first- semester design experiences suggest that early team- based design projects can promote a team performance goal orientation that undermines students’ learning goals. In particular, we find that gender-correlated division of work can easily and unconsciously occur in these teams and that performance-oriented teams may be more likely to undermine womens’ learning goals then mens’ learning goals. We propose mechanisms to explain the effect and present results of promising interventions. 

An attempt to create a large-scale online database of university course syllabi as a platform for new research, teaching, and administrative tools. The goal is to improve our understanding of teaching, publishing, and intellectual history on a wide range of fronts.

A google docs wiki with effective questions to ask yourself when designing assignments for students when emergencies result in missing face-to-face meetings. Hosted by Suffolk University’s Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence. Includes links to other resources. 

A brief list of research findings matched with implications for specific recommended practices for  effective online learning.

Despite disparities in the conceptualization of work–life balance (WLB) and work–life harmony (WLH) in the literature, there remains no evidence till date to validate these differences. Furthermore, there are currently no insights that shed light on the relationship between work–life initiatives and key business strategies of contemporary organizations. Hence, the current study investigated the differences between the constructs of WLB and WLH using a cognitive dissonance approach and assessed the impact of work–life interventions, based on these approaches, on individual creativity at work. Hundred participants, age ranging from 18 to 32 years (M = 23.94, SD = 3.87), with at least 6 months of working experience were recruited. Using an online questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned into WLB (n = 55) or WLH (n = 45) conditions. Participants were tasked to complete pre- and post-intervention measures of individual creativity, as well as a manipulation check using a cognitive dissonance scale. Results showed that participants in the WLB condition elicit higher levels of cognitive dissonance compared with participants in the WLH condition. This indicates an implicit difference in the constructs of WLB and harmony. Second, findings also suggest that work–life interventions adopting a WLH approach will have a more positive impact on individuals’ creativity at work compared with interventions targeted at achieving balance. Research, practical, and cultural implications of the findings are discussed in the article.

Approaches to classroom instruction have evolved considerably over the past 50 years. This progress has been spurred by the development of several learning principles and methods of instruction, including active learning, student-centered learning, collabora- tive learning, experiential learning, and problem-based learning. In the present paper, we suggest that these seemingly different strategies share important underlying characteristics and can be viewed as complimentary components of a broader approach to classroom instruction called transformational teaching. Transformational teaching involves creating dynamic relationships between teachers, students, and a shared body of knowledge to promote student learning and personal growth. From this perspective, instructors are intel- lectual coaches who create teams of students who collaborate with each other and with their teacher to master bodies of information. Teachers assume the traditional role of facilitating students’ acquisition of key course concepts, but do so while enhancing students’ personal development and attitudes toward learning. They accomplish these goals by establishing a shared vision for a course, providing modeling and mastery experiences, challenging and encouraging students, personalizing attention and feedback, creating experiential lessons that transcend the boundaries of the classroom, and promoting ample opportunities for preflection and reflection. We propose that these methods are synergistically related and, when used together, maximize students’ potential for intellectual and personal growth.

Located at Wabash College, the Center of Inquiry is dedicated to using evidence to strengthen liberal arts education for all students at all institutions, including collaborating with faculty and staff to build and strengthen the capacity of assessment programs to gather and use evidence to improve student learning.