Scholarship on Teaching

This paper discusses undergraduate ethics education from the point of view of a learning-outcomes centered approach to curriculum design. It aims to identify the kinds of learning-out comes that Ethics Across the Curriculum programs ought to aim at and be judged successful by. The first section explains the learning-outcomes-centered approach to designing and evaluating curriculum proposals. The second section applies this approach specifically to ethics education for undergraduates. It concludes with a proposal for Ideal Learning Outcomes for ethics education in an undergraduate curriculum. The third section asks which of these learning outcomes can reasonably be achieved by an Ethics Across the Curriculum program and which of these learning outcomes could not dependably be achieved unless a formal course in ethics is a requirement for every student. The fourth section briefly examines teaching strategies for Ethics Across the Curriculum programs and discusses ways of helping faculty in Ethics Across the Curriculum programs become effective ethics teachers.

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: The allure of educational technology is easy to understand. Classroom instruction is an expensive and time-consuming process fraught with contradictory theories and frustratingly uneven results. Educators, inspired by machines’ contributions to modern life, have been using technology to facilitate teaching for centuries. In Teaching Machines, Bill Ferster examines past attempts to automate instruction from the earliest use of the postal service for distance education to the current maelstrom surrounding Massive Open Online Courses. He tells the stories of the entrepreneurs and visionaries who, beginning in the colonial era, developed and promoted various instructional technologies. Ferster touches on a wide range of attempts to enhance the classroom experience with machines, from hornbooks, the Chautauqua movement, and correspondence courses to B. F. Skinner’s teaching machine, intelligent tutoring systems, and eLearning. The famed progressive teachers, researchers, and administrators that the book highlights often overcame substantial hurdles to implement their ideas, but not all of them succeeded in improving the quality of education. Teaching Machines provides invaluable new insight into our current debate over the efficacy of educational technology. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Two of the most visible and important trends in higher education today are its exploding costs and the rapid expansion of online learning. Could the growth in online courses slow the rising cost of college and help solve the crisis of affordability? In this short and incisive book, William G. Bowen, one of the foremost experts on the intersection of education and economics, explains why, despite his earlier skepticism, he now believes technology has the potential to help rein in costs without negatively affecting student learning. As a former president of Princeton University, an economist, and author of many books on education, including the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River, Bowen speaks with unique expertise on the subject. Surveying the dizzying array of new technology-based teaching and learning initiatives, including the highly publicized emergence of "massive open online courses" (MOOCs), Bowen argues that such technologies could transform traditional higher education--allowing it at last to curb rising costs by increasing productivity, while preserving quality and protecting core values. But the challenges, which are organizational and philosophical as much as technological, are daunting. They include providing hard evidence of whether online education is cost-effective in various settings, rethinking the governance and decision-making structures of higher education, and developing customizable technological platforms. Yet, Bowen remains optimistic that the potential payoff is great. Based on the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, the book includes responses from Stanford president John Hennessy, Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner, Columbia University literature professor Andrew Delbanco, and Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller. (From the Publisher)

This link opens the first of 20 or more posts on the POD list-serv (for faculty development specialists) debating the status of  Multiple Intelligence Theory: no empirical validity? or still a useful construct for various reasons. Each response is visible from this link by clicking “next message.”

Chapter 3 of Florida State University’s Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices contains suggestions for creating a syllabus. Especially useful is the section with examples of writing policy and rule statements, and the sample syllabus.

Chapter 3 of Florida State University’s Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices contains suggestions for creating a syllabus. Especially useful is the section with examples of writing policy and rule statements, and the sample syllabus.

For a brief list of the major components of a syllabus, plus a link to a detail, four-page checklist, visit UC-Berkley’s “Components of a Syllabus” web page.

This report of a Wabash Center grant project outlines the current status of efforts to incorporate clergy ethics in theological education settings, recommendations to seminaries and recommendations to the FaithTrust Institution in two areas: curriculum and teaching; and policy and procedure. 

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In the seats are the students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each other, they are really both taking part in a war on learning itself. In this book, Elizabeth Losh examines current efforts to “reform" higher education by applying technological solutions to problems in teaching and learning. She finds that many of these initiatives fail because they treat education as a product rather than a process. Highly touted schemes—video games for the classroom, for example, or the distribution of iPads—let students down because they promote consumption rather than intellectual development. Losh analyzes recent trends in postsecondary education and the rhetoric around them, often drawing on first-person accounts. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies including MOOCs (massive open online courses), the gamification of subject matter, remix pedagogy, video lectures (from Randy Pausch to “the Baked Professor"), and educational virtual worlds. Finally, Losh outlines six basic principles of digital learning and describes several successful university-based initiatives. Her book will be essential reading for campus decision makers—and for anyone who cares about education and technology. (From the Publisher)