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Scholarship
March 29, 2017
Chalk Talk: E-advice from Jonas Chalk, Legendary College Teacher
- Author
- Qualters, Donna M. and Miriam Rosalyn Diamond
- Publisher
- New Forums Press, Stillwater, OK
- ISBN
- 1581070853
- Table of Contents
-
ch. 1 Dear Jonas: Why an E- Advice Column?
ch. 2 Becoming JONAS: Reflections from the Team, Master Teaching Team
ch. 3 Dear Jonas: Where's the Water Fountain or What's the Best Way to Reach Freshmen?
Lost Students
Helping Freshmen Get up to Speed
Teaching Problem Solving
An Appeal from a Freshmen
Freshmen Switchers
Student Backgrounds
Role Models
ch. 4 Dear Jonas: Don't They Teach Them Anything in High School Anymore?
First Class of the Term
Time Management
Teaching Decisions
Non-facilitating Faculty Behaviors
Peer Review of Teaching
Mid-term Assessment
Paired Programming
ch. 5 Dear Jonas: What Can I Say?
Inattentive Students
Excused (or not) Absences
Student Excuses
"But the dog ate my homework!"
Lonely Office Hours
Effective Use of Office Hours
Students monopolizing time
Team Teaching
Managing E-mail Communication
Communication Outside of Class
ch. 6 Dear Jonas: Since When Did I Become the Manager Of the Class?
Attendance
Why Ask Questions
Asking Questions: How to
Reacting to Student Responses
Homework
Student Athletes
Civility in the Classroom
Cheating
End-of-term course evaluation results
ch. 7 Dear Jonas: How Can I be Everything to Everybody?
Accidental Stereotyping
Appealing to Different Learning Styles
Multimedia
Learning Disabilities
On Issues of Diversity
ch. 8 Dear Jonas: When is an A an A?
Why We Test
Unfair Testing
Testing Poorly
Answering Questions during Exams
Understanding Grading Practices
Letter Grades to Numerical Scores
Impact of Late Grades
Multiple Choice Testing
Helping students prepare for and take exams
Changing the Ground Rules
Changing the Syllabus Midstream
ch. 9 Dear Jonas: How Can I Get My TAs on Board?
Guiding TAs
Standards for Multiple Graders
Communication about Grading
Command of Course Material
Shirking Responsibilities
Fostering a Team Mentality
TAs Not Yet Fluent in English
ch. 10 Dear Jonas: How Can I Use Your Information to Help My Faculty?
Announcing Awards
Invitation To Lunch
Jonas Signs Off For The Summer
This book presents a national award-winning approach to encouraging dialogue among interdisciplinary faculty about ways to reflect on and broaden their repertoire of teaching skills. Based on the "Dear Abby" advice column format, the process was developed to initiate a dialogue on best practices, successes, and ways to address frustrations in teaching.
Faculty from four different disciplines (math, chemistry, physics and engineering) began asking questions about their instructional practices and thinking about teaching in a more scholarly way. A team of outstanding teachers from across Northeastern University and the staff of the Center for Effective University Teaching formed a community of practitioners to construct responses to common teaching challenges, drawing upon the literature on effective teaching as well as their own personal experience. The resulting "columns" were sent to faculty via mass e-mail in the form of suggestions from "Jonas Chalk," an experienced teacher/advisor colleague. Topics were archived and posted on a website. Each quarter, one column was included for publication in the teaching center's newsletter.
Topics Jonas tackled included testing approaches, effective uses of office hours, the ways and hows of asking questions in class, dealing with disruptive classroom behavior and much more. The mechanism garnered enthusiastic responses across disciplines; faculty were eager to share their concerns as well as techniques they had developed. Significant numbers of the faculty put the columns' ideas to work in their classrooms.
Faculty interested in practicing the scholarship of teaching, while dealing with common classroom concerns, will be able to increase their understanding of classroom dynamics and their repertoire of teaching skills through the concepts and resources described in this book. Written in entertaining, enjoyable and readable prose, Chalk Talk includes a history of the project's development, the actual columns grouped into chapters by topic, and responses from faculty about how the column helped them with their teaching. (From the Publisher)
Faculty from four different disciplines (math, chemistry, physics and engineering) began asking questions about their instructional practices and thinking about teaching in a more scholarly way. A team of outstanding teachers from across Northeastern University and the staff of the Center for Effective University Teaching formed a community of practitioners to construct responses to common teaching challenges, drawing upon the literature on effective teaching as well as their own personal experience. The resulting "columns" were sent to faculty via mass e-mail in the form of suggestions from "Jonas Chalk," an experienced teacher/advisor colleague. Topics were archived and posted on a website. Each quarter, one column was included for publication in the teaching center's newsletter.
Topics Jonas tackled included testing approaches, effective uses of office hours, the ways and hows of asking questions in class, dealing with disruptive classroom behavior and much more. The mechanism garnered enthusiastic responses across disciplines; faculty were eager to share their concerns as well as techniques they had developed. Significant numbers of the faculty put the columns' ideas to work in their classrooms.
Faculty interested in practicing the scholarship of teaching, while dealing with common classroom concerns, will be able to increase their understanding of classroom dynamics and their repertoire of teaching skills through the concepts and resources described in this book. Written in entertaining, enjoyable and readable prose, Chalk Talk includes a history of the project's development, the actual columns grouped into chapters by topic, and responses from faculty about how the column helped them with their teaching. (From the Publisher)