Month: June 2015

Webinar: Racial Climate on Campus: Best Practices

Please join Institutional Equity and Inclusion for the webinar The Racial Climate on Campus: Best Practices for Education, Response & Adjudication

A Discussion with Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington
Wednesday, July 22, 2-3:30pm in EERC 501

Race relations on campuses across the country have been charged, as a result of a number of incidents that have taken place in college communities and in communities at large.  Many institutions report having seen a loss of a civil community as we have known it to be – and we’ve seen a resurgence of student activism across the country in recent months, leaving administrators wondering how to encourage respectful student engagement.

Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington, President and Founder of the Social Justice Training Institute and Washington Consulting Group, will provide strategies for engaging in best practices that meet the needs of your diverse student body so you can educate students about what constitutes racist speech and action, respond to incidents swiftly and effectively when they do occur, and adjudicate incidents effectively and fairly.

Please email Susan Sullivan (susulliv@mtu.edu) to reserve a space for this webinar.

Considering the Role You Want Assessment to Play in Teaching and Learning

This article presents a general overview of student learning assessment in higher education while suggesting how assessment techniques and activities can help you, your students and faculty groups support continuous improvement of learning at the course, program and university levels. I especially liked the comments posted by “Dan” that focus on the need for assessment to be collaborative within a department.

How To Talk About Assessment

From: Inside Higher Ed
By: Melissa Dennihy

Are You a Helicopter Professor?

This article informs the struggle many faculty have with the ultimate goal of helping students take responsibility for their own learning.   I especially like the “remove crutches” section which emphasizes our role in the PROCESS of helping students become independent learners.

How to Avoid Being a Helicopter Professor

From Faculty Focus – Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications
By: Berlin Fang

More Evidence That Active Learning Trumps Lecturing

If you’ve read the latest of the Teaching Professor circulated to many faculty, you already know this:  Where learning is concerned, active learning beats lecturing.   A recent meta-analysis of 225 studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) provided overwhelming evidence that active learning (of many kinds) both increases exam scores and lowers failure rates.   For more details, read the article below, the piece it references in the Teaching Professor, or the study itself.  (Note:  If you are an instructor at Tech and don’t currently get a copy of the Teaching Professor, just let us know…we can fix that!) 

More Evidence That Active Learning Trumps Lecturing

From Faculty Focus – Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications
By Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Taylor Jones

Taylor JonesTaylor is a 4th year Psychology major, working toward a Social and Behavioral Studies minor as well as a Writing certificate. She has worked at IGSC3 for one year and has also worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant. Outside of Michigan Tech, Taylor works as a barista at Cyberia Cafe in downtown Houghton and volunteers as a Big Sister through the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program. Previously, she earned an Associates Degree in Culinary Arts from the Great Lakes Culinary Institute. On the weekends you can find her baking, adventuring, hanging out with friends, spending time with her family or playing with her cat.

Sarah Peterson

Sarah PetersonSarah is a fourth year Environmental Engineering major and is currently working on a certificate in Global and Technological Leadership through the Pavlis Institute. She will graduate in May 2015 and return for a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering through Michigan Tech’s Master’s International Peace Corps Program. This is Sarah’s first year coaching at IGSC3, but she has been coaching at the Michigan Tech’s Multiliteracies Center, IGSC3’s neighboring center, for the past two years. Sarah enjoys reading, traveling, and photography in her spare time.