Inside Assumption’s Center for Teaching Excellence

photo: CourtEsy oF thE univErsity oF northErn iowA

in september, Dr. lang was the keynote speaker at the 2015 Conference in Ethics in higher Education, held at the university of northern iowa. he also participated in a faculty panel, where they discussed how they had applied lang’s book, Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, to their classrooms.

HIGHLY

RESOURCEFUL Inside the Center for Teaching Excellence with acclaimed founding director, Professor Jim Lang By Stephen Kostrzewa

“There’s no formula for great teaching,” stated Professor Jim Lang, Ph.D., the founding director of Assumption’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). “Teaching is both an art and a science. It’s a science in the sense that we sort of know how learning works through a lot of research on mind and brain, but how that gets translated into an actual room of people is more of an art, and that can take a lot of different forms. It’s more about being aware of the students who are in the room and trying to ensure that whatever you’re doing reaches and helps as many of those students as possible to learn.”

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photo: DAn vAillAnCourt

“I WANT ASSUMPTION FACULTY TO BECOME KNOWN IN THE WORLD OF HIGHER EDUCATION AS INNOVATORS.” –JIM LANG

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Lang, who is also an English professor at the College, speaks from experience—a whole lot of experience. Renowned in his field, he has delivered public lectures and faculty workshops at more than 50 colleges or universities in the United States and abroad. The author of five books on teaching and more than a hundred reviews or essays, he also writes a monthly column for The Chronicle of Higher Education, (as well as contributing regularly to America and Notre Dame Magazine) and edits a series of books on teaching and learning in higher education.

The Center for Teaching Excellence is the culmination of this work. Launched in 2013 with a mandate “to foster and contribute to conversations about teaching and learning at Assumption College” the Center sponsors programs and events related to teaching; offers consultation and collaboration with individuals, offices and departments; gathers and disseminates resources on teaching and promotes the scholarship of teaching and learning on campus and in the broader higher education community. The focus is not on “fixing” a professor’s teaching, but on celebrating and sharing what so many professors, both

THE FOCUS OF THE CENTER FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE IS ON CELEBRATING AND SHARING WHAT SO MANY PROFESSORS, BOTH ON CAMPUS AND OFF, ALREADY DO SO WELL. on campus and off, already do so well.

Now, in its third year of operation the Center’s goals are farreaching—anything is fair game. “We deal with all aspects of teaching and learning: methodology, the science of teaching, communicating with students, working with students,” Lang said. “Anything that relates to students, to learning and teaching on campus I think the Center can play a part in informing those conversations.”

“It’s hard to separate the Center from Jim Lang,” Mathematics Professor Brooke Andersen, Ph.D., mused. “Anyone on campus would get something out of him coming to their class. His classroom observations are a huge resource. He’ll tell you things you wouldn’t think of and always gives you two or three things you can do in your classes now and two or three things you can work on long-term.”

“He can make suggestions and point you toward resources that really make a difference,” she concluded.

Mike Land, Ph.D., an associate professor of English at the college, echoed her thoughts: “We have an extraordinary resource in that we have this internationally known specialist in education who’s been invited to speak and lead workshops all over the world. The Center is a wonderful way to take advantage of his gifts and to use that.”

His work with the Center seems to invigorate Lang with an energy

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he is eager to pass on. “I would hope that faculty always come away from the Center with a new idea and a little bit of inspiration,” he said.

“Teaching can be a difficult, challenging, exhausting job but I hope when we come together we all walk away a little bit more inspired to try something new and to go back with a new/renewed sense of energy and interest in helping our students learn.”

The Center works toward these goals in a wide variety of ways.

One of its primary assets is a large body of literature on teaching and learning, constantly updated and available to all Assumption faculty.

The topics range from The Art of Changing the Brain to Lang’s own Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty. For Lang, this scholarship is at the core of what the Center stands for.

“I view my role as a synthesizer and as a translator,” he said. “I take the ideas and theories from the literature and translate them for a faculty audience, or I synthesize ideas from the learning sciences and put them in language and ideas that are broadly applicable to higher education.” But as useful as the literature is, it is sometimes no substitute Assumption faculty sharing ideas at a recent CtE meeting on campus, led by Jim lang.

prof. Dona kercher

for in-person conversation and discussion—and it is in this aspect that the Center truly thrives.

Throughout the semester the CTE offers a myriad of opportunities for faculty to gather and discuss their shared enterprise. New faculty orientation sessions kickoff the year by focusing on topics like motivating and engaging students in the classroom. Informal ‘Food for Thought’ events provide an opportunity for faculty members to learn about and mull common challenges as well as new or innovative teaching approaches, over lunch. Faculty Learning Community meetings bring CTE participants together to discuss a common reading related to the field (fall 2015’s chosen reading is Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the environment and climate change).

“The Center’s job is to foster a collegial environment where we can gather and talk about our shared mission,” Lang explained. “Our events are designed to provide a safe place for teachers to talk about what problems or challenges they’re facing, what successes they’ve had and what we can all learn from each other.”

Recently Prof. Andersen led her own Food for Thought session on “Minute Papers,” a learning strategy in which, at the end of every class, students are asked to write a short note about what they thought were the most important ideas touched upon in the preceding class—

and include a question they had about the material they covered. These little notes, Andersen found, helped the students clarify and retain what they had learned—and what they still needed to work on.

Over the course of an hour Prof. Andersen, aided by a Powerpoint presentation, shared her findings before a small crowd in the campus’ Lauring Community Room. The other professors in attendance, representing a variety of teaching disciplines, shared similar things they had done and posed questions and suggestions ranging from procedural approaches, to thoughts on how best to quantify her results to musings on how the technique might help students appreciate the subject area more deeply.

“It was something that I did in class that was a small change, but I thought had a huge benefit,” Andersen said. “I found it to be of value in my own class and so I was interested in sharing it with other teachers and getting ideas from other people about how to improve it.”

“The Center enables us to exchange ideas in a sophisticated way,” noted Land, who will lead a Food for Thought event about community service learning in February. “People have very different styles. The problem

for teachers, probably at every level but especially at college level, is that we don’t get to see each other teach that much. We need the opportunities that something like the Center creates for us all to be in the same room.

“We all walk out of there with ideas. When you go to one of these meetings you’ll hear about something someone else did and you’ll immediately use it in your own courses.”

Lang is especially excited about this year’s “Core Courses Academy” program, a project that in many ways perfectly embodies what the Center is and what it hopes to accomplish. A 2015–16 pilot program, the Academy is designed to help faculty invent or enhance a core or introductory course for the 2016–17 academic year. Meeting once a month, the group learns about and discusses new research from the learning sciences, innovations in college teaching, advances in educational technologies and alternative course design and assessment models.

“It’s a great opportunity to invent some new courses that are really well-informed by the latest research on teaching and learning in higher education,” Lang enthused, “and also to examine new ways to make sure we’re offering the best educational experience possible.”

That spirit and enthusiasm was very much on display during September’s Academy session. Inspired by the work of educator and author Ken Bain, the team met after hours and worked to establish the

photos: DAn vAillAnCourt

professors Cathy stutz and Jim lang

“20-year goals” for their courses—what they hoped their students will still remember 20 years after they complete the course. “This is a thought experiment to get us to really dream big,” Lang acknowledged. “We want to create courses that will be remembered for a lifetime, which will profoundly impact these students and change the way they think, act and feel.”

Led by Lang, the academy members were given five minutes to jot down their thoughts and objectives. Furious typing ensued. At the fiveminute mark, several of the professors were still hard at work. “Do you need more time?” Lang asked to assorted chuckles around the table.

It was a question many of those assembled had no doubt asked their students on quiz days. After a brief extension, they were prepared to begin.

The goals varied widely from course to course and discipline to discipline. What all of the answers shared, however, was passion. The assembled group is committed to building courses that not only impart knowledge but also, just maybe, could change lives. One professor discussed helping her students become better citizens—and then passed out photocopies of an article on the subject she thought might

professors maryanne leone, smriti rao and nalin ranasinghe

be helpful. Another hoped that his course will inspire his pupils to think for themselves in the face of loud, conflicting media narratives.

“I want to show them something they didn’t think of as math and make them think about the subject in a new way,” a math professor proposed.

This type of deep thinking about student experience is important, and one of the things that can make a good course into a great one.

“The biggest change overall in higher education has been a shift from teaching centered approaches to learning centered approaches,” noted Lang. “Rather than focusing upon what the teacher is doing at the front of the room, the focus has now shifted to what is happening with the learner out in the seats. It’s on discovering what interests your students, what motivates them and what you can bring to the classroom that will help them understand the course material as deeply as possible.”

The key to this process is experimentation and innovation. “I want Assumption faculty to become known in the world of higher education as innovators, as folks who can try new things in their teaching and when they have successes, and even when they have failures to be able write about those and share them with our colleagues around the world,” Lang said. “I think Assumption faculty have a lot to contribute to that conversation.”

Through his work at the Center, they’ve already made a good start.

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