Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence CTSE Official CTSE Newsletter
Spring 2010
Developing a Teaching Portfolio
Vol. 6, No. 2
by Erin Furman The co-author of The Academic Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Documenting Teaching, Research, and Service, Dr. Seldin ran a CTSE-sponsored workshop in October on how to develop a teaching portfolio. A teaching portfolio generally includes a table of contents, a narrative of perhaps 8 or 10 pages, and an appendix with “raw evidence” to support any claims made in the narrative.
Photo by Erin Furman
Peter Seldin, co-author of Evaluating Faculty Performance, remarks on the explosive growth in the use of teaching portfolios.
“Teaching portfolios are having a profound impact on higher education,” says Peter Seldin, a distinguished professor of management at Pace University and nationally recognized authority on teaching evaluation. In 1973, when Dr. Seldin surveyed 600 colleges and universities to find out which factors played a role in tenure and promotion decisions, respondents at 29 percent of the institutions said they looked at student ratings, 5 percent used classroom observations, and 9 percent used selfevaluations of teaching. When Dr. Seldin surveyed the same schools in 2008, 94 percent were using student ratings, 60 percent used classroom observations, and 68 percent used self-evaluations. “The main reason for wider use of each of these measures,” says Dr. Seldin, “is the explosive growth of teaching portfolios.”
Portfolios are not just useful in evaluations; they can also help faculty members hone their teaching skills. “There is no better technique to improve teaching,” says Dr. Seldin, “because it combines structured reflection with hard evidence.”
“If you don’t have the evidence,” says Dr. Seldin, “don’t make the claim.” The narrative might include: v A table of courses taught: their names, average enrollment, level, and whether they are elective or required. v A 2- to 3-page statement of teaching philosophy, including the methods used to implement this philosophy in specific courses. v Student ratings and, perhaps, student comments about the effectiveness of the methodologies used. continued on page 2
In this issue Helping Students Make Mid-Course Corrections. . . . . . . . . . 2 From the Director: Susan Lorde Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 How to Determine What Students Have Learned. . . . . . . . . . 4 Scholarship in Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Copyright or Copy Wrong. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Making a Complex Topic Comprehensible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Words With a Checkered Past. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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From the Director
Developing a Teaching Portfolio continued from page 1 v Representative syllabi (preferably enriched syllabi, containing not only the course description and schedule, but also the rationale for the course, the teaching methodologies to be used, and the expectations of students and professor). v Curricular revisions (why they were made and evidence they improved student learning).
v Efforts to improve teaching (for example, a workshop attended and how the lessons learned were applied to the classroom). v A statement of teaching goals for the next five years. The appendix contains evidence of accomplishments mentioned in the narrative. These might include peer observations, student evaluations, videotapes, speaking invitations, teaching awards, statements by alumni on the quality of instruction, or graded student essays with comments.
Dear Colleagues, Happy New Year! You receive many reminders about the “big” events the CTSE sponsors for all faculty, but you may not know about the CTSE programs that are geared to individual faculty. So I’d like to remind you about some of them.
Some attendees at Dr. Seldin’s workshop were surprised at the emphasis on selfevaluation. “I can say that my teaching has improved, but if it’s not reflected in the other categories, [administrators] aren’t going to look at it as much,” said Philip Stoecker, a professor in the Music Department. But Dr. Seldin believes that “selfevaluation is at the heart of a teaching portfolio.” Properly assembled, teaching portfolios can also be used to bolster grant applications. In Washington, D.C., in particular, says Dr. Seldin, grant givers use portfolios as a window to the teacher as a whole. Another reason to create a portfolio is to leave a legacy after you retire. By writing down how you taught particular courses and why, you can help jump-start new professors.
One of Hofstra’s 1,180 faculty members in the classroom: geography professor Dr. Grant Saff.
Sometimes entire departments will develop a comprehensive teaching portfolio by synthesizing individual portfolios. As part of its accreditation process, Michigan State Nursing School developed a teaching portfolio for the entire school. Erin Furman is a senior print journalism major at Hofstra University.
Helping Students Make Mid-Course Corrections We’re all familiar with high-stakes assessment: giving students a big term paper or final exam at the end of the semester that determines much of their grade for the course. But frequent assessment throughout a course can be more helpful to students, giving them a chance to improve their performance before the semester ends.
For example, Blackboard can be set up to administer timed reading quizzes each
Clickers can also facilitate assessment. If you require students to purchase clickers and register them online, you can build assessment questions right into your PowerPoint lectures. Say you are teaching a class of journalism students about libel. Midway through the lecture, you describe a scenario in which a reporter publishes defamatory accusations from an anonymous source. You ask the students if they think this is potentially
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libelous. Each student responds yes or no by pushing a button on his or her clicker; the responses are picked up by a radio receiver in the front of the classroom, automatically tallied, and displayed immediately as a chart on the PowerPoint screen. The clickers let you know if your points are coming across and can help you monitor individual students as well. By checking a computer-generated report at the end of your lecture, you can identify students who have answered most of your questions incorrectly. This allows you to reach out to students who aren’t catching on, perhaps requesting an office meeting to discuss their difficulties with the course.
Second, the CTSE has a distinguished panel of consultants who will proofread your manuscripts and help you carry out pedagogical research (even if pedagogy is not your primary field), design and evaluate surveys and analyze quantitatively the results of those surveys, (even if you are numerically challenged), and prepare for lectures in your classes or for publicspeaking engagements. Their contact information is listed on the last page of this newsletter. Third, the CTSE can arrange to have your class videotaped. CTSE members would be happy to observe your classes or view a videotape with you and provide feedback to help you strengthen your classroom skills. We can also help make arrangements for you to observe other professors’ classes. All CTSE consultations are confidential.
Susan Lorde
Martin
A full description of CTSE activities is available at hofstra.edu/Faculty/CTSE/. Best wishes for a successful and enjoyable spring semester. Susan Susan Lorde Martin is director of the CTSE and the Cypres Family Distinguished Professor of Legal Studies in Business.
Clickers from Turning Technologies can be purchased directly from the company (using our school code) for $35, or ordered through the Hofstra Bookstore. A student who buys a clicker for one course can use the same device in other classes. Students who have Blackberries, iPhones or laptops don’t need to purchase a clicker; they can respond in class using their phones or computers as long as they purchase software access for $19.49 a year. Instructors need a radio receiver for the clickers to work; Faculty Computing Services will provide this. Judith Tabron of Faculty Computing Services at a workshop on the use of clickers for assessment.
If you just want to try out the clickers in class, you can borrow a set from Faculty Computing Services by calling x3-6894 or stopping by the Faculty Support Center at 215 McEwen Hall.
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Photo by Erin Furman
The problem is that it takes a lot of time to give students constant feedback on how they’re doing. Judith Tabron, director of Faculty Computing Services, says technology can help.
week, automatically sending grades back to students. The quizzes can be weighted so that early quizzes play little or no role in the students’ grades, while later tests count more.
First, I’d like to encourage you to apply for CTSE membership. Most CTSE programs are suggested by members, and members also provide teaching and research aid. Members serve for a three-year term and receive an annual stipend for their participation. You will receive a call for applications from Provost Berliner in March. This year there will be five memberships available. Application requirements are listed at hofstra.edu/ Faculty/CTSE/ctse_membership_app.html. The most important part of the application is the description of your ideas for new ways the CTSE can help faculty be
excellent in their work. Of course, I welcome ideas from all faculty at any time.
Photo by John McKeith
v Evidence of student learning (for example, pre- and post-course exams, or a succession of drafts on a particular assignment with faculty comments on each draft).
What the CTSE Can Do for You
Putting together a teaching portfolio might take 12 to 15 hours, Dr. Seldin says. Some professors have difficulty drafting the section dealing with teaching philosophy. “Many have a teaching philosophy, but have never articulated it,” he notes.
Alternatives to Lecture by BRUCE TORFF How to Determine What Students Have Learned Most professors enter their chosen field to conduct research and teach, but along with the teaching comes the need to assess student learning. Few professors have much experience with issues of assessment, which helps explain why the midterm-andfinal model remains so entrenched after all these years. How about a closer look? For openers, what are assessments supposed to accomplish? Of course, they establish a basis for determining final grades, which are typically the only permanent record of students’ work. As such, assessments promote accountability – students’ work is duly monitored and they are made responsible for the outcomes. But that’s not all assessments do. They can also provide “diagnostic” information for the professor – information to evaluate not only students’ performance, but also the curriculum, the teaching approach, the technology used, and many other things. And, in some cases, assessments can be used to induce students to engage in reflective thinking. For example, a lesserknown form of assessment – journals – can help students develop and clarify their thinking about the big decisions they face (e.g., choosing a major and/or career). They may have no right or wrong answers, but journal entries can be invaluable for encouraging students to be more thoughtful participants in their college experiences. It seems useful at this point to consider some key distinctions in the world of educational assessment, starting with the one between formative and summative assessment. Summative assessments are, as the name suggests, designed to sum up students’ learning at the end of a curriculum
unit or course. Final exams come to mind. Formative assessments are administered earlier, and differently, so that assessment results can be used to inform future curriculum and instruction. For example, should a math quiz reveal that students are struggling with a particular formula, there’s impetus for the professor to re-teach the formula, and still time in the course to do so. Clearly, both formative and summative assessments play an important role in education. Perhaps the highest-impact distinction concerns two common forms of assessment: testing and performance assessment. Tests typically provide pencil-and-paper evaluations of student performance in a brief time period – a snapshot of student learning. Performance assessments, in contrast, use students’ actual work product from a course (e.g., essays, presentations, artworks, business plans). The advantages and disadvantages of each form of assessment can be explored by looking at a series of issues much debated on the educational scene these days. Let’s start with the convenience/sustainability issue. Testing is nothing if not convenient for the professor, even if scantron technology is not employed to do the heavy lifting. That’s no small advantage; any educational innovation that overwhelms the professor is not sustainable, and unsustainable innovations are functionally useless (because they disappear after a while). Performance assessments are typically much more difficult and timeconsuming to grade, sometimes to the point of being nonsustainable. Accordingly, many professors start their careers giving a ton of assignments per term, then downshift to a smaller number, and eventually drop
“When asked how heat affects rock formation, a student correctly refers to ‘a state of igneous fusion.’ But further questioning reveals that the student has no idea what that is.”
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Bruce
Torff
them altogether – just so the professor can make it to some of his/her children’s soccer games. Advantage: testing. Then there’s the authenticity issue: the extent to which assessments reflect the sort of activities people do in the real world. There’s little doubt tests are not especially authentic; for example, the MCAT taps knowledge needed for entry into medical school, but no one could reasonably argue that its demands are similar to those faced by doctors on a daily basis. Performance assessments, on the other hand, are usually well aligned with real-world tasks in a discipline. For example, in a researchmethods class, having students produce research plans mirrors the sort of writing that professional researchers do. Advantage: performance assessments. Next we come to the subjectivity issue. When our perfectly human biases get into the mix, assessments are no longer solely about students’ performance – the grader’s biases act as a sort of contaminant. Tests that use multiple-choice items are often rationalized on the grounds that they ameliorate this problem. Performance assessments are vexed by subjectivity in grading, no matter how tight the scoring procedures are. There is, for example, no
fully “objective” way to grade essays in a history class. Advantage: testing. Now, the superficiality issue. It’s all too easy for students to spout information they have rote-learned; at first blush they sound erudite, but upon closer analysis are revealed to have little understanding of the topic at hand. When asked in a geology class how heat affects rock formation, a student correctly refers to “a state of igneous fusion.” But further questioning reveals that the student has no idea what that is. This “superficial learning” problem frequently bedevils tests, which can produce false positives based on rotelearned factoids. Not so with performance assessments, which typically require a demonstration of deeper understanding. Advantage: performance assessments. As you can see, we have a split decision. Each form of assessment has its advantages and disadvantages. Likely there are situations in which each is appropriate, and situations in which some combination of the two makes for the right blend. In future columns, I’ll discuss how to make this choice, and also how to maximize the utility of each form of assessment. But in the meantime, one more morsel of food for thought. Once the grade book’s
full, how to decide on final grades? There are three ways to turn raw grade book data into final grades. The first is accomplishment – the students’ academic performance, pure and simple. Some professors believe the number of points the student earned is all that matters. Other professors prefer to add effort to the mix; when a student works like the dickens all semester long but produces unimpressive results, some professors opt to give the student a modest break. Employers tend to do this too, research shows. And finally there’s growth: positive change over time in
Dear Colleagues:
students’ level of accomplishment or effort. When a student gets off to a rough start, but manages a strong rally, some professors opt to reward the student for turning things around. How do you weigh these three, and why? Sometimes an assessment of one’s own assessment is a good move. Bruce Torff is a professor of curriculum and teaching, director of the Doctoral Program in Learning and Teaching in the School of Education, Health and Human Services, and pedagogical research consultant for the CTSE.
Cindy
Rosenthal
I’ve got you covered! This is an open invitation!
Join me (at your convenience) to
Rehearse Your Upcoming Conference Presentations I’m ready and willing to work with you on strengthening and enlivening your performance skills at academic conferences and/or at settings within and outside the University that require public speaking. Together, we will review and analyze your lecture style, PowerPoint presentations, eye contact and connection with your audience, vocal projection and articulation, facial expressions, movements, gestures, posture, conference paper content and shape – whatever will enhance your level of confidence and the power and effectiveness of your overall presentations. Let me coach you – and help you communicate your work in the very best way you can.
Here’s the best part … it’s free!
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Cindy Rosenthal, Ph.D. Public Speaking Consultant Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence Phone: (516) 463-4966 E-mail: cindy.rosenthal@hofstra.edu
17th Annual Program on Scholarship in Teaching
Copyright or Copy Wrong: How to Tell Them Apart
by Erin Furman
by Kathleen A. Wallace
Evelyn Altenberg of Hofstra’s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences says she spent her semester-long teaching leave writing a book on “everyone’s favorite topic: English grammar.”
The digital world is making copyright law increasingly complex. Many faculty members are uncertain about what they are allowed to post on Blackboard or copy for class. As authors, they may also wonder about rights to their own creative works.
Dr. Altenberg is one of four faculty members who shared tales of their successful teaching leaves at the 17th Annual Scholarship in Teaching Program on October 14.
“We wanted to get rid of some of that grammar phobia,” says Dr. Altenberg. Assuming readers would have no prior knowledge of grammatical rules, Dr. Altenberg and Dr. Vago avoided complex terminology and took an eclectic approach to explanations. Their book is written for college-level composition students, future teachers and high school students taking advanced English classes. It is also a good tool for students who want to become professionals in communication disorders, Dr. Altenberg says, in that it prepares them to look at children’s language and identify areas of syntactic strength and weakness. The book also has a companion Web site that features practice exercises for each unit and an index of all the terms mentioned in the book. Currently, the book is going through copyediting. “I can honestly say I would not be at this stage if I hadn’t been able to take this time off,” says Dr. Altenberg of her semester-long break from teaching. Three other Hofstra faculty members also expressed gratitude for the time to develop new teaching initiatives, thanks to special teaching leaves. Jeanne Henry of the Department of Literacy Studies used her
Faculty members describe their teaching leaves (clockwise): Sharon Whitton wrote an article on her experiences teaching geometry in Italy; Bruce Torff studied the educational achievement gap; Evelyn Altenberg wrote a grammar book; and Jeanne Henry developed a study abroad course.
Some highlights: sabbatical to develop a study abroad course titled “Adolescent Literature in London.” “It was the first time I’ve felt a course has actually been finished and not just done because it had to be,” says Dr. Henry. The literature class is built upon classical, contemporary, and historical novels written for adolescent readers. “Choosing the books became the basis for everything that followed,” says Dr. Henry, who spent time researching novels for the class. “There was no book I couldn’t read or obscure film I couldn’t track down.” As a part of a series of six research articles, Bruce Torff of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching spent a semester studying one cause of the achievement gap between highadvantage and low-advantage students. His focus was on the level of critical thinking high school teachers use in their classrooms. Often, in what Dr. Torff says can be a selffulfilling prophecy, teachers with disadvantaged students will not assign work with the same level of critical thinking as will teachers in high-advantage situations. Teachers in disadvantaged communities are more likely to “dumb down their lesson plans,” says Dr. Torff, who hoped for the opposite to be true. “It’s not quite fair that Brooklynites get to do matching worksheets while students in 6
Great Neck get to engage in debate,” he says. He adds that Hofstra needs to educate future teachers to encourage activities requiring high levels of critical thinking in low-advantage schools as a way to close the achievement gap in high schools. Sharon Whitton, also of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, used her sabbatical to complete a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation. The proposal was for a research project titled TEAM: Teacher Enhancement in Advanced Mathematics, designed to encourage minorities and females to enter the field of mathematics. To her disappointment, the original proposal was denied, so Dr. Whitton is in the process of submitting a revised proposal that will focus on virtual and live problem-based learning in algebra. She also used her leave to write an article on her experiences teaching geometry in Italy. The study abroad class was “a tremendous experience for all these math majors who are going to become math teachers,” says Dr. Whitton, who found it thrilling to pull theory-focused students out of their comfort zone of the classroom to get them to make measurements in the real world. Erin Furman is a senior print journalism major at Hofstra University.
Copyright Basics Copyright protects a number of rights, including the right to reproduce a work, to make derivative works, to distribute copies of the work, and to perform or display a work. If an author has transferred copyrights to a publisher, she is not allowed to make or distribute copies of her own work, unless the transfer agreement specifically allows it. As Steven McDonald pointed out, buying a work does not mean acquiring the copyright to that work (unless the copyright owner expressly transfers the copyright to the purchaser). A library may lend, resell, or give away a work it has purchased, but it may not reproduce the work. However, college libraries and faculty can invoke the “fair use” doctrine (see below) as a basis for allowing some limited reproduction of works for educational purposes, such as course packs and library reserve. In addition, the library may license some use rights. The Copyright Clearance Center manages the permissions and collection of fees for such reproductions on behalf of copyright holders (largely publishers). One concern raised at the conference was that the increasing robustness and efficiency of the permissions market may be shrinking the scope of “fair use.”
Performance and Display In face-to-face teaching activities, copyrighted works may be displayed or performed (e.g., a film may be shown, a play performed, a poem recited or displayed by means of projection) without seeking permission from the copyright owner, but this exception does not include the right to distribute copies of the works that are displayed or performed. The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2002 provides the right to perform and display in distance education as well. However, there are additional restrictions and requirements imposed on performance and display in a “digital” classroom, and the display of an entire audiovisual work (such as a feature film or documentary) is never allowed under the TEACH Act. Other restrictions have to do with limiting the capability of downstream reproduction and distribution. Faculty who are involved in distance education, as well as faculty who use features of Blackboard or any online course management system in their teaching, need to familiarize themselves with the requirements of the TEACH Act. In addition to consulting with Hofstra professionals, there are online resources that may be helpful in this regard, e.g., TEACH Act Toolkit, http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dspc/legislative/ teachkit/
Fair Use The “fair use” doctrine identifies four factors that must be balanced in assessing whether a use of copyrighted material is “fair” and not an infringement of copyright. Just because a use is “educational” does not automatically mean that the use is “fair.” One must also consider the nature of the work, the amount of the work being used, and the effect of the use on the potential market or value of the copyrighted work. “Fair use” does not define a right, but provides a set of guidelines for defense of a use of copyrighted material. Its guidelines are also not hard and fast rules as to whether a particular use of copyrighted material qualifies as “fair.” Educational institutions have different interpretations of what “fair
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Kathleen A.
Wallace
use” allows and thus different policies. Hofstra’s policy can be found at: hofstra. edu/pdf/about/Policy/policy_ereserves.pdf. Hofstra was part of an agreement with the American Association of Publishers regarding use of copyrighted material; see http://publishers.org/main/PressCenter/ Archicves/CollegeCopyrightGuidelines Release.htm The “fair use” doctrine is used to assess whether certain kinds of distribution and transformation (e.g., criticism, commentary) are allowed without seeking permission from the copyright holder. Traditional analyses of “fair use” have focused on the purpose (is it educational?) and on issues such as how many copies are made, how widely distributed they are, and whether the distribution is spontaneous or repeated. Transformative uses can be fairly traditional (e.g., the right to quotation in the context of criticism and commentary), but may also concern matters such as student work that uses copyrighted work in something like a mash-up. In his presentation, Kevin Smith pointed out that mash-ups of all sorts (see, for example, http://www.thru-you.com/#/ videos/) and other digital reuses are testing the boundaries of “fair use.”
Rights for Authors Faculty authors do not always realize that they may not retain the right to freely use their own works, even in an educational continued on page 9
Photo by Eric Steinhart
The book was inspired by her children’s teachers, Dr. Altenberg says, because they often lamented not having the grammatical foundation to better instruct students. Essentially a workbook and reference guide rolled into one, it provides readers with a foundation for understanding how the English language works.
Photos by David Salazar
Dr. Altenberg co-authored English Grammar: Understanding the Basics with Robert Vago, chair of the Linguistics and Communication Disorders Department at Queens College.
On June 9, 2009, Sarah McCleskey, head of access services at Hofstra’s Axinn Library, and I attended a one-day workshop titled Copyright or Copy Wrong: How to Tell Them Apart, sponsored by the New England Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries. Focused on digital copyright, the program included presentations by Kevin L. Smith, J.D., a scholarly communications officer at Duke University’s Perkins Library, and Steven McDonald, J.D., general counsel for Rhode Island School of Design.
Use of Copyrighted Material
Classroom Lessons by Andrea S. Libresco Making a Complex Topic Comprehensible Classroom Lessons highlights examples of excellent teaching by our Hofstra colleagues. Andrea Libresco, associate director for pedagogy at the CTSE, visits a different classroom each semester in search of effective teaching techniques that can be applied across disciplines. If you have a colleague whom you would like to volunteer for observation (or if you would like to volunteer yourself), please e-mail Dr. Libresco at Andrea.S.Libresco@hofstra.edu Thus far in this column, I have observed classes that were held in rooms that encouraged discussion; this was appropriate, as the classes – in elementary education and in political science – were designed to elicit high levels of participation from students as they prepared to become teachers and/or active citizens. I will admit that I have had a comfort level both with the subject matter and the pedagogical style of teacher-led discussion in the classes I have observed to date. I knew that it was high time to observe a class in a lecture hall on an unfamiliar subject. Thus did I find myself in Breslin Hall, with 24 students, observing Dr. Christa Farmer deliver a lecture on earthquakes in an introductory physical geology class. Full disclosure: I have never attended a class – or even a talk – on geology, and the only thing I knew about earthquakes prior to this class was from newscasters on TV. Imagine my delight, then, in discovering that, with the proper teacher, I could understand and identify different types of
earthquakes, the technological progress seismologists have made in measuring them, and the level of success (or lack thereof) scientists have achieved over the years in predicting them. Professor Farmer was the proper teacher. While I tend to identify myself as more of an auditory learner, it turns out that, with a topic such as earthquakes, I needed the visuals that Professor Farmer had prepared. Every point she made had a PowerPoint slide that elucidated it – from maps of earthquake locations, to diagrams of types of faults, to readouts of seismic waves, to graphs of magnitude readings. At this juncture, it is appropriate for me to confess that I am not generally a fan of PowerPoint. I have seen too many talks given where PowerPoint does not illuminate the topic at hand, nor does it make the lecture more engaging. Rather, many presentations of this sort prove to be an almost word-forword rendition of what the speaker is saying. The result, for most audiences, is that they stop listening to the speaker and just read the information off the slides.
Photo by David Salazar
Professor Farmer’s PowerPoint presentation enhanced understanding for me and for her students. She began by showing the damage earthquakes can bring with photos and maps of famous quakes, like the ones in San Francisco (1906); Kobe, Japan (1995); El Centro, California (1979); and Oakland (1989). She also used videos from the 2004 tsunami, caused by an undersea earthquake. One tsunami video made clear that the knowledge Professor Farmer’s students were acquiring would have come in handy in Thailand. A student there, who had learned that an extra-low water level was usually the prelude to a great wave, shouted warnings to those in the unusually shallow waters, but the warnings went largely unheeded. Thus, Professor Farmer made the case for the importance of the topic at the beginning of the lecture.
Dr. Christa Farmer shakes up a class on earthquakes with demonstrations, maps, news photos and videos. Coming soon: 3-D animation.
The ongoing relevance of the topic was reinforced throughout the lecture with up-to-the-minute
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Andrea S.
Libresco
images from the Web site of the United States Geological Survey (whose out-ofclass exploration Professor Farmer encouraged by giving students extra credit for reporting on a current seismic event). Professor Farmer also reinforced relevance by using the seismic event the students would most likely remember, the tsunami, and by showing where the fault lines exist in New York and their implications for the likelihood of quakes close to home. For the part of the lesson that was hardest to understand – the different types of earthquakes and their movements – Professor Farmer prepared a short demonstration of wooden blocks (plates of the earth) pulling against one another in different patterns, mimicking the normal, reverse, strike-slip and oblique-slip possible types of faults. She followed up with diagrams and locations of each. Professor Farmer then asked students to identify different types of faults in maps on the screen. When some students had difficulty in doing so (and I wasn’t certain of some of my fault identifications either), she returned to the slides with the diagrams and derived the symbols for the different types of faults by mimicking the motions once again, which really clarified the differences. Professor Farmer made sure to present difficult material in multiple ways. She was equally committed to assessing students’ understanding throughout the lesson so that
she could decide when to offer more opportunities to work through the complexities. Her acknowledgment of the complexity, combined with her patience with and positive reinforcement of student responses and questions, created an atmosphere where her students felt comfortable in contributing ideas. Student responses, in turn, allowed Professor Farmer to assess accurately students’ understanding and to recalibrate when necessary. Professor Farmer’s enthusiasm and interest in the topic were evident throughout the lecture. She connected students to the current research in the field several times, referring to articles in Science, the premier journal in the field, and the research of a colleague in the department on faults in New York City. When she shared the evolving science of measuring the magnitude of earthquakes, her diagrams and discussion gave real clarity to how far the field has come. Apparently, it used to be the
case that magnitude was measured by talking to people who felt an earthquake and then mapping, based on their comments. Of course, the Richter scale was quite an advancement, as has been “moment” magnitude, now the most accurate scale used to estimate magnitudes for large earthquakes. At the end of the class, Professor Farmer called on a student who had done a bit of research on a seismic event in the news – a rift that had opened in Africa. Professor Farmer knew that the student might be ready to report that day and, in preparation, she had assembled six different photos of the rift in Africa as part of her PowerPoint to help the class visualize the student’s topic. Her gentle back-up help to his presentation made it likely that others would avail themselves of this extra credit opportunity. Another aspect of Professor Farmer’s teaching is her continuing commitment to improve understanding for students. She is a member
of ROOT (Reflecting On Our Teaching), a group of Hofstra faculty members who have developed research questions about their own teaching and are conducting investigations to address them. Professor Farmer is looking at whether developing a three-dimensional animated simulation of an earthquake would be a more effective tool for student understanding than the current slides and brief simulation with shifting blocks that she currently uses. To that end, Professor Farmer plans to compare student results on a quiz in both semesters, without and with the 3-D earthquake animation. I will go back the next time she teaches the course to witness the lecture aided by the 3-D animation. As a latecomer to the study of earthquakes, I must say I’m looking forward to it! Andrea Libresco is associate professor of curriculum and teaching in the School of Education, Health and Human Services and associate director for pedagogy for the CTSE.
Copyright or Copy Wrong: How to Tell Them Apart context. It all depends on the terms of the agreement they have made with the publisher. Faculty need to be aware of their own copyright agreements and to carefully consider what rights they transfer when they sign publication agreements.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) Prior to digital media, when a library subscribed to a journal, it purchased and owned print, “hard” copies of the journal, which it retained in perpetuity, even after it may have canceled a subscription. However, with digital, online publication of journals, when a library subscribes to a journal, it may be purchasing only a license to access the journal. Thus, depending on the publisher’s terms, a license to access could be for some specified time period (e.g., for as long as the library maintains a subscription, or for some defined period of time after a subscription is terminated). While many publishers currently provide what’s known as “perpetual access,” that is, no time restriction on access to the issues subscribed to, some do not. As libraries move increasingly to online only journals, and possibly, eventually books, this could become an important matter in terms of retaining holdings of back issues if subscriptions or licensing fees are terminated. Faculty authors may want to inquire when they submit an article for publication what
the journal publisher’s policies are and consider carefully whether to publish in journals with restrictive policies.
For More Information Kevin Smith also runs a well-respected and informative blog, “Scholarly Communications @ Duke: Duke’s source for advice and information about copyright and publication issues” (http://library. duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/). The Axinn Library’s Copyright Information Center provides answers to many common
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questions about copyright, including guidelines for posting content on Blackboard and Electronic Reserve, instructions for creating Blackboard links to licensed electronic journals to avoid copyright problems, and a “fair use” checklist to help you decide when you may copy materials for class. The center can be reached through the Library Web site at hofstra.edu/library/ library_copyright.html Kathleen A. Wallace is a professor of philosophy at Hofstra and a member of the CTSE.
Having a Word with CAROL PORR Living Language: Words With a Checkered Past cool.” In the 1920s, young people said, “That’s for mine” to mean the same thing. Today our students might say, “That’s off the hook.” Like it or not, young people today derive slang from media figures, be they rap stars or other celebs. (Think Paris Hilton – “That’s hot.”)
Carol
Porr
I would like to dedicate this article to two Williams. The first is William Safire, The New York Times columnist, who died at the end of August. Safire’s engaging “On Language” column was always the first one I turned to when I opened my Sunday Times. I’ve quoted him often in my modest pieces. The second William is the late Dr. William McBrien, Hofstra professor emeritus of English, who passed away on October 17. Dr. McBrien was the editor of Twentieth Century Literature, a literary journal we publish here at Hofstra. I was once his editorial assistant. He was the personification of a scholar and a gentleman, and I shall miss him more than mere words can express. I’m always teaching my students that language is dynamic, not static. The vocabulary we’ve gained by technology alone has added numerous entries to Webster’s Dictionary. This transformative nature of language is the subject of the book The Power of Babel, by linguist John McWhorter. According to McWhorter, if someone in 1830 announced that he’d blown up the post office, he would raise nary an eyebrow. In 19th century America, “blowing up” an establishment meant going into it and complaining to the management about an infraction of some kind – “I went in and blew up the post office when I found out they lost that letter.” Think about what would happen today if someone uttered the same sentence! In my day, if we liked something, or thought it was really good, we’d say, “That’s
Slang changes much more rapidly than the standard language we speak, of course, but all this got me to thinking about the evolution of some of the words we use all the time.
Thank you! Or not… Take the word nice. Today its meaning is innocuous, but it once had negative connotations. According to Word and Phrase Origins, nice derives from the Latin nescius, meaning “ignorant,” or “foolish.” (Actually, you’ll still see that definition in Webster’s.) By about the 14th century, the word came to mean “wanton,” and “illmannered.” The connotation got “nicer” in the 18th century, and it remains so today. Shrewd is another word that changed over the years. It’s believed that the word comes originally from the name of the small, vicious, yet cunning little animal, the shrew. According to Word and Phrase Origins, the term was originally applied to a calculating, vicious person. Over the centuries the viciousness part of the meaning dropped off, and the clever, keenwitted appellation stuck. Some negative aspects of shrewd remain, I think. I don’t know if calling a person shrewd is always considered a compliment. The word silly has changed in the opposite way. According to John McWhorter, the Old English origins (sely) of the word meant “blessed,” and eventually came to mean “innocent.” McWhorter explains that the notion of blessedness and innocence morphed into “weak” by the 17th century, and today we have a word that means “foolish.” There seems to be some disagreement as to the etymology of the word jazz, the term
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for that quintessentially American form of music. According to David Wilton, author of Word Myths, the word was used as early as the mid-19th century (as jazm) to mean “to pep, or start things up.” It was used in baseball terminology in 1912, and shortly thereafter, Wilton claims, it was used to denote the style of music that we all know and love. At any rate, the word jazz had another connotation. It was (and still is) slang for sexual intercourse.
Surprising origins Sometimes the origins of words are counterintuitive. Today we think of bylaws as rules, or secondary rules, of an organization. According to Word and Phrase Origins, the by in the word has nothing to do with “secondary” as many believe, but rather relates to the Old Norse by – a designation for a town, as in some English towns, like Whitby, originally a Scandinavian settlement. The Norsemen, you will recall, are the nice (and here I mean nice as pleasant or ill-mannered, I suppose!) people who invaded England around the ninth century, bringing their laws, and idioms, with them. I’m sure you all know about Civil War general Ambrose Burnside, who took to wearing the hair on his face a little differently by shaving the hair on his chin and wearing “sidebar” whiskers. Because he was considered to be fashionable, his style was imitated; the hair on either side of the ears was called burnsides, and, eventually, sideburns. Boycott is another commonly used term that got its name from an actual person. Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was a British soldier turned farmer who managed an earl’s estate in County Mayo, Ireland, in the late 19th century. When the poverty-stricken tenants on the property asked to pay lower rents in order to feed their families, Boycott refused, and his workers left him. His property was destroyed by looters, he was refused service in local stores, his mail was not delivered, and his life was threatened. The editors of
”Nice derives from the Latin nescius, meaning ‘ignorant,’ or ‘foolish.’ By about the 14th century, the word came to mean ‘wanton.’” Word and Phrase Origins report that the action against Boycott was so thorough and successful that the activity was commonly called a “boycott” in the local papers within months. The word is now used in a variety of languages as a synonym for principled refusal to deal with a person or business. Nickname has an interesting history. According to Patricia O’Connor, author of Origins of the Specious, it is derived from the Old English ekename. Eke means “also” and “in addition to” (as in eke out a living); therefore, ekename meant “also named.” When the article “an” was put in front of ekename (as in “an ekename”),we get a rebracketing of the sounds, and that’s how the word we use today came into existence. And speaking of nicknames, O’Connor notes that from medieval times, it was customary to add an affectionate “mine” before the name of a loved one. Thus, “mine Edward” became Ned and “mine Anne” became Nan, and “mine Ellen” became Nell. Sometimes, she reports, an r in the middle of a name would become an l over time, so “Hal” came from Harry, and “Mol” came from Martha or even Mary. Dorothy became “Dolly,” and Sarah became “Sally.” O’Connor couldn’t venture a guess how Richard became “Dick”!
The glamour in grammar Even the word grammar, which is dear to my heart, has an interesting history. According to the OED, in classical Greek and Latin the word pertained to literature, and it eventually pertained to only the linguistic portion of that discipline; thus
today we think of grammar as the study of the form and structure of words. In the Middle Ages the word was synonymous with learning and the learned class; ultimately, the occult sciences, including magic and astrology, were associated with the word. The OED notes that the word glamour is a Scottish variation of grammar. I always knew what I did in the classroom was glamorous! As you can see, I make every effort to cite my sources. I can’t say that I “know” any of these facts (or suppositions, if such is the case) on my own. Rebecca Moore Howard, author of “Sexuality/Textuality: The Cultural Work of Plagiarism,” notes that plagiarism is derived from the Latin plagium, a term for kidnapping. Even the Romans, however, associated plagiarism with textual appropriation, the meaning we ascribe to it today. There is a word that is no longer used simply because of an unfortunate association with one of the most despised words in English. Niggardly means tightfisted, and has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the hated “N-word.” Niggardly, according to Patricia O’Connor, has roots going all the way back to the 14th century. However, because it sounds so much like that much-reviled word, its use has fallen out of favor. Besides, unlike irony, a word that has no synonyms, there are any number of words one can use instead of this rather antiquated one: “stingy,” “grudging,” “parsimonious,” “cheap.” The list goes on and on. Speaking of irony, there are the words whose meaning really hasn’t changed, but somehow has been blurred over time. Ironic is one of them. Irony is saying one thing while meaning another. Sometimes we use it playfully, sometimes sarcastically. Patricia O’Connor offers as an example a song title, probably dating back to World War II, by Noel Coward: “Don’t Let’s Be
Beastly to the Germans.” A situation is “ironic” when the result is the opposite of what is expected. O’Connor gives the example of O. Henry’s lovely short story “The Gift of the Magi,” in which a young wife sells her hair to purchase a watch chain for her husband while he, in turn, sells his watch to buy her hair combs. Unfortunately, too many people confuse coincidence (even unfortunate coincidence) with irony. In his book Brain Droppings, the late comedian George Carlin offers a humorous account of the mistakes people make when they confuse irony with mere happenstance: If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony. Then there are the words surprised, meaning to be caught unexpectedly, and astonished, meaning to be stunned or confounded, which today are often used interchangeably. In Origins of the Specious, Patricia O’Connor offers this “language joke”: The husband of a linguist named Susan comes home to find her in bed with another man. “Why, Susan!” he cries. surprised!”
“I’m
“No, dear,” she answers. “You are astonished. I am surprised.” Carol Porr is adjunct assistant professor of English and assistant director of the English Composition Program. She is also the English editing consultant to the CTSE.
“In medieval times, it was customary to add an affectionate ‘mine’ before the name of a loved one. Thus, ‘mine Anne’ became Nan, and ‘mine Ellen’ became Nell.”
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Current CTSE Members
CTSE Staff and Contact Information
Habib Ammari, Ph.D. (Computer Science), 2009-2012
Director Susan Lorde Martin, J.D. Cypres Family Distinguished Professor of Legal Studies in Business 208 Weller Hall Phone: (516) 463-5327 Fax: (516) 463-6505 E-mail: Susan.L.Martin@hofstra.edu
Pedagogical Research Consultant Bruce Torff, Ed.D. Professor of Curriculum and Teaching 128 Hagedorn Hall Phone: (516) 463-5803 Fax: (516) 463-6196 E-mail: Bruce.A.Torff@hofstra.edu
Associate Director for Communications Carol Fletcher, M.A. Associate Professor of Journalism 403 New Academic Building Phone: (516) 463-6464 E-mail: Carol.T.Fletcher@hofstra.edu
Program Evaluator Marc Silver, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology 202F Davison Hall Phone: (516) 463-5645 Fax: (516) 463-6505 E-mail: Marc.L.Silver@hofstra.edu
Jacqueline Burke, Ph.D. (Accounting, Taxation & Legal Studies in Business), 2007-2010 Margaret Burke, M.A. (Library Operations), 2009-2012 Timothy Daniels, Ph.D. (Anthropology), 2007-2010 Gregory DeFreitas, Ph.D. (Economics), 2009-2012 Elena Jurasaite-Harbison, Ph.D. (Curriculum and Teaching), 2009-2012 Nancy Kaplan, Ph.D. (Radio, TV, Film), 2009-2012 Linda Longmire, Ph.D. (Global Studies & Geography), 2009-2012 Christopher Matthews, Ph.D. (Anthropology), 2006-2010 Daisy Miller, Ph.D. (English), 2007-2010 David Powell, Ph.D. (Romance Languages and Literature), 2009-2012 Ronald Sarno, Ph.D. (Biology), 2009-2012 Andrew Spieler, Ph.D. (Finance), 2009-2012 Daniel Tinkelman, Ph.D. (Accounting, Taxation & Legal Studies in Business), 2008-2011 David Weiss, Ph.D. (Health Professions & Family Studies), 2007-2010
Associate Director for Pedagogy Andrea Libresco, Ed.D. Associate Professor of Curriculum and Teaching 128 Hagedorn Hall Phone: (516) 463-6543 E-mail: Andrea.S.Libresco@hofstra.edu Senior Assistant Jeanne Racioppi, B.A. 200 West Library Wing Phone: (516) 463-6221 Fax: (516) 463-6505 E-mail: Jeanne.Racioppi@hofstra.edu English Editing Consultant Carol Porr, M.A. Adjunct Instructor of English Assistant Director, Composition Program 208 Calkins Hall Phone: (516) 463-5252 Fax: (516) 463-6505 E-mail: Carol.J.Porr@hofstra.edu
Public Speaking Consultant Cindy Rosenthal, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Teaching Fellow, School for University Studies 107 Roosevelt Hall Phone: (516) 463-4966 Fax: (516) 463-4822 E-mail: Cindy.D.Rosenthal@hofstra.edu Quantitative Analysis Consultant Michael Barnes, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology 101 Hauser Hall Phone: (516) 463-5179 Fax: (516) 463-6505 E-mail: Michael.J.Barnes@hofstra.edu
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