(for thought)
by Janice Florent
Twitter is an excellent tool for consuming and for learning. Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for many educators venturing into the world of education technology. Some educators are harnessing Twitter as a part of their PLN (personal learning network) to connect, share, and network. If you are interested in using Twitter, here is a Twitter Cheat Sheet for educators to get you up to speed.
Also, follow us (CAT+FD) on Twitter @xulacat.
This summer I discovered an invaluable resource I never realized we had here at Xavier (I am embarrassed to say after 12 years here) and that is our research librarians. I was writing a pedagogical paper which used very different search engines and resources than my normal scholarly publications in chemistry. Quite frankly, I was at a loss as to where to start searching for background materials related to my paper.
On the library main page, you can select services and click 'request consultation' to get to the form. (Or click here: http://www.xula.edu/library/forms/reference_consultation_form.php)
Johanna White contacted me and we had a great chat about what I was trying to do. She walked me through a few resources and then decided to dig around on her own. About a week later I got a great email from her with more suggestions on which journals to search and how to access them.
If you are considering writing and publishing a pedagogical paper (which is, in fact valued by the university and the rank and tenure committee) but the educational and social sciences are outside of your field of research, I can HIGHLY recommend working with one our our research librarians. Once you summarize your project on the form they will decide who would be the best fit for your project. It is as easy as that!
Now, if only someone can help me with not using the passive voice...
Cheers, Stassi
So, have you started working on yours? No? Really?
Unless you have superhuman time management abilities, odds are you have not. However, that doesn't mean that you can't do a few things now that will make that job easier next August (or next first week of September).
We at CAT+FD are NOT a Rank and Tenure advisory entity. We do not offer suggestions or advice and ALWAYS refer you to your department for the specific culture and model of success they have defined. And I will not breech that boundary here. I will, however, relay some of the points made by the Rank and Tenure committee last May in their open forum that relate to CAT+FD in general.
CAT workshops were mentioned specifically be name numerous times!! (huzzah!!!) In reference to seeing you progress and develop as an educator, the current committee feels that one of your best resources are the NUMEROUS CAT workshops put on by Elizabeth, Jay, Tiera, Bart, Janice, Karen, and the whole CAT+ staff. The R and T committee highly encouraged faculty to go to these and learn from them. You can always find upcoming events here: http://cat.xula.edu/events/ More than simply attending, it is important to really think about the workshop ideas and suggestions and, if you choose to incorporate them, reflect on if they were successful or not in your hands.
As the center formerly known as CAT is developing into its new identity as CAT+FD, I am personally very excited to take advantage of all of the programming that will now be geared towards scholarly development as well as balancing all faculty obligations with each other as well as with life.
So keep track of everything you attend this year and, as always, don't forget to sign in. If something strikes you as particularly interesting we here at CAT+FD are more than happy to continue the conversation with you to help you successfully translate that workshop topic to success in the classroom.
Cheers,
Stassi DiMaggio
CAT+FD Faculty in Residence/First Year Faculty Mentor
by Bart Everson
Xavier faculty certainly do a lot to advance the University's mission.
That's why here at CAT we are excited to be expanding the scope of our support for Xavier's faculty. Our newly revised mission is focused on "the development of faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility."
Read our complete statement of Mission, Vision & Values.
Photo credit: "Spirostar I" by Heartlover1717
by Tiera S. Coston
How would you feel if someone told you that your intelligence, talents, and personality were fixed traits that could not be changed? What if someone else told you that these same traits could be nurtured, developed and grown throughout your life? How would you feel then? The answers to these questions have an enormous impact on a person's mindset, and consequently, in mentoring. A mindset is a set of beliefs that an individual has about his/her most elemental traits. When we, as mentors, foster a fixed mindset (whether consciously or unconsciously), we may leave our mentees with the belief that their intelligence, abilities and talents are already determined and nothing can be done to change them. However, when we foster a growth mindset, our mentees are shown that their traits can be developed throughout their lives with conscious and sustained effort. Mentees can then begin to see a world without limitations. GROWTH AND FIXED MINDSETS IN MENTORING: THE TALE OF THE HELP AND THE HINDRANCE focuses on examining those behaviors, many of which we may be unaware, that foster the growth and the fixed mindsets. It also provides some helpful scenarios that demonstrate how to foster a growth mindset and discourage a fixed one. Finally, a mindset quiz is included to help you (and your mentees) determine what kind of mindset you have.
by Karen Nichols: I'm posting this message for anyone who may be interested.
Hello,
Please join me, Emily Ryan, Education Manager with The New York Times, for a brief demonstration of the various academic resources from NYTimes.com on Thursday, November 20th at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.
Learn About:
Academic resources inside NYTimes.com that will support your courses
Examples of how others have incorporated NYTimes.com into their curriculum
Special programs for core curriculum instruction and the study of leadership
Please feel free to register in advance and add this event to your calendar.
Click or copy/paste this link into your web browser: http://clearslide.com/v/k9u38s
To join the webinar on November 20th at 10AM PST/ 1PM EST simply click on the link below and dial into the toll-free conference line noted below.
Presentation Link:
Dial in:
United States: (888) 419-5364
Conference Access Code: 3977-6248
I look forward to seeing you online.
Regards,
Emily Ryan
Education Manager
The New York Times
Sold by PCF, Inc.
(201) 560-2564
by Karen Nichols
I attended my first POD conference last week and the theme was Leverage. POD is our faculty development organization and such a wonderful group of people. I returned with a number of ideas and tools, not only for online teaching, but teaching with technology and general faculty development best practices as well.
I'd like to share a couple of links with you. You'll be able to see the conference theme is well-used in a variety of ways.
One fun tool I learned about was 3M's Post-It Plus app. If you use post-it notes in workshops or classes and the students have to affix them to a board in order to see the responses from the entire group, this nifty app will allow you to snap a photo of the post-it-filled board. It then digitizes each note and allows you to organize them and share the board with everyone else. Here's a demonstration:
I'll be sharing more goodies from the conference in upcoming posts. Meanwhile, let us know if you try this app or find something that interests you in the conference links.
What? The Center for the Advancement of TEACHING, is telling me to spend less time on my teaching?
We all know that Xavier is a premier undergraduate university. This is largely in part due to the dedicated faculty who put teaching first in order to help students achieve their goals. However, we as faculty have goals too, and some of those goals extend from the classroom. It is our job to balance those goals and obligations so that each facet of our careers can thrive. So to that end, what are the best practices, and easiest pitfalls, that new faculty can fall into?
Dr. Robert Boice, Professor of Psychology at SUNY in Stony Brook, NY, has done extensive research polling and following hundreds of faculty members across disciplines and institution types and then charting their success in the tenure and promotion process. Overwhelmingly, the most common problem among faculty was not spending enough time on scholarly writing (proposals and papers) but that was linked hand-in-hand with being over prepared for their classes. When faculty were reporting spending nearly 30 hours a week preparing for class, it is clear that some other aspect of their job was going to suffer for it. However, not all faculty suffered from this lack of balance. Boice identified 5–9% of new faculty as "quick starters," who in their first few years were well on their way to promotion and tenure especially with respect to scholarship. Moreover, they also scored in the top quarter of peer and student ratings of teaching; so their scholarly success was not achieved at the expense of their students.
You can read a brief article from Chemical Engineering Education summarizing his findings here:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Columns/Boice.html
And if you think this might be helpful, you can find Dr. Boice’s book here (among other places):
http://www.amazon.com/Advice-Faculty-Members-Robert-Boice/dp/0205281591
However, at Xavier, it can be quite easy to quickly achieve a balance. As I mentioned, one of our greatest assets, and your greatest resource, are our faculty. Here are some tips to leverage the resources you have in order to prepare a better class, in a reasonable amount of time, leaving sufficient time for scholarship:
-Stassi DiMaggio