• May 12, 2008

    Reading:

    • The Chickering and Gamson article on Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,
    • The one page tabular summary of ideas from Bransford’s book How People Learn
    • The brief summary of Martin and Saljo’s concepts of deep and surface approaches to learning – also follow the links near the bottom of this page to “more on Marton” and “the SOLO taxonomy”. The point form writing here may not be the most helpful way to introduce the topics, but they are more conventionally discussed in Ramsden’s Chapter 4, which I hope we can take up in the following class.
    • The article on Maryellen Weimer’s five tensions of teaching. (Some typos in this one, including “coveting” for “covering”.) Weimer has a recent book on learner-centered teaching in higher ed that is consistent with Ramsden’s idea of focusing on what the learner does. If you have a little more time, you might substitute for her five-tensions article with this six-page article in Change in which she summarizes the benefits of a learning focus.
    • The Tools for Teaching page on constructing a syllabus
    • The CST’s Course Syllabus Template
      There are a number of resources available for those who would like more information than these two sources provide about constructing a syllabus. The Berkeley Teaching Materials contain a section (2. Your Syllabus) that you should consider reviewing when you begin work on your own syllabus, but neither it nor the following are required reading at this point. The University of Hawaii Faculty Development Center has compiled a set of links to materials related to syllabus construction, and it is available here. Notice that the “Death to the Syllabus” article in this collection argues that the traditional syllabus sets an overly negative tone for courses by being too authoritarian in nature. The author suggests that one’s syllabus not read like a document for the newly incarcerated.

    Viewing:

    • The Video of Nobel-prize winning physicist Carl Wieman speaking at York last fall about undergraduate science education. Wieman recently chose to move from Univ. of Colorado to UBC because unlike other universities, UBC was willing to let him spend as much time as he liked focused on teaching rather than research. He is currently revising the undergrad Physics programme there. His ideas are very consistent with the positions described by Ramsden, and I think his talk will give you some concrete examples to hang on Ramsden’s framework. The talk itself is about 55 mins. and is followed by 30 mins. of question and answer. The questions aren’t audible, which makes that portion of the tape frustrating to watch, but he does make some interesting points if you can bear with it to the end.

    Writing:

    • Write a reflection on the assigned material and post it on the Dialogue Forum before the beginning of the May 12th class.
    • Read a selection of the May 7th Response Papers and post a reply to at least two of these before the beginning of the May 12th class.

    You are welcome to write on any aspect of the material that interests you, but I would be particularly interested to have comments on the connections you see between Ramsden’s first three chapters and the Wieman presentation. For example, what connection do you see between the kinds of activities that Wieman advocates and the distinction Ramsden draws between Case 2 and Case 3 teachers?

    Also, Wieman seems to feel that we would do well to emulate the lab experience of graduate education in undergraduate work. Have you found your own graduate training more effective than your undergraduate in the ways that Wieman describes? If so, how could you imagine bringing something of the same process into undergraduate education in your field? Would your suggestions fit into Ramsden’s Case 3 model?

    One further approach you might take in responding to the material is to discuss how Ramsden, Wieman or Chickering and Gamson might suggest understanding and resolving one or more of Weimer’s five tensions in university teaching.