Professional Development Workshops:

These workshops are intended to improve instruction at WSUV for any and all instructors, including part-time and full-time faculty and Teaching Assistants.  For 2007-2008, workshop topics included:


March 2008 - Keeping Large Classes Interactive

“Teaching Large Classes:  Strategies for Engaging Students and Managing the Multitudes”

March's Professional Development Workshop was held on Thursday, March 27th from 12:00 - 1:30 pm in VMMC 6. The workshop focused on the challenges and rewards of teaching large enrollment classes. A practical workshop to review classroom activities/approaches that help to actively engage students in the lecture hall, and strategies to help manage the workload followed the discussion.

 

February 2008 - Self-in-Society

Karen Diller, Carolyn Long, Paul Thiers, Tom Tripp, David Carrier, and other faculty led an open discussion on the General Education “Self in Society” learning objective. The discussion took place on Monday, March 3 from 12:00-1:15 pm, in VMMC 102Q . Thoughts and ideas regarding these issues included:

  • Beyond job-training and career-building: Are our classes having the impact that is needed in wider society? 
  • Does the “Self in Society” learning goal help us to achieve that?
  • Do our graduates leave college thinking that "personal integrity" and a "spirit of compassion" are adequate for the task of needed social transformation?
  • What is a rubric and does it help or hinder progress toward the “Self in Society” and other learning objectives?
  • What are the broader social implications of what and how we do college education?

 

January 2008 - Quantitative & Symbolic Reasoning

“Quantitative Reasoning in the Classroom: An Interactive Workshop”

January's Professional Development Workshop was held on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 from 3-4:30 pm in VMMC 6. The workshop focused on implementing the Quantitative Reasoning learning goal into our courses.  The session was led by a group of Science faculty who have been working on a WSU-funded teaching improvement project focused on QR in lower division science courses: Peter Ritson, Steve Sylvester, Susan Harder, Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens.  The panel disucssed thier project, and led a hands-on session to develop specific activities that make QR explicit in classes across a range of disciplines.

 

November 27, 2007 - Teaching Critical Thinking

On Tuesday, November 27th, from 12:00 - 1:00 in VCLS 117, the Faculty Professional Development Workshop panel consisted of:

  • Gary Brown, from the Center for Teaching and Learning Technology, and head of WSU's Critical Thinking Project
  • Joe Cote, from Marketing, who makes students copy with ambiguity
  • Jerry Eline, Lawyer, who teaches Business Law for WSU part-time, and who uses case-based Socratic method
  • Brian Tissot, Associate Professor of Science, who teaches the scientific method

The panel defined what critical thinking is and discussed how best to get students to do it.

 

October 24, 2007 - Teachers of the Year Speak!

Teachers of the Year Speak!

Former winners of the WSU Vancouver Student Award for Teaching Excellence, Jerry Goodstein, Mike Morgan, Chris Plouffe, and Suzanne Smith, formed a panel. The panel explored what teaching techniques have worked well and which have not. Much of the one-hour session consisted of Q&A among the panel members and audience.