Preparing Future Faculty: May Seminar Applications Invited

CRLT is accepting applications through February 25 for the May PFF Seminar, which you can learn more about here. In this guest post, English and Women’s Studies joint Ph.D. student Cat Cassel reflects upon her experiences in the seminar last spring.

Every May, Rackham and CRLT co-sponsor the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) seminar, providing graduate students from across campus important information about preparing for a faculty career trajectory. I participated in the seminar last year and came away with several valuable insights:

  • a deeper understanding of the role of faculty in the context of higher education
  • an arsenal of knowledge, tools, and tips for effective teaching, and
  • a broader sense of the different kinds of faculty career paths available.

Below I highlight two facets of the seminar that were especially useful in helping me feel equipped to face the rigors of future faculty life.

CAMPUS VISIT:  Seminar participants have the option of visiting Albion College, Eastern Michigan University, Kalamazoo College, and University of Toledo. I chose to visit Kalamazoo since both my undergraduate and graduate educations have been at large R1 institutions and I wanted to see what campus life at a small liberal arts college looked like. Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Sat, 02/09/2013 - 12:52pm
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Classroom Challenge: Encouraging Student Participation

Having trouble getting students to speak up in class? This is one of the most common challenges we hear about when consulting with faculty about their teaching. Below are some resources you might find helpful if you're trying to increase student participation in your classes.

This section of the "Solve a Teaching Problem" tool at Carnegie Mellon's Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence offers a range of teaching strategies to encourage student participation. The site invites teachers first to consider why students might be reluctant to join the conversation (Are they unprepared? unaccustomed to contributing in class? uncomfortable sharing certain kinds of ideas with their peers? unsure what you're looking for as an instructor?) and then suggests tailored solutions. 

Here on the CRLT website, we provide a range of resources to support your success in teaching discussion-based classes. See this page of Discussion-Based Teaching Strategies for ideas about how to get good conversations started, develop a classroom environment in which students engage readily, and manage several issues that can arise in a discussion--from dominators to classroom controversy.   Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Mon, 02/04/2013 - 1:17pm
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Learning about Teaching through Intercampus Mentorship

In recent months, we have been featuring guest blogs from participants in the Rackham-CRLT Intercampus Mentorship Program. You can learn more about the program--open to any U-M graduate student or postdoc--by following this link. In today's post, English Language and Literature Ph.D. student Adam Mazel reflects upon the crucial lessons about teaching that he learned from observing his mentor at nearby Albion College teach Melville's Moby Dick. 

I first met Jess Roberts, Associate Professor of English at Albion College, in 2008, when she guest lectured on American women poets in a graduate seminar I was taking here at Michigan.  I did not know then that four years later, I would contact Jess to ask her to mentor me as part of the Rackham-CRLT Intercampus Mentorship program.  But when I saw her on the list of possible mentors, I was excited.  I knew that there was no one I would rather work with.  When she agreed to mentor me, I was through the roof.

Since then, our meetings have taken a number of forms: from discussions over coffee regarding how to manage the hardships of the humanities job market, to visits to Albion to observe her teach.  I single out these latter meetings as particularly helpful.  I entered Michigan’s PhD program in English never having taught—or even tutored—before.  For that reason, I have sought out any opportunity I could to practice my teaching.  Having already experienced Jess in a Michigan classroom, I knew that I could learn a lot from observing her Albion classroom.  I was right.

One classroom visit, in particular, stands out to me.  In November 2012, I observed Jess teach Melville’s Moby-Dick to a seminar of freshman and sophomores, most of whom were non-English majors.  How was she going to excite these young skeptics about one of the most complex novels ever published, I wondered? Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Thu, 01/31/2013 - 10:21am
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What's a GTC (and why should you apply to be one)?

Have you ever wondered how CRLT is able to offer individual consultations for anyone teaching at U-M, including hundreds of GSIs? We couldn't do it without our team of Graduate Teaching Consultants (GTCs).  The GTCs are U-M graduate students, current and former GSIs representing a broad range of fields, who consult with GSIs across campus on teaching and learning. They also often facilitate workshops and contribute to our new GSI training programs. 

CRLT is currently recruiting new GTCs, and we invite any graduate student passionate about learning and teaching to apply. The program is an excellent professional development experience for GTCs, who participate in a learning community and receive continuing training on pedagogy. GTCs have shared that the program helps them to be better teachers themselves and helps prepare them for a range of careers, in and out of academe.

As the coordinator of the current GTC group and a former GTC myself, I know that the program has inspired many GTCs to pursue a career in educational development. As a result of my involvement in the group during my tenure as a graduate student at U-M, I discovered my passion for working with diverse instructors to enhance their teaching and improve student learning. I ultimately pursued a career as an instructional consultant, and many former GTCs have done the same. Read more »

Submitted by lnschram on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 10:33am
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disruptED: The Impact of High Tech on Higher Ed

A provocative essay in The Ann by U-M business professor Scott Moore analyzes the disruptive impact of internet technology on higher education and asks, "Will the Wolverines remain the leaders?" According to Moore, the traditional model of education is shifting, and students will have far more choices as to how (and where) they learn. He predicts a future where education is a partnership between .edu, .com, and .org, where credit hours are replaced by certificates earned via competency exams, and where an increasing number of educational experiences happen away from campus. To remain leaders and the best in such a future, the university and faculty must experiment with emerging educational methods and technologies, and adopt those that foster transformative educational experiences that are relevant for students, parents, and future employers. 

As Moore points out in his article, CRLT is partnering with faculty and administrators to develop creative approaches that will enable U-M to navigate this changing landscape. For example, an experiment with new educational technology now in progress at U-M focuses on incorporating Online Collaboration Tools (OCTs) in and out of classrooms. As the campus began widespread use of Google Apps for collaboration over the past year, CRLT gathered early adopters to share ideas about how to best use these tools for education. To help spread innovations far and wide, CRLT distributed an Occasional Paper on the topic and organized a Provost’s Seminar on Teaching last November, both of which featured U-M faculty who had successfully used blogs, wikis, and other tools to promote student reflection, to facilitate collaborative authorship, to improve student teamwork, and more. Scott Moore was one of the featured speakers at the Provost’s Seminar, where he described how his students’ blog posts reached an audience of over 40,000 readers--the kind of transformative experience that makes a U-M education relevant in a changing higher ed landscape.  
Read more »
Submitted by mbakewel on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 10:04am
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