News & Events

Learning Circles for Summer, 2011

April 5, 2011

Interested in an opportunity to reflect on teaching, learning, or student issues with a stimulating group of colleagues? Consider participating in one (or more!) of the following five summer learning circle opportunities taking place in May and June:

1. How Learning Works (4 sessions on Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00: 5/17, 5/24, 5/31, and 6/7). Facilitator: Melissa Himelein. Participants will read and discuss How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (2010) by Susan Ambrose and colleagues. The authors, current or former faculty members with extensive experience in faculty development, have applied research in educational and cognitive psychology to the practice of college teaching. Widely praised since its release (e.g., “a vital resource,” “a must-read for every instructor”), the book offers practical teaching suggestions grounded in science.

2. Hybrid Learning (4 sessions on Thursdays from 11:00-12:00: 5/19, 5/26, 6/2, and 6/9) Facilitators: Melissa Himelein & John Myers. Participants will read and discuss Jason Allen Snart’s Hybrid Learning: The Perils and Promise of Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education (2010). Hybrid college courses – classes in which face-to-face teaching is combined with online instruction – have proliferated rapidly in the past decade. Snart describes hybrid learning as a “potential best-of-both-worlds educational model,” but warns that uninformed acceptance of the approach has serious risks. In this brief (~150 page) overview, he examines the design of current hybrid courses, evaluates promising possibilities, and considers technology applications that most effectively meet contemporary higher education goals. Ideal for faculty considering hybrid extensions of current classes.

3. Scholarship of Teaching & Learning Research/Writing Group (organizational meeting TBA). Interested in joining a SoTL study group? This semester, a group of faculty participated in a learning circle on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), guided by Lin Norton’s (2009) Action research in teaching and learning: A practical guide to conducting pedagogical research in universities. Eager to put Norton’s ideas into practice by developing our own SoTL projects, we will organize into one or two research groups (specific meeting times to be determined) in which members will plan and eventually carry out SoTL studies. The CTL has additional copies of Norton’s book for anyone interested in participating in this group. If interested, send Melissa Himelein an email with your availability during the two weeks directly following graduation (May 9 – May 20), and an initial organizational meeting will be scheduled.

4. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (5 Sessions on Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:00: 6/15, 6/22, 6/29, 7/6, and 7/13). Facilitator: Bruce Larson. Participants will read and discuss Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition (New York: Continuum, 2000).  Stanley Aronowitz has written: “For any teacher who links education to social change, this is required reading. Freire remains the most important writer on popular education and surely the virtual founder of the perspective known as Critical Pedagogy” (from the back of the book). By giving vivid expression to an oppressive “banking” education and an inclusive “dialogic” education, Freire called attention to power relationships within society and in the classroom, as well as to the importance of relationships. In this way Freire’s work has been influential throughout all levels of education, including adult education. Pedagogy is a classic that is best explored with others. Facilitator: Bruce Larson.

5. The Inner Lives of Students (five sessions on Thursdays from 4:00 to 5:00: 6/9, 6/16, 6/23, 6/30, and 7/7). Facilitator: Bruce Larson. Participants will read and discuss Alexander W. Astin, Helen S. Astin, and Jennifer A. Lindholm, Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students' Inner Lives (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).  Cultivating the Spirit is the book-length report on The Spirituality in Higher Education Project, which began in 2003 (http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/). Here the Astins and Jennifer Lindholm report on how students grapple with “the big questions in life: Who am I? What are my values? Do I have a mission in life? Why am I in college? What kind of person do I want to be? What sort of worlds do I want to create?” (inside the book cover). Testimonies by Parker Palmer, Ken Wilber, Lee Shulman, Arthur Chickering, Sharon Daloz Parks, Derek Bok, and many others point to the importance of this work. Parks writes, "Cultivating the Spirit provides timely and significant data for reorienting the conversation about the relationships among intellectual inquiry, traditional academic values, and the formation of the inner life. Informative, clearly written, essential, and evocative reading for today’s faculty across all institutions—public and private, secular and religious."