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Teaching, Learning, & Assessment Reading Groups

Members of these informal groups discuss reading material with colleagues across campus as it relates to their classroom experience and/or to their understanding of the scholarship of teaching and learning.  

  • Groups meet every other Friday during weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 of the quarter.
  • Discussions are one hour long, from 11:00 am to 12 noon in a central campus location.
  • Questions? Contact Leslie McBride, mcbride@pdx.edu, or x5-8137.

To register, please contact the CAE: caestaff@pdx.edu or x5-5642.

Selections from the 2011-2012 T&L Faculty Reading Groups:

  

FALL QUARTER

2011

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa

Book copies available in the Center for Academic Excellence (Cramer Hall 349)

Meet on Fridays at 11:00 am (for one hour):

Oct. 4 in SMSU 262; Oct. 21, Nov. 4, Nov. 18, and Dec. 2 in ASRC 625

Almost everyone strives to go [to college], but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's answer to that question is a definitive "no."

Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, forty-five percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills - including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing - during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise - instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.

 

 

 

WINTER

QUARTER

2012

From Brain to Mind: Using Neuroscience to Guide Change in Education

by James E. Zull

Book copies available in the Center for Academic Excellence (Cramer Hall 349)

Meet on Fridays at 11:00 a.m. Jan. 20, Feb. 3, Feb. 17, March 2, and March 16, 2012.

With his knack for making science intelligible for the layman, and his ability to illuminate scientific concepts through analogy and reference to personal experience, James Zull offers the reader an engrossing and coherent introduction to what neuroscience can tell us about cognitive development through experience, and its implications for education.

Stating that educational change is underway and that the time is ripe to recognize that “the primary objective of education is to understand human learning” and that “all other objectives depend on achieving this understanding”, James Zull challenges the reader to focus on this purpose, first for her or himself, and then for those for whose learning they are responsible. 

 

SPRING

QUARTER

2012

 

Inspired College Teaching: A Career-Long Resource for Professional Growth

by Maryellen Weimer

Book copies available in the Center for Academic Excellence (Cramer Hall 349)

Good teaching requires a lot from teachers: emotional energy, the will to keep caring, intellectual stamina, creative approaches, vigilance, perseverance to find the way back from failure, and faith in the power of feedback to promote learning. In this groundbreaking work, Maryellen Weimer, acclaimed education author, experienced college teacher, and editor of The Teaching Professor, posits that the growth and development of a college teacher should be seen as a journey and shows how this career-long quest can be just as exciting as its destination.

Inspired College Teaching reveals what faculty at all levels (beginning, mid-career, and senior) are best positioned to accomplish as teachers. It proposes activities that faculty can use across their careers to awaken their intellectual curiosity, develop instructional prowess, and keep alive the motivation to teach with passion.
 

Selections from the 2010-2011 T&L Faculty Reading Groups:

Teaching with Your Mouth Shut by Donald Finkel. Our traditional ideal of the“Great Teacher” who teaches by telling, inspiring students through eloquent, passionate oration is destructively narrow: it takes for granted that teachers teach, fundamentally and centrally, by telling students what they are supposed to know. In this book, Finkel proposes an alternative vision of teaching—one that is deeply democratic in its implications. Each chapter in this book presents a case study, a story, or a sustained image of a teaching situation—a set of “circumstances” that produces significant learning in students. The idea of “teaching with your mouth shut” is explored, exemplified, and varied to such an extent that it ultimately specifies a comprehensible approach to teaching—along with a host of concrete teaching possibilities. This book is not intended as a manual for teachers; it aims to provoke reflection on the many ways teaching can be organized. The book engages its readers in a conversation about education, provoking fruitful dialogue about teaching and learning among people who have a stake in education.

FALL

QUARTER

2010
Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind by Gerald Graff. Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic  unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but by the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives.
WINTER

QUARTER

2011
  Teaching What You Don’t Know by Therese Huston. Faculty often have to teach courses in areas they don’t know very well. The challenges are even greater when students don’t share your cultural background, lifestyle, or assumptions about how to behave in a classroom. In this practical and funny book, an experienced teaching consultant off ers many creative strategies for dealing with typical problems. How can you prepare most efficiently for a new course in a new area? How do you look credible? And what do you do when you don’t have a clue how to answer a question? Encouraging faculty to think of themselves as learners rather than as experts, Huston points out that authority in the classroom doesn’t come only, or even mostly, from perfect knowledge. She offers tips for introducing new topics in a lively style, for gauging students’ understanding, for reaching unresponsive students, for maintaining discussions when they seem to stop dead, and for dealing with those impossible questions. Original, useful, and hopeful, this book reminds you that teaching what you don’t know, to students whom you may not understand, is not just a job. It’s an adventure.
SPRING

QUARTER

2011

Selections from the 2009-2010 T&L Faculty Reading Groups:

 On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching by James M. Lang. You go into teaching with high hopes: to inspire students, to motivate them to learn, to help them love your subject. Then you find yourself facing a crowd of expectant faces on the first day of the first semester, and you think “Now what do I do?” Practical and lively, On Course is full of experience-tested, research-based advice for graduate students and new teaching faculty. It provides a range of innovative and traditional strategies that work well without requiring extensive preparation or long grading sessions when you’re trying to meet your own demanding research and service requirements. What do you put on the syllabus? How do you balance lectures with group assignments or discussions—and how do you get a dialogue going when the students won’t participate? Packed with anecdotes and concrete suggestions, this book will keep both inexperienced and veteran teachers on course as they navigate the calms and storms of classroom life.

FALL

QUARTER

2009
The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning by James Zull. Neuroscience tells us that the products of the mind- thought, emotions, artistic creation- are the result of the interactions of the biological brain with our senses and the physical world: in short, that thinking and learning are the products of a biological process. This realization, that learning actually alters the brain by changing the number and strength of synapses, offers a powerful foundation for rethinking teaching practice and one’s philosophy of teaching. Zull invites teachers in higher education to accompany him in his exploration of what scientists can tell us about the brain and to discover how this knowledge can influence the practice of teaching. This book is grounded in the practicalities and challenges of creating effective opportunities for deep and lasting learning, and of dealing with students as unique learners.

WINTER

QUARTER

2010
Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses by L. Dee Fink. Fink poses a fundamental question for all teachers: “How can I create courses that will provide significant learning experiences for my students?” In the process of addressing this question, he urges teachers to shift from a content-centered approach to a learning-centered approach that asks “What kinds of learning will be significant for students, and how can I create a course that will result in that kind of learning?” Fink provides invaluable conceptual and procedural tools for designing instruction. He adds to existing ideas in the literature on college teaching and shows how to systematically combine these in a way that results in powerful learning experiences for students. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the design process will empower teachers to creatively design courses for significant learning in a variety of situations.


SPRING

QUARTER

2010