Spring 2015
Ibtesam al-Atiyat, Sociology & Anthropology; Tony Becker, Economics; Sandy Morisette, Nursing; with Dan Hofrenning, Associate Dean-Social Sciences
What makes a classroom an “active learning” space? How does an “active learning” classroom affect faculty teaching and student learning? With the impending renovation of Holland Hall, we (and especially the Holland planning group) have an opportunity to consider what the building’s classrooms should contain, and how they should be configured. Dan Hofrenning will introduce this session with a summary of how the Holland 317 project came about, and faculty who have taught in the classroom this year will share their experiences:
How does the classroom work with different course subjects?
What were the challenges? Successes?
Should there be additional spaces like this in Holland, and/or in other buildings?
Karen Nordell Pearson, Hope College
Early-career faculty are often so caught up in the hectic pace of the first year or two of a new faculty position that they find it difficult to create space for vacations or hobbies, let alone space for career planning and goal setting. And once faculty are tenured, they get scooped up for leadership roles as department chairs, committee chairs or other special task forces and their time evaporates even faster. Are you overwhelmed with your teaching, research and service responsibilities? Is there a mismatch between your ambitions as a scholar and teacher and the pace and productivity of your work? Are you frustrated with how difficult it is to find time for projects and conversations that energize you? Do you find it hard to say no to requests for your time from students and colleagues? Come for a lively, interactive lunchtime conversation about how creating a strategic plan might help reorganize and re-energize your work. We’ll discuss the components of a user-friendly strategic plan, how such plans can guide decision-making, and ways to keep the plan updated.
Karen Nordell Pearson is a chemist by training, studying at Northwestern University (BA, 1992) and Iowa State (PhD, 1997). She spent one year teaching at Bucknell Universitybefore doing a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin Madison. In 2000, she joined the Chemistry Department of Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, and moved to Hope College to teach and lead the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science in 2006. She is currently Hope’s Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and co-PI of Hope’s HHMI-funded programs. She and her husband Mark, who teaches in Hope’s Mathematics Department, live in Holland and have two children. Always eager to get her hands in the dirt, Karen loves to garden and serves on the board of an urban farm in Holland.
Here are the slides from her presentation and the workshop handout.
Louis Epstein, Music; Catherine Ramirez, Music; Kathryn Ananda-Owens, Music; Sherry Saterstrom, Dance; Jeanne Willcoxon, Theater
Our daily language includes any number of cliches about practice: “practice makes perfect”; “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice”; “if you don’t use it, you lose it”; etc. Practice is central to learning in many fields, from the arts to athletics, from nursing to creative writing, from the lab sciences to foreign languages. Yet teachers in these fields rarely discuss their approaches to “practice” with each other, and even more rarely share teaching methods with colleagues outside of practice-centered disciplines.
In this CILA lunch, faculty from several Fine Arts departments will talk about how they encourage productive practice among their students and lead a discussion to generate ideas for applying artistic practice techniques in other disciplines. Join us as we consider how answers to some of the following questions might impact teaching and learning across the college:
When is learning how to practice crucial to learning in general? When is it superfluous? When is the practice itself crucial/superfluous to learning in general?
- What does “practice” mean to your students? How do faculty translate this into specific, meaningful activities within a course curriculum?
- How do you teach your students to practice?
- How do you get students to set goals and measure their own progress while practicing
- How do you teach self-reflection and self-critique through practice?
- How might your teaching techniques apply in other disciplines?
- What does practicing have to do with preparing for life after college?
John Barbour, Religion; Kaethe Schwehn, English; Kathy Shea, Biology; Tom Williamson, Sociology and Anthropology
Fourteen St. Olaf professors each published an essay in Claiming Our Callings: Toward a New Understanding of Vocation in the Liberal Arts, edited by DeAne Lagerquist and Kaethe Schwehn (Oxford University Press, 2014). These colleagues reflect on both their calling as professors and their practices for fostering students’ ability to identify their own vocations. At this luncheon, John Barbour, Kaethe Schwehn, Kathleen Shea, and Tom Williamson will each read a page or two from their essay and briefly describe some of the issues they explore.
Kristina Medina Vilariño, Romance Languages
In this workshop and round table we will discuss ways to address “uncomfortable” topics in the classroom and why this is necessary from a pedagogical perspective. First, we will present some of the arguments discussed by students in a Cultural Conversation sponsored by the Office for Multicultural Affairs regarding this topic, and their experiences in the classroom (from a student perspective). Then, we will briefly discuss some pedagogical theories on the subject, and share practical activities to efficiently analyze “sensitive” and/or controversial subjects in the classroom.
Read Thomas, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Augusta
Join us for a chat with world-renowned composer Augusta Read Thomas on cultivating creative thinking and practice in the undergraduate classroom, whether within the arts or beyond. As Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997 through 2006, and one of six University Professors at the University of Chicago, Augusta Read Thomas brings years of experience of eliciting the creative to her work with young composers and students of the liberal arts.
http://www.augustareadthomas.com/biography.html
ACM Institute on College Futures
The economic future of the liberal arts college may be less clear now than ever before, but what do we as faculty really know about the financial operation of our institution? And how might increasing that level of knowledge affect our ability to participate in generating solutions to these challenges? The Institute on College Futures (ICF) aims to help faculty at ACM (Associated College of the Midwest) colleges build a deeper knowledge of the economic challenges facing liberal arts colleges, become more aware of sound strategies for managing college finances, and develop a better understanding of how to use this knowledge to foster timely and wise decisions. Bob Entenmann, Gary Muir, Corliss Swain, and Mary Walczak participated in the June 2014 ICF, and will share what they learned through discussion and interactive activities.
Ben Gottfried, Multimedia Instructional Technologist (St. Olaf); Dann Hurlbert, Media & Design Specialist (Carleton)
Explore innovative uses of video for your teaching and research and learn how St. Olaf’s offerings can make it easier for you to produce your own content. This joint presentation with Carleton will share examples and discuss pedagogical benefits of various types of video from the two colleges and beyond.
Fall 2014
Digital Humanities on the Hill, with faculty practitioners and members of the Digital Humanities Team
How can digital humanities help support your teaching and your students’ learning in the classroom? Come join a discussion of this and related questions with colleagues working on DH projects for use in courses. They’ll frame the conversation through lightning-round presentations that identify the teaching or learning need/issue/question that launched their project and demonstrate how DH addresses it for them. Topics include:
- digital story-telling in academic civic engagement (Ka Wong, Chinese/Asian Studies)
- activities supporting language acquisition (Kari Lee Dorer, from Italy, via Skype!)
- student-developed databases for theatrical productions (Brian Bjorklund, Theater)
- interactive mapping of networks of composers and influences in music history (Louis Epstein, Music)
- interactive mapping of objects, landscape, and place in poetry (Mary Trull, English)
- ways of integrating College art collections into courses (Jane Becker Nelson, Director, Flaten Art Museum)
Dave Van Wylen, Biology and Sustainability Catalyst, with members of the Sustainability Task Force
In May 2014, President Anderson charged a Sustainability Task Force to: 1) document current policies and practices in the College’s operations regarding sustainability, 2) recommend strategies appropriate to the College’s sustainability efforts, and 3) propose metrics to enable the College to measure the success of its efforts. Dave Van Wylen (task force Chair) and other members of the Sustainability Task Force will briefly share what has been done to date and then solicit input from attendees about what we do well, what we could be doing better, what role sustainability should have in our curriculum, where sustainability should be in our College priorities, and what structures could be put in place to bring about a more cohesive approach to sustainability on campus.
President’s Task Force on Sustainability:
Kathy Shea, Biology and Curator of Natural Lands; Kris MacPherson, Library and Asian Studies; Claire Bransky ’17; Pete Sandberg, Asst VP for Facilities; Jo Beld, Vice President for Mission; Pamela McDowell, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life
Maggie Broner, Associate Professor of Spanish, Associate Director of CILA
Can creativity be learned? Whether it can or not, creative thinking can be practiced. This lunch session will be a playlab experience. Faculty will have the chance to participate in and experiment with four activities intended to help free up thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication. Come and exercise your creative capacity! And consider when and how these or similar activities might be useful in one or another of your courses.
Zackary Drucker, visiting artist
Drawing on her experience teaching at the college level, Zackary Drucker will lead an open and engaging session on how to fully welcome transgender folks into the workplace, classroom and community. Drucker will demystify terminology, discuss discrimination, and share practical tools for making college curricula and the campus environment trans-friendly.
Other campus events with Zackary Drucker: https://wp.stolaf.edu/flaten/14-15-exhibit-she-gone-rogue/
Suggested reading:
http://www.iamsafezone.com/resources/Ally_Handouts_Article_On_the_margins_McKinney.pdf (2005, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education)
Presentation:
Trans 101
Anne Berry, Spanish, and Multilingual Student Language Support Specialist (ASC); Karil Kucera, Asian Studies and Art/Art History; Paul Zorn, MSCS
This session will consider the (increasing) presence in our classrooms of students who have diverse language backgrounds. Does their presence have an effect on discussion? On plans for lecturing? On group assignments? Faculty members will share lessons learned on how to teach effectively with this growing student population.
Suggested resources:
Fan Shen, “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition,” in National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), College Composition and Communication, vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec 1989).
“Academic Language Literacy: Tools and Resources” http://www.jeffzwiers.org/tools–resources.html
Greg Muth, Chemistry, Director of CURI; Brian Bjorklund, Theater; Heather Campbell, Education; Tim Howe, History; Elizabeth Leer, Education; Ka Wong, Asian Studies
What does undergraduate research look like in your field? Summer 2014 faculty researchers from different disciplines in the arts, humanities, and social sciences will talk about how they selected and planned their projects to benefit both the student researchers and their own work. They will discuss the challenges of working collaboratively with student “novices” in their fields, and insights and opportunities gained from the experience.
The CURI website has descriptions of the presenters’ 2014 projects, as well as other projects carried out this year and in previous years:
Bjorklund/Willcoxon
Campbell/Leer
Howe
Wong
Muth
Jeanne Willcoxon, Theatre, Director of Oral Communication; Ka Wong, Asian Studies; Jason Ripley, Religion; Marty Hodel, Music; Doug Casson, Political Science
Are you teaching an ORC course? Might you do so in the future? Would you like to learn about how you can use oral communication assignments in any course to help you teach? A panel of faculty practitioners will share ideas and their experiences on constructing creative oral communication assignments to effectively teach course content and develop students’ speaking skills. Learn how your colleagues use activities such as role-playing, interviewing, classroom discussion and PechaKucha to teach students and enliven the classroom.
For a useful on-campus resource and links to other oral communication resources:
St. Olaf Speaking Center