2008 - 2009 Adams Academy Inaugural Fellow

Well - It's back to blogging.  As part of my acceptance into the Walter and Pauline Adams Academy for Instructional Excellence and Innovation, I have promised myself that I will blog my experience so you too can participate in the experience and conversation along with me!

In a nutshell -

The Walter and Pauline Adams Academy for Instructional Excellence and Innovation is a new initiative that will provide a cross-disciplinary cohort of instructors (fixed-term faculty, continuing appointment librarians, academic specialists, and other academic staff) with opportunities to further their development as excellent teachers whose instructional decisions are rooted in the robust research literature on effective teaching and learning.

My personal goal in the cohort is to work on my assessment practices (both assessment of my own teaching and assessment of my students.)

Our first assignment was to read Steven Brookfield's article “Critically Reflective Practice”  I like what he had to say and I'm intrigued by his idea of a Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ). I'm going to see if I can adapt it for my CEP 815 online course this coming spring.  I can see it working well in a f2f class - but it will be fun to see if it can be adapted for online pedagogy.  I'm a big fan of CIQ's roots in ethnography. 

We also had to take Dan Pratt's Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI)

I scored highest in the Nurturing Category: I wonder if my students would agree? 

Effective teaching assumes that long-term, hard, persistent effort to achieve comes from the heart, not the head.
People become motivated and productive learners when they are working on issues or problems without fear of failure. Learners are nurtured in knowing that (a) they can succeed at learning if they give it a good try; (b) their achievement is a product of their own effort and ability, rather than the benevolence of a teacher; and (c) their learning efforts will be supported by both teacher and peers. Good teachers care about their students and understand that some have histories of failure resulting in lowered self-confidence. However they make no excuses for learners. Rather, they encourage their efforts while challenging students to do their very best by promoting a climate of caring and trust, helping people set challenging but achievable goals, and supporting effort as well as achievement. Good teachers provide encouragement and support, along with clear expectations and reasonable goals for all learners but do not sacrifice self-efficacy or self-esteem for achievement. Their assessments of learning consider individual growth as well as absolute achievement.

I'm really excited for our first meeting on Friday and looking forward to an engaging conversation and a great year!