University of Western Ontario COED 2008 Update

From OUCEL Wiki

Teaching Support Centre, The University of Western Ontario

Highlights for COED Meeting – November 2008

New Faculty Associates

• We are delighted to welcome two new Faculty Associates, Madeline Lennon (Coordinator of the Faculty Mentor Program) and Allen Pearson (Faculty Associate for the promotion of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning).

Western Purple Guides

• This year has seen the successful launch of our guide on "Graduate Supervision", [1] a handbook on the mentorship and supervision of graduate students by Betsy Skarakis-Doyle (Faculty Associate, Graduate Supervision) and Gayle McIntyre (Research Assistant). This publication was distributed to all faculty on campus.

• We now have a preliminary draft of our purple guide on Curriculum Review by Margaret McNay, Faculty Associate, and an expert in the field from the Faculty of Education. The curriculum guide will be particularly useful as we continue our work to have faculty members include learning outcomes in their course outlines. We want to assist departments with the review of their undergraduate curriculum to ensure that the Undergraduate Degree level Expectations are addressed in their departmental review.

• Nanda Dimitrov, Associate Director, wrote a preliminary draft of the Western Guide to Mentoring International Graduate Students, which should be ready to be distributed by January of 2009.

TA Training Program

• Jennifer Boman completed a detailed quantitative study of our 10-year-old TA Training Program for her Psychology PhD dissertation. Her results concluded that the program has significant impact on TA competence (such as significant changes in self-efficacy, knowledge, communication apprehension and actual teaching behaviors).

• The centre developed a 20-hour, intensive Advanced Teaching Practice program to enhance the teaching skills of graduate students who are already experienced teachers.

Graduate Student Professional Development Initiative - The 360° Graduate Student Professional Development Initiative is now in its third year of development. Program highlights include:

• The 360° Initiative website [2] was launched to serve as a gateway to all campus-wide professional development programs and to provide links to information on grant writing, teaching, career development, and strategies for academic success.

• New international graduate student programs were developed on the Language of Teaching in Engineering/the Language of Teaching in the Sciences, along with workshops on graduate supervision and on academic job search strategies for international graduate students.

• The Academic and Professional Communication Program was developed to help enhance graduate students' ability to present their research at academic conferences and job interviews.

Scholarship on Teaching and Learning

• The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning will be launched this winter as a collaborative project between Western and STLHE. Four Western staff and faculty sit on the editorial team and Western Libraries is providing the platform called the Digital Commons, which will be used to mount this electronic journal.

• SoTL was supported this year at Western through the distribution of 6 peer reviewed research grants provided by the TSC. Our two-year piloting of small ($500 to $2,500) research on teaching grants demonstrated that when funds are available faculty will start to explore those issues that are essential to student academic success.

Goals for Upcoming Year

• We are piloting the "Instructional Skills Workshop for Faculty". Two of the centre's staff have received training in this workshop method.

• SoTL learning communities will be established for assisting faculty who wish to be involved in this form of scholarship. Separate sessions will be held with our librarian faculty to assist them with their scholarship.

• Enhancements are being planned to the Faculty Mentor Program to ensure the retention of under represented groups such as women and people of colour.

• The next stage of the 360°Graduate Student Professional Development initiative will be implemented including programs on Women in Academe, Academic and Professional Communication, and Innovation in Graduate Education.

• Natasha Patrito, our new educational developer (in Science and Engineering) will work with Tom Haffie (Faculty Associate) to lead an appreciative inquiry project on teaching innovation within the Faculty of Science.