Faculty roundtable

April 8-29: Friday afternoon sessions to consider student engagement

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8:24 a.m., March 23, 2011----The second part of a spring University of Delaware Faculty Roundtable Series, “Speaking of Teaching,” has been announced. The series will meet April 8-29.

The first two sessions will meet on Fridays, April 8 and April 15, in Room 208 Gore Hall, from 2:30-4 p.m., with the Thursday, April 21, session set in Puglisi Orchestra Hall at the Roselle Center for the Arts, at 10 a.m. The final session on Friday, April 29, will be held in Room 208 Gore Hall, from 2:30-4 p.m.

Campus Stories

From graduates, faculty

As it neared time for the processional to open the University of Delaware Commencement ceremonies, graduating students and faculty members shared their feelings about what the event means to them.

Doctoral hooding

It was a day of triumph, cheers and collective relief as more than 160 students from 21 nations participated in the University of Delaware's Doctoral Hooding Convocation held Friday morning on The Green.

The theme of this semester's discussion is the importance of student involvement in the learning process. All of the featured presenters integrate student engagement in their classes, which enables students to collaboratively solve problems and to learn beyond the classroom setting.

This series features faculty from many different academic disciplines, which reinforces the idea that this style of teaching can be used in any college classroom.

The presenters include David Barlow, associate professor in the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition on April 8; Louis Rossi, associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences on April 15; Bob Gonyea, associate director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University on April 21; and April Veness, associate professor in the Department of Geography and the Latin American Studies Program on April 29.

For registration information, see this website. Registration is not required but would be appreciated.

Friday, April 8 -- Barlow will discuss the importance of the “dissection course,” in which undergraduate and graduate students learn the basic construction principles of the human body by dissecting a cadaver. This course provides those interested in biomedical sciences the acquisition of anatomical knowledge, which is extremely important for future health care professionals. Barlow's presentation will focus on the selected strategies and pedagogical methods that can offer better teaching and understanding of this complex subject matter.

Friday, April 15 -- Rossi's session, “Drawing Mathematics out of Non-Mathematical Situations,” will include a discussion of strategies that build connections between mathematics students might dislike with subjects they enjoy.

Thursday, April 21 -- Gonyea's session, “Getting More Without Assigning More: How Good Writing Practices Relate to Student Engagement and Learning,” will consist of a discussion about meaning-constructing writing tasks and how they relate to student involvement. Gonyea will also present data from the National Survey of Student Engagement special add-on writing survey.

Friday, April 29 -- The presentation by Veness, “Digital Storytelling with Latino Immigrants in Sussex County, Delaware,” will describe how the learning community, applied geography and media teaching strategies employed in students' Global at Home coursework impacts Latino culture in southern Delaware. Students in the Global at Home program use concepts, methods and media technologies that give these immigrants a face, voice and specific place in local life. These students are not only involved in digital storytelling, but they are also learning how active participation in information gathering, interpretation and representation collapse social divides.

The Faculty Roundtable Series is sponsored by the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE), the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), IT Academic Technology Services (IT-ATS), the Office of Service Learning and the Office of the Provost.

For complete information about the presenters, see this website.

Article by Rachel Lipman

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