I thought the posting below would be a fun way to end the current academic year. It is based on the author, Alvaro Huerta's imaginary quest to prepare his 9 year-old son for entry into Caltech, one of the most competitive institutions in the United States. Originally published in April 27- May 3, 2009 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal. Reprinted with permission of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu

Now that the college application period for hundreds of thousands of high school seniors is over, the stressful part looms over their heads like a dark cloud as they await the acceptance notices. No more dreaded applications, embellished personal statements, exaggerated GPAs and expensive SAT prep courses, not to mention countless volunteer hours worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

While filling out a stack of applications and attending classes simultaneously can be a drag for teens more interested in adding new friends to their MySpace page or acquiring the latest version of "Guitar Hero" for the Wii, nothing can top the nagging middle-class parents who invested tens of thousands of dollars (in some cases for the rich, hundreds of thousands) over the past 17 or 18 years to make sure that little Brad or Mary gets accepted into UC Berkeley, UCLA or Stanford. For instance, annual tuition (alone) at one of L.A.'s top prep schools, Harvard-Westlake School, is $26,250.

As many college-educated parents are well aware, getting into an elite university doesn't begin in high school. Not only did Mom listen to Mozart's greatest hits during her pregnancy and read nighttime stories to her newborn, she also made sure that Dad got his lazy butt off the couch to get that needed promotion in order to live in the right neighborhood with the best schools.

Before making sure that the local elementary school is a feeder school to the best junior high school and, subsequently, to a high-performance high school, leading up to an elite university, Mom and Dad first had to get their precious offspring into the top preschool program in the area. If they don't start early in the game, they worry that instead of Yale their kid may end up in jail.

>From electronic Leapfrog learning toys for toddlers to educational trips to Costa Rica's rain forest, from piano lessons to violin recitals, private tutors to expensive test prep courses, there's no limit for privileged parents who want to get their kid into one of U.S. News & World Report's top-ranked universities.

I am glad I'm not caught up in all this hoopla about getting my 9-year-old son, Joaquin, into the best university in the nation. While my wife, Antonia, and I managed to get him into a wonderful primary school, we don't drive around with a bumper sticker that reads, "My Son is a Student at UCLA Lab School." (Actually, the last time I checked, they didn't have any stickers of that kind at the UCLA student store.)

Recently, however, while preparing for written exams toward my Ph.D. and contemplating my eventual job search, I started to think about which university might be good for Joaquin. So while I requested several informational brochures from elite universities, like UC Berkeley and UCLA, I also requested one from Caltech in Pasadena - the second best university in the country, according to Forbes Magazine.

When my wife saw the glossy brochure, she said: "I didn't know that Caltech had an urban planning program? Are you applying there for a postdoc or a job once you finish your dissertation?"

"No," I replied.

"So why did you request a brochure from Caltech?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"Oh Š that's not for me," I responded. "It's for Joaquin."

"But he's only 9-years-old and in the fourth grade," she said, looking more puzzled.

"Precisely," I responded without hesitation, "it's never too early to start the college application process."

--
Alvaro Huerta is a visiting researcher at UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center, and a doctoral student in city and urban planning at UC Berkeley.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting below gives some good advice on how to handle "implicit expectations and behaviors" that come up in the classroom. It is from the chapter Problems, Pitfalls, and Surprises in Teaching: Mini Cases, by Lori Breslow, J. Mark Schuster of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the book, Strategies for Teaching Assistant and International Teaching Assistant Development: Beyond Micro Teaching, Catherine Ross, Jane Dunphy, and Associates. Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint. Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 .

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Never Too Young for Old College Try

In workshops, suggestions about how to handle the problems in the scenarios under discussion have surfaced. Those ideas have been distilled into some guidelines to help you handle many of the challenges that will arise in your teaching career. These guidelines fall into several broad categories.

1. Be aware that two kinds of contracts exist in the classroom.

Two kinds of contracts govern the expectations and behavior of both instructor and students in any classroom: 1) the explicit contract, which is often spelled out in the syllabus and covers such aspects of the course as weekly classroom topics, course requirements, and course expectations; and 2) the implicit contract, which stipulates norms such as who can talk in the classroom, what styles of teaching are used, and what styles of learning are emphasized. Give careful thought to the explicit contract; it is directly in your control, particularly at the outset of the semester. But also be conscious of the implicit contract, particularly as it evolves through precedent in the classroom interactions of your course. Monitor it and respect it throughout the semester.

2. You are a human being. Admit to and share your humanity.

This guideline is, perhaps, a corollary of the previous one. You can make your teaching life a very complicated one if you think teaching is neither nothing more nor nothing less than delivering information. What seems critical is to figure out how to be yourself through your teaching. Then you will accept the role of teacher easily and comfortably, and honesty will be easy to accomplish. Students see through artificial poses, as they should. Be yourself.

3. Use outside resources, including colleagues. Remember, you are not alone.

Your university has resources available to help with difficult situations that arise in the classroom. That you have been asked to teach is not, in itself, a validation sticker on your teaching abilities. Teaching skills can be developed and honed, and your university provides a lot of resources to help you in that growth. These may range from an ombudsmen to written policies on cheating and plagiarism to a guide on handling sexual harassment. One of the most valuable resources at your disposal consists of fellow faculty members and fellow TAs. Use colleagues as sounding boards as you develop your own teaching style and as you work your way through some of the problems that will inevitably challenge you.

4. Honesty is the best policy.

We have experienced very few issues in education that are not addressed best with honesty. If you do not know the answer to a student's question, admit it, but promise to find the answer before the next meeting. If you find yourself in a dilemma to which there is no ideal solution, say so. Provide a truthful reason for why a policy is what it is, and if you do not understand why it is what it is, say so, but once again promise to find out.

5. Listen with empathy and make sure you have all necessary information before making a decision.

Listen intelligently and carefully to a student when he or she comes to talk to you about a problem. Try to sidestep any preconceived notions about the student, the problem, the class as a whole, and so on. Put yourself into his or her shoes and attempt to determine both the meaning and feeling behind what the student is saying. Recognize those feelings (e.g., "It must feel terrible thatŠ"). Make sure you talk to all concerned parties before deciding on a course of action, and remember that the issue that is under discussion may not be the underlying problem.

6.Think strategically about the problem.

By strategic thinking we mean analyze the problem you have been confronted with by answering he following questions:

* What is my purpose in this situation? Every problem or difficulty presents an opportunity to accomplish one or more teaching goals. Can this situation provide a chance for learning? Can you use this problem to change the learning environment in the classroom? To the extent that you can determine beforehand what you want to achieve, you will be able to decide on an appropriate response more effectively.

* What are the characteristics of the students who are involved in this situation? Knowing something about the personalities and backgrounds of your students will help guide your response. For example, the norms in some cultures dictate that students should be silent in the classroom, neither participating in class discussions nor asking questions. This norm might account for the unusually quiet behavior of some students, and that knowledge could help you aid those students in modifying their style of expression.

* What responses and/or feelings are brought up in me as a result of this situation? How can I use my particular teaching style and communication skills most effectively? It is not unusual that teaching dilemmas bring up strong feelings in the instructor. For example, you may feel uncomfortable addressing gender issues in the classroom or trying to communicate with a student who is a nonnative English speaker. Recognizing these feelings in yourself will help you frame an effective response. Similarly, we all come with teaching and communication strengths that we can call on to help us cope with difficult situations. A sense of humor, the power to observe closely, or the ability to work at different levels of abstraction may all be used to handle effectively the kinds of pitfalls we have been discussing.

* What medium would be the most effective to use in this situation? Is this a situation that is best handle by a meeting with the student? By writing a memo or letter? By addressing the issue with the class as a whole? Each strategy has its own benefits and liabilities, and sometimes using a combination of media is best.

* What cultural variables are affecting the situation? Cultural variables are at work in the classroom on several different levels. Every course and classroom has its own climate, every university has its own distinct culture, and your students bring the norms of their home countries and/or of their peer groups into the classroom. Recognizing this diversity of norms will help you understand their impact on the situation and respond accordingly.

7. Think about ways a difficult situation might be turned into a learning opportunity.

All kinds of learning take place in the classroom in addition to mastering a certain subject area. Students are learning how to learn, how to work with others, how scholars in the field think, and so on. Often difficulties in the classroom can be used as vehicles that contribute to these kinds of learning.

8. Remember that each student is a member of a larger group that comprises the class as a whole. Keep issues of fairness in mind.

Often the thorniest dilemmas in teaching involve balancing the needs of the individual students with the needs and rights of the class as a whole. To use the quiet student as an example again, if a student is from a culture where silence in the classroom is a norm, should that student be penalized for not contributing to classroom discussion? On the other hand, is it fair to have two sets of standards in one classroom? And are the other students in the class missing valuable contributions because the expectation of particular modes of classroom behavior impedes the ability of some students to speak in public?

Another challenging situation is that of the monopolizing student. Students talk too much for a variety of reasons, including genuine excitement about a topic, insensitivity, nerves, and problems with impulse control. Generally, a good approach to dealing with both the excessively talkative or quiet student is to meet one-on-one outside class to talk and establish strategies to ameliorate the situation.

Similarly, recognize that once a student has asked a question (raised an issue, or expressed a viewpoint), that question may then become the question of other members of the class, and it may no longer be sufficient to respond to that individual student alone.

These suggestions are not meant to be inclusive. Instead, they are an attempt to help TAs think through ways to handle the problems, pitfalls, and surprises they will face in their teaching careers. We hope these guidelines will provide a springboard to an ongoing conversation about teaching in higher education.

The posting below looks at alternatives to campus-wide wireless networks in these difficult economic times. It is by Michael L. Rodgers, Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and is #45 in a series of selected excerpts from the NT&LF newsletter reproduced here as part of our "Shared Mission Partnership." NT&LF has a wealth of information on all aspects of teaching and learning. If you are not already a subscriber, you can check it out at [http://www.ntlf.com/] The on-line edition of the Forum--like the printed version - offers subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share new ways of helping students reach the highest levels of learning. National Teaching and Learning Forum Newsletter, Volume 18, Number 2, February, 2009. © Copyright 1996-2009. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Handling Problems, Pitfalls, and Surprises in Teaching: Some Guidelines

Not Business as Usual!

In December 11, 2008, a letter (1) from my university's President to the campus community warned that general revenue operations appropriations for the upcoming fiscal year may be "dramatically reduced." The letter went on to reveal that key legislators have requested impact statements for appropriation reductions of 15, 20, and 25%.

Despite instructions from my President not to "panic," and reassurances that the institution's response to the shortfall would be formulated through an "open, public, and collegial" process, uncertainty and unease are widespread. Emergency department meetings, program reviews, and public forums to identify cost-saving measures are common. Search committees charged to fill open positions accelerated their work, in hopes of producing signed con- tracts before hiring freezes went into effect. In general, plans to expand and improve our capabilities have been reshaped to reflect a survival-mode outlook. One notably pessimistic colleague sent an e-mail to my department titled, "the sky is falling." People are worried for the future of their courses, programs, institutions, and careers.

Debate Amidst Uncertainty

The somber budget news came as the University debated the merits of investing in a ubiquitous wireless network. Proponents of campus- wide wireless (wi-fi) were not hard to find. Those charged with recruiting students to campus advocated strong investment in technology, so as to maintain the university's attractive image with prospective students. Recruiters frequently reported prospective students' keen interest in the level of technology in place, as expressed through technology-focused questions. The tenor of the questions was less about discovery of new technologies, and more about reassurance that familiar technologies - including wi-fi - were freely available on campus. Technology was seen as a "me-too" defense against competing institutions' technology offerings. Recruiters pointed to media coverage and ads proclaiming the high level of technology available at competing institutions: campus-wide wi-fi was often cited as strong support for those claims.

Anecdotal evidence from students already on campus suggested that students would bring laptop computers to class, and rely on them more heavily while studying between classes, if the campus had ubiquitous wi-fi. Some faculty, staff, and students saw wi-fi as another tool to be used to build and maintain campus community.
Emergency responders proposed a wi-fi based campus-wide emergency alert system. Those faculty not threatened by the prospect of students working online during classroom lectures looked to ubiquitous wi-fi as a platform for experimentation in teaching and learning applications, especially those involving student-student collaboration.

Campus politics also favored ubiquitous wi-fi: existing wi-fi hotspots were installed (vide infra) in accord with the desires of high- profile groups, such as Student Government and those units on campus that had independent funding to pay for wi-fi. Ubiquitous wi-fi was seen as an inclusive, democratic solution to Internet access on campus.

It is fair to say that support for ubiquitous wi-fi was broad. So why was there even a debate? Certainly, cost was a concern: some in the IT office placed a million-dollar price tag on a wi-fi installation robust enough to reach the entire campus. Even before the recession raised deep concerns about the budget, the prospect of funding a relatively slow network that would indiscriminately bring Internet access to restrooms, janitorial closets, and other noninstructional areas seemed wasteful and overdone. Security was also a concern, especially for the IT folks who would be responsible for it.

The argument usually pointed to increased risk as a consequence of the very ubiquity that wi-fi was intended to provide: "Wi-fi is inherently more difficult to secure because access to the network is much easier than with a wired network." Moreover, the campus (including four branch campuses) was already heavily invested in a wired network, with wired computers and network drops in classrooms, offices, dorms, and many other areas around campus where learning was expected to occur. The wired network overcame numerous challenges associated with building construction: some buildings were so impervious to broadcast signals that, in the words of one IT staffer (2), "the NSA could move in there."

And, the campus already had significant wireless access: over 70 wireless access points (WAPs) were installed in areas other than residence halls, with additional WAPs in the residence hall student lounges, generally following policies to place WAPs where students are (3). Interestingly, when asked about the need for a wireless network, students in an honors political science class (4) were skeptical, believing that wi-fi made access to course content too easy, so that students would stop coming to class as a result.

Wi-fi Alternative?

Perhaps as a result of the concerns raised, the University's President placed a moratorium on wireless installations, to give the campus community an opportunity to develop a thoughtful plan for wireless access. One alternative to wi-fi floated during the moratorium was to implement a network based on cell phone technology, such as the 3G network used by multi-featured cell phones, of which the iPhone is the most notable example.

Proponents of the cell phone network saw it as the most cost-effective way to deploy a campus- wide emergency alert system. Moreover, there was a sense, consistent with published surveys, that the mobile phone, not the laptop computer, will continue to be the most widely-used connectivity technology. For example, in the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey (5) "The Future of the Internet III," nearly 80% of experts surveyed agreed with the statement, "[t]he mobile phone is the primary connection tool for most people in the world" in the year 2020.

Cell phones can even support increasingly popular "clicker"-based pedagogies. For example, Poll Everywhere (6) allows instructors to collect student responses through a text message system, obviating the need to distribute stand-alone infrared (IR) or radio-frequency (RF) "clicker" devices to students.

Teaching and Learning When Budgets Are Bad

Our debate over ubiquitous wireless was put on hold for planning purposes, but now the budget threatens to delay a decision. Still, with the university hoping to defray cuts in its state appropriation through increased fee collections from higher enrollments and improved retention, the delay may be brief. In any case, a decision to implement campus-wide wi-fi, opt for a cell phone solution, or do nothing at all, will shape the way that our students use technology to learn. Speed, cost, and security issues aside, both the "do-nothing"
approach and the laptop-centric wi-fi solution would connect students to the Internet (and to each other) on machines that support the most powerful software tools that we have available on campus. Students would work with information in a Windows environment that is designed to support sophisticated date treatments using multiple software tools simultaneously.

On the other hand, a phone- based network, like the Information Commons that we have previously (7) explored, possesses an informality that suggests spontaneity and simplicity. If students want to do "quick stuff," such as a simple Google search (8), a check of the day's weather report, or a brief note to members of a student's project team, cell phones provide the easiest access. Is this enough, or do students need more? Thus, the choice is more an issue of platform than connectivity: where are the people who are most likely to use a Windows machine - walking down the street or in a lab?

In more prosperous times, the solution to the problem of ubiquitous connectivity might have been to host BOTH a wi-fi and a phone-based network, because both phones and laptops support student interactions with information and communities that we would find worthwhile and deeply connected to student practices and expectations. But these are not ordinary times. If you are a faculty member contemplating how you want your students to interact with information, consider carefully what kind of network your institution maintains. Better yet, get involved in the debate about the kind of network your institution SHOULD HAVE, to provide guidance about ways students SHOULD interact with content. In these days of constrained budgets, infrastructure decisions like the one outlined here may be the only avenue that remains to influence the way that teaching and learning happen on campus.

Endnotes

1 Ken Dobbins, "Southeast Newswire," e- mail to Southeast Missouri State University faculty and staff, 11 Dec. 2008.

2 A. Sprengel, Personal interview, 12 Jan. 2009.

3 For example, DePaul's practice in "DePaul University chooses an SSL VPN to connect students and staff seamlessly and easily to its wireless network," Communications News Sept. 2008: 17-20.

4 B. Smentkowski, Personal interview, 7 Jan. 2009.

5 Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, "The Future of the Internet III," Reports: Internet Evolution, 14 Dec. 2008 (Pew Internet & American Life Project, Washington, DC). Accessed 15 Jan. 2009. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/ 270/report_display.asp.

6 http://www.polleverywhere.com/.

7 M. L. Rodgers and D. A. Starrett, "Are You a 21st Century Library-Ready Instructor?" The National Teaching and Learning Forum, May 2006: 15 (3).

8 Readers who recall my recent TechPed column on aging will recognize the value of a quick and simple Google search done anytime/anyplace.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor
--

The posting below has some excellent advice on conflict resolution for new, and existing, department chairs. It is by Teresa Holder is chair of the Organizational Studies, Division at Peace College. Email: tholder@peace.edu.The article appeared in The Department Chair: A Resource for Academic Administrators, Spring, 2009, Vol. 19, No. 4., pp 11-12. For further information on how to subscribe, as well as pricing and discount information, please contact, Sandy Quade, Account Manager, John Wiley & Sons, Phone: (203) 643-8066 (squadepe@wiley.com). or see: http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-DCH.html

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Do Students Need a Campus- Wide Wireless Network?

Recently I received a lengthy and detailed email from a senior member of the division instructing me to reprimand another colleague who had not done something this colleague thought should have been done.

Actually, I thought this conflict had finally been resolved months ago. This particular situation was one I inherited - with a long history and deeply rooted. Symptoms of the dispute surface at seemingly random times. It's like the Hatfield's and the McCoy's. You'd like to think you're an effective enough manager that had you been there at the beginning, you could have prevented it. But now, layers of the conflict are somewhat indefinable and unsolvable.

One of the greatest challenges-yet essential job duties of the department chair-is being willing to deal with conflict. The chair's role also includes knowing when and how to be involved.

In this article, I share several conflict resolution strategies and principles that I've used both as a department and division chair, including seek to understand the problem before responding, use the principle of "least energy," change the channel, think of all communication as conflict prevention, and develop a vision for resolution.

Seek to Understand the Problem Before Responding

Although the situation just described has been perplexing, there have been many occasions when simply listening to someone's concern has resolved a problem. Once the problem is clearly defined, often a clear solution comes into focus. Even if the solution doesn't come immediately, the person at least may feel heard and valued. Behind every conflict is an explanation. Behind every problem with productivity or cultural misalignment is a story. All of us are faced with the pressures of work-life balance that may impact our performance on the job.

Many times I've realized the most effective thing I could do is to listen. Rather than sit in the office, I often suggest a walk on campus and through the nearby neighborhood-I with a small notepad and pen. We come back feeling better and with a clearer perspective about the situation. To get to the heart of the matter, ask yourself:

* What is the person saying with words?
* What is the predominant emotion in this situation?
* What other sources of information do I need to gather to truly understand what's going on?

Use the Principle of "Least Energy"

Not everything can or should be resolved in the workplace. Just like people, conflict situations are often complex. Some issues may present themselves as workplace problems but are really personal in nature. In many situations we need only to achieve the professional cooperation necessary to work together or focus on the task. In the workplace we can ask for behavioral change more easily than we can demand a change of heart or attitude. The most effective approach may be the thing that requires the least involvement. Here are some suggestions.

Watch, wait, or ignore.

Some things will take care of themselves. For example, many departments have individuals who are simply negative by nature. As long as the other members don't take their negative comments too literally, much of their interaction can be understood as benign rather than as an attempt to pick a fight.

Affirm positives.

I'll explain why it's helpful to have information by a certain date and thank faculty in advance for working to get their reports or schedules turned in on time.

Faculty may be struggling in one area of performance but excelling at another. I can affirm people where they are doing well.

Take action minimally, informally, or generally.

I may include general reminders about deadlines to the group, without having to target individuals. I may share a concern or an observation over a meal rather than in a conference in my office.

Use policies, processes, or programs already in place.

As an example, colleges have processes and policies for handling various types of disputes. As a chair, my role is not to engage in every complaint that arrives on my desk but to help students or faculty understand and use the processes available to them.

Likewise, if I'm using a mediation model to help individuals or small groups work through an issue, I'll explain that the process will provide the "rules" of how we're going to approach and discuss the presenting issue.

Develop new policies, processes, or programs to address the situation.

In the last few years the issue of secondhand smoke and the locations of the designated smoking areas have increasingly become problems on our campus. My college recently launched a successful tobacco-free campus campaign leading up to the adoption of a tobacco-free campus policy. The new policy has received strong support from the various constituent groups across campus, including smokers. The policy also resolved the issue of smoking-related littering and the corridor of smoke at building entrances.

Change the Channel

A common problem I've observed in the workplace is the use of the wrong medium to convey a message. People often use email to discuss and sort through issues that should only be addressed in person or by phone. More is accomplished in person when decisions require discussion and a reliance on nonverbal cues for understanding.

Recently I observed a pattern of conflict erupting between two departments when it came time to plan for semester course scheduling. These faculty units were interdependent, yet housed in two different divisions and located on different parts of campus. They rarely saw each other or interacted. They had to coordinate both their course offerings and staffing, but- out of convenience-communicated only by email. When the problem came to me, I had to advise faculty to respond to emails by picking up the phone and communicating directly. Of course, playing a little phone tag was less convenient than sending email missiles, but much more was accomplished. Talking kept the exchanges more professional and much of the misunderstanding was eliminated.

Within the division I've had to encourage departments to intentionally create common department meeting times with other units with whom they share faculty or projects. When a department needs to schedule a meeting with another, they've already built in the time and space to do so.

I also have a time limit on our monthly division meetings, which means monitoring how many issues can go on the agenda for any one meeting. Honoring a reasonable time limit on the larger meeting enables the subgroups to have short joint meetings afterwards, if needed.

Some organizations are limiting the use of internal email by intentionally restricting its use. For example, as a way to cut down on its overuse, employees may be instructed to communicate only in person or by phone with one another on Fridays. Email is a convenient tool- I don't know how we ever did business without it-but it's a poor channel for complex decision making, relationship building, or conflict resolution.

Think of All Communication as Conflict Prevention

Many employees see department meetings as a nuisance, but the value of a well-run meeting is that it provides important face time, builds a foundation for communicating, and provides opportunities for team building. Having successful interpersonal relationships makes communicating by phone or email more effective as well. When conflict does occur, we're more likely to give the other party more latitude and judge intent more positively when there's a good relationship.

When there have been the funds to do so, I've arranged for either the first or the midyear faculty meeting to be off campus in a scenic and comfortable location for team building. Having a light agenda, providing a meal, and giving the faculty time to discuss larger issues has helped us build relationships. Interacting out of our normal setting also helps us create new patterns of relating.

I'm also intentional in my communication by making sure all meetings and emails are positive in tone. In addition, to emphasize a strong teaching excellence agenda in the division, we incorporate a brief portion of all our meetings to teaching tips or some type of faculty development on teaching. It emphasizes what our true purpose is as a group-not just discussing proposals or rehashing old issues.

Develop a Vision for Resolution

When I'm mediating a situation, a common question I'll ask is: "What would you like to see as an outcome to this meeting?" While agreement on the presenting issues may be difficult to achieve, often the parties will readily identify and agree that they want the bickering and emotional drain to cease. We find ways to achieve that as a common goal.

I've never met anyone who didn't appreciate a well-run meeting. Agreeing to ground rules to help us achieve that outcome leads to better decision making and better processes. By doing so, we create a vision of what we want to see happen and a positive goal to work toward. ţ

This article is based on a presentation at the 26th annual Academic Chairpersons Conference, February 11-13, 2009, Orlando, Florida.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting below looks at the importance of "how" students learn as well as "what" students learn. It is #44 in the monthly series called Carnegie Foundation Perspectives and is by educator Bill Cerbin. The Foundation invites your response at: CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org. © 2009 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 51 Vista Lane, Stanford, CA 94305 Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Conflict: A Most Difficult Task

In higher education the dominant mode of assessment is to measure what students have learned in a course or program. By measuring what students learn educators can monitor student progress, determine learning gaps and gains, and document achievement.

But measuring what students learn is of limited use if our goal is to improve their future performance. It is akin to taking a person's temperature. You may learn the individual has a fever but the measurement produces no insight into the cause. Suppose we find that students score in the 60th percentile on a standardized test or that half the students in a course have significant writing problems. What should we do to improve future performance? Unfortunately, the assessment data provide little direction. The result is a kind of guesswork by which we consider alternative teaching practices or programs without understanding how or why they would work better than standard approaches.

To reduce the guesswork we need assessment that reveals how students learn-how they interpret and make sense of the subject, where they stumble, what they do when they do not understand the material, how they respond to different instructional practices, and so on. Understanding the basis of student performance can help us identify appropriate teaching practices or approaches.

A compelling example of this form of assessment is the Berkeley calculus project which took place more than 25 years ago. At the time there was a large disparity between the performance of African American students and other students in introductory calculus at UC Berkeley. About 40 percent of African American students received grades of D or F in calculus compared to about 5-6 percent of Caucasian and Asian students. Concerned about the disparity, mathematics educator Uri Treisman decided to explore the problem by focusing on how students learn. He wanted to understand

. . . how students actually learn calculus. Do they use the textbook? With whom and why do they
discuss homework assignments? What do they do when they get stuck on a problem?-the really
basic questions about how students learn mathematics. (Uri Treisman's Dolciani Lecture)

Treisman observed 40 students (20 African American and 20 Chinese American) as they went about studying and learning calculus. He was able to identify key differences in the ways that successful and unsuccessful students tried to learn mathematics. For example, Chinese students formed study groups outside of class and devoted their time to the most difficult material rather than simply reviewing the mathematics they already knew. They compared solutions, tested one another, and talked through difficult concepts. The African American students also invested a lot of time studying calculus, but did it alone. Only two ever studied with classmates.

Based on a detailed understanding of these patterns, Treisman established a program to alter the way students learned calculus in the course. It included, for example, "honors sections" of the course in which small groups of students worked on particularly challenging mathematics problems. The program addressed each obstacle that had been uncovered by observing the students. After the changes were fully implemented the percentage of D and F grades for African American students dropped to 4 percent, a stunning improvement. (See a contemporary version of the project at Emerging Scholars Program.)

A large scale study like the Berkeley project is not a practical option for most teachers. However, assessing how students learn can be integrated with classroom teaching. Teachers can scale down to examine how students learn during a single exercise, assignment, or class period, or focus on how they learn a specific concept, skill, or ability. (See the Carnegie sponsored project, Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges. http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/programs/index.asp?key=26)

Consider several methods accessible to most classroom teachers.

Observations of Student Learning. As the venerable American philosopher Yogi Berra put it, "You can observe a lot just by watching." What better way to explore how students learn than to observe them engaged in learning during a class period? Teachers can do this during class discussions, group work, active learning exercises, online chat or discussion forums. Better yet, instructors can do periodic observations of student learning in one another's classes and then meet to discuss their findings.

Think Aloud. The think aloud is a procedure during which students say out loud what they are thinking while working on a task. Think aloud pair problem solving involves student pairs, in which one student acts as problem solver, the other as listener. The instructor circulates among the pairs to observe students thinking aloud as they work on an assigned task.

Lesson Study. In lesson study several instructors jointly plan, teach, observe and analyze student learning in the context of a single lesson. As one member of the group teaches the lesson, the others observe students and collect evidence of their learning. Lesson study allows instructors to observe the interaction between instructional activities and student learning during an entire class period. (See examples of lesson studies by instructors at University of Wisconsin campuses at College Lesson Study Project.)

Strategies that probe the learning process offer close up views of students grappling with new material, engaging in complex thinking and responding to instruction in the classroom. For example, when asked to explain social behavior college students tend to rely on a single dominant factor such as a person's upbringing or a personality trait. Psychology instructors at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse used lesson study to explore ways to move students beyond these everyday theories of behavior. They designed a lesson in which students produced more varied and comprehensive explanations consistent with discipline-based models of behavior. But exposing students to the "correct theory" and engaging them in more complex theorizing did not change their minds. As one student said, "There may be all these other factors but I still believe the way you act depends on what kind of person you are." The episode prompted the instructor to develop sets of mini-cases in which students used psychological principles to explain behavior in "real life like" situations throughout the course.

College teachers are aware of gaps in student learning as a result of routinely grading their students' work. Encouraging teachers to assess student learning as it takes place in the classroom can help them answer questions about how and why the gaps exist. Assessing how students learn can lead to the kind of information we need to make decisions about how to improve teaching and learning.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor
--

The posting below looks give some terrific advice on preparing for your Ph.D orals exam. It is by Eric Hallstein, Michael Kiparsky, and Anne Short, doctoral candidates in the energy and resources group, an interdisciplinary graduate program at the University of California at Berkeley. The posting originally appeared in the May 15, 2009 Chronicle Careers section [http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/05/2009051501c.htm] of the Chronicle of Higher Education [http://chronicle.com/]. Copyright © 2009 by The Chronicle of Higher Education. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Assessing How Students Learn

It is like standing in front of a firing squad. Your executioners are four professors who are experts in their fields. You writhe before them as they take turns posing questions almost beyond your grasp. The threat hangs constantly over your head: Fail to satisfy them, and your graduate career will end.

That's how many graduate students imagine their oral exam. But the reality doesn't have to be that bad.

While it's true that a Ph.D. oral exam can be the most terrifying hurdle in graduate school, it can also be a positive and rewarding experience. Truly. For many students, the stress associated with preparing for orals is largely because they will experience the exam format for the first, and last, time. Too often, no one explains what to expect or how to prepare.

We know because we've been there. We're all doctoral students in the sciences and social sciences who have successfully passed our oral exams. And we are about to let you in on the real secret of orals: The outcome can be determined, in large part, in advance of the actual test. Your performance is the end product of a much longer process of collaborative learning and demonstration of knowledge that starts when you first meet the members of your exam committee.

The scope, structure, and timing of oral exams vary among institutions and departments. Some exams test your subject-area knowledge, some focus on your proposed research, and many cover a combination of the two. The nature of the exam may not be clearly spelled out to students, or it may be difficult to understand before you have been through the experience.

Your first task is to clarify what your exam will be about. As far in advance as possible, talk with students, faculty members, and advisers to answer some basic questions: What will be the structure of your exam? How much material will it cover? Will the exam focus on knowledge of your chosen fields, your proposed research, or both? Note that there may not be one-size-fits-all answers even within a single department.

As you proceed through your preparation, make a conscious decision about what the oral exam means to you. Frame it as an opportunity, rather than an obstacle, as you solidify your expertise, refine your research plan, and strengthen your relationships with members of your exam committee (some of whom may serve on your dissertation committee). This process will not only help you develop more effective studying and organizational habits, but also help you become proficient at discussing your research.

Prepare your exam committee

As soon as you know the members of your committee, meet individually with each of them. Every interaction you have with your committee will make the exam itself more predictable and your preparation more focused.

It's helpful to view those conversations as informal, friendly negotiations. In many cases, you can steer your committee members toward your objectives, although you should not expect to perfectly predict what will be on the exam.

If you have the freedom to construct your own committee, select people you like, people who like you, and people whom you think will like one another. If your department assigns faculty members to your committee, learn as much as you can about them and their research.

Ask committee members about their exam style and about the scope of the exam. It's fair to ask: "I know the exam will mostly be an extemporaneous conversation, but are there particular topics you want me to demonstrate knowledge of?" (Note: This question is one step away from "What are you going to ask me?") You need to establish expectations clearly with your committee to avoid nasty surprises and help make your studying efficient. Overcommunicate.

Try to meet with each committee member once or twice a month. That may not be normal practice in all departments, but push for it if you can. In each meeting, choose a topic, a book, or a paper to discuss, so as to gradually demonstrate your knowledge and expose areas that deserve more attention.

Develop reading lists

Many students are responsible for identifying their exam "fields" and developing reading lists that will define the content of the exam.

Define your fields carefully. Write a brief statement that delineates each field and how it relates to your research. That statement will help you create a focused reading list and may give your committee a better sense of the boundaries of your preparation.

Keep your readings lists as short as possible, but remember that expectations range widely. Natural-science students in our program may have 10 seminal journal articles on their reading lists, while social-science students often have dozens of books. In many departments, your reading list is a proxy for a wider body of knowledge you are expected to know that includes the context, theory, and significance of the articles. Even a short list can be quite comprehensive. To really understand a key paper, you may have to trace it backward and forward in time, reading papers it cites and those that cite it later.

Discuss your reading list with your committee members as early as possible. Start small, as professors are more likely to add to a draft reading list than to subtract.

Organize and study

The oral exam is probably unlike any test you have ever taken. You will need a good system of taking notes and synthesizing information. You will also want to practice communicating your knowledge and thinking on your feet during the exam. Given the magnitude of the studying involved here, burnout is common. Our suggestions:

* Project management is critical since you will work toward a test date many months in advance. Before you pick an exam date, create a study syllabus that realistically charts out a schedule for mastering your readings and for accomplishing other key milestones. Leave plenty of time to synthesize information and allow some elbow room for the inevitable slowdowns. Make sure your schedule includes a couple of long weekends off. Once you've mapped out a time line, stick to it.

* Create a support group to work through concepts with others, and practice expressing your ideas orally.

* Don't forget what is not on the list - you are being evaluated on your general expertise, so give yourself latitude to think broadly during your studying. Make a point to know the major historic breakthroughs and shifts in your fields. In addition to each text, understand the main ideas, themes, actors, and conflicts of your fields.

* Many people find it effective to build the overall picture of their field as they study, rather than waiting until the end. Pace yourself. You want to know what authors said (or did) and how each one relates to the others.

* For each reading, ask: How does this reading affect or influence my research? The reading could influence the study design or framing, exemplify a theoretical argument, or highlight a gap. The exam is about your ability to engage with the material, not to memorize it.

* Write, write, and write some more. Orals are unlike class exams where you have to remember the material for only a few days. You need to become fluent in your discipline. Whether it is on notecards or multipage appendices, it is helpful for most people to systematically take notes on each source as soon as they finish reading it. You may want to record a two-sentence summary and list methods, key findings, and the source's relevance to your research. Those summaries will be a helpful reference for your studying.

* Get some rest. Connections happen best when one is rested. Fresh ideas often emerge spontaneously in off hours.

The final push

In the final few weeks leading up to the exam, shift your focus toward synthesis of your readings, clear articulation of your ideas, and understanding the broader context of your chosen fields. The broad relevance of your subject matter is fair game in many departments. Think about how your topic fits into the "real world." Read the newspaper, attend relevant seminars, skim relevant journals.

About three weeks before your exam, recruit a few senior students to create a mock version. Follow that with a second mock exam a week later. Take those sessions seriously. Many students find practicing for orals to be their most important study aid. Even if you know the material, you need to practice communicating what you know under pressure.

About two weeks before the exam, start scaling back on your studying. Your mind needs time to rest and prepare. Shift from learning new material to synthesizing. Just before the exam, take a day or two off completely. Do something fun to help you relax. Get plenty of sleep.

Exam day

You are ready. Your hard work is about to pay off. Focus on the immense amount you have learned, not on the details that may have slipped through the cracks. The people on your committee want you to succeed - even if they might make you sweat in the process.

If you give a presentation, use it to show your committee members that you are ready for whatever they throw at you, and as a way to try to steer the conversation. Consider bringing a couple extra copies of written materials you have prepared, such as your research proposal or syntheses of your fields. Take notes as you are questioned and briefly outline your responses.

Try as much as possible to make the oral exam a conversation, rather than a question-and-answer session. Think of yourself as a teacher, rather than as someone being examined. You just may know more about the questions being asked than anyone else in the room.

If you are unclear about what a faculty member is asking, request clarification. If you are stuck and unable to proceed, ask for a slight push in the right direction. It can sometimes help to work things through from first principles. State your assumptions clearly before launching into quantitative derivations or theoretical discussions. That way, faculty members can more easily understand what you are doing and redirect you, if necessary.

Remember to breathe.

The central goal of the oral exam is to find the limits of your knowledge. You will be pushed into discussing things you do not know well. At some point, "I don't know" is a correct answer. However, "I don't know, but here is how I would go about answering that question ..." is always a better one.

After the exam

Celebrate. Invite your friends out and take a well-deserved hiatus so that you are ready to return to your work.

The strong relationships you have built, the intellectual foundation you have established, and the approaches to learning you have developed will all help you to write your dissertation. In the end, the oral exam can be a satisfying entry point into the next phase of your research.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

--

The posting below, a bit longer than most, looks at the benefits of E-portfolios as seen from both student and faculty perspectives . It is by Ross Miller, senior director of assessment for learning, Association of American Colleges and Universities and Wende Morgaine, VALUE initiative manager, Association of American Colleges and Universities. The article is from the Winter 2009 issue of Peer Review, Volume 11, Number 1. Peer Review is a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities [www.aacu.org/peerreview] Copyright © 2009, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: An Orals Survival Kit

"A well-executed e-portfolio program is an incredible tool for higher education. They provide institutions with authentic assessments of student learning and promote the deeper learning that we want for our students. I don't understand why more institutions aren't using them." Candyce Reynolds, associate professor, Post-Secondary, Adult, and Continuing Education, School of Education, Portland State University

>From matriculation through graduation, the goals for expected student learning are wide-ranging and ambitious. After reviewing mission statements from multiple institutions, examining various accreditation guidelines, and interviewing business and community leaders, AAC&U has found consensus among these resources that college learning should include broad knowledge, powerful intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and the ability to integrate years of learning into a connected, functional whole. The search for ways to foster and document such complex learning for all students has led some campuses to develop e-portfolios as teaching, learning, and assessment tools. Those institutions are now discovering how to use e-portfolios to inform the process of improvement from the individual student level up to the institutional level.

Students generally use e-portfolios to collect their work, reflect upon strengths and weaknesses, and strive to improve. Equally beneficial are the data that faculty, departments, and institutions derive when they assess the work in portfolios, reflect upon it in curricular contexts, and use the data and reflections to plan for improvement. E-portfolios provide a rich resource for both students and faculty to learn about achievement of important outcomes over time, make connections among disparate parts of the curriculum, gain insights leading to improvement, and develop identities as learners or as facilitators of learning.

The increasing use of e-portfolios on campuses naturally raises questions about their impact and effectiveness. Through the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project, we have collected reflections on e-portfolio use from both faculty and students that detail their reactions. These reflections come from campuses experienced with e-portfolios and selected for participation in the VALUE project. We believe that they represent some of the common benefits of well-run e-portfolio programs.

Good e-portfolio practice always includes the processes included within the broad concept of metacognition-having students reflect on their work and think about their progress in learning. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000; 18, 21) call metacognition "an internal conversation" in which students monitor their own understanding and state that teachers should explicitly emphasize metacognition because it "can enhance student achievement and develop in students the ability to learn independently." E-portfolios provide rich opportunities for metacognition through periodic (and often required) reflections which may help students develop an array of outcomes and skills. Reflection on work saved in e-portfolios can
* build learners' personal and academic identities as they complete complex projects and reflect on their
capabilities and progress,
* facilitate the integration of learning as students connect learning across courses and time,
* be focused on developing self-assessment abilities in which students judge the quality of work using the
same criteria experts use,
* help students plan their own academic pathways as they come to understand what they know and are able to
do and what they still need to learn.

The reflections of students and faculty below mention these and other outcomes. Reading about the experiences that students and faculty have with e-portfolios, one begins to understand why so many campuses are exploring e-portfolio programs.

Student Voices

The e-portfolio experience gave me a chance to find out about the skills I should be learning in
college and there are ways that I can keep track of how I am doing. I was not taught how to think
in terms of outcomes of skills so it was kind of challenging at first. When I was trying to figure out
what types of knowledge, skills, or abilities I had learned from volunteer or internship
experiences, it was very helpful to go to the Pathways Outcomes in my e-portfolio and think about
how they applied to the experiences I was writing about for my public portfolio. - Third-year
student, University of Michigan

Structured reflections helped this student analyze her learning experiences to reveal and understand outcomes that might otherwise have been missed. While course syllabi and college catalogs may declare what learning is supposed to take place, the structured reflection required for an e-portfolio can push students to "own" learning outcomes when they describe their progress and cite specific evidence of learning within their collections of work.

I have had many amazing experiences at Michigan, but I didn't really know what they meant or how
they all fit together.Š Now, I see patterns and themes in the work I have been doing, how things
fit together. The work I've been doing actually makes senseŠ there has been some direction to it
all along. I also realize that my work is a reflection of me and that my identity and background [an
African-American woman growing up in Detroit] have always played a part in my learningŠI see how
I have already made a difference in my communities. - Third-year student, University of Michigan

This student writes about integration of learning-"how things fit together"-resulting from e-portfolio and reflection. She also refers to her growing self-knowledge and confidence in her ability to work effectively in different settings.

I didn't know what an e-portfolio was when I first heard about it in classŠ.My professor suggested
to me that I develop the "about me" section of my e-portfolio because there, I would have the
opportunity to write more about myself and so I did. In that first e-portfolio I wrote about
Palmira (Valle), the city where I was born in Colombia, and I wrote about Medellin, where I used to
spend my vacations of schoolŠ.and I wrote about the cultural assimilation process I was going
through.

The second time I was asked to develop my e-portfolio, I had a lot more to share. I was in third
semester at LaGuardia and I had already taken most of the classes connected to my major, so I
decided include my academic work and goals that would make my family proud of meŠ.my priority
was to focus on my personal growth in my schoolwork and what I was learning at LaGuardia. After
putting up my projects in my e-portfolio, I then started to think more about my future and my
career.

Now, with more knowledge of computer programs for developing Web pages, I decided to use my
e-portfolio as an opportunity to show and demonstrate all the skills that I have learned throughout
my journey at LaGuardia Community CollegeŠ.All together, my third e-portfolio demonstrates me
as a professional who is looking toward her future and who has many goals to reach.

Not only have I gained technical skills, but I've learned how to express myself as a serious student
and a hard worker. The different sections of my e-portfolio made me realize the important things
about how I see myself starting at LaGuardia, how I see myself now and in my future. My
experience with e-portfolio at LaGuardia has made me see more of whom I want to be and how I
can accomplish my goals. - Student, LaGuardia College

E-portfolios can be used for different purposes that may shift as students move through their programs. This community college student consciously (with professor guidance) began with self-exploration and expression (the "about me" section of her e-portfolio), moving on to communicating her learning and academic goals to her family. Finally, she emphasized professional aspects of learning by posting her most valued work from her major to represent her significant achievements and learning over time. This essay shows impressive development and self-awareness as the student takes control of her personal, academic, and professional planning and accomplishments.

I feel that the process has enhanced my understanding of the overall higher education
experienceŠ.I have always felt confused and irritated by the lack of connection between my
general education requirements and my core department requirements. I think that the e-portfolio
is a great way to link the two types of classes that you take during your time at Portland State. I
am a very visual person and the template of the e-portfolio was easy to follow and it truly helped
to achieve the goal of linking my personal work to my personal goal. I also believe that this process
was very empowering for me. It is easy to get discouraged with work that you complete during
classes because you complete a paper, receive a grade, and then that paper is simply stored in a
folder on your computer. This process helped me to look back on the work that I had completed in
prior classes and place more value on the work that I had created. I was able to value the work
because each assignment that I complete I have taken one step closer to completing a personal or
professional goal of my own. It was encouraging to see that I was not attending classes just to
receive a piece of paper that declares I graduated from college, I was attending college for my
own personal and professional growth. - Student, Portland State University

The student who wrote this statement has realized a number of benefits from the e-portfolio experience. The integrative function is highlighted in the comments about connecting general education requirements with learning in the major. The structure and even the appearance of the portfolio template helped to organize the student's thinking and enhance his academic planning-"linking personal work to my personal goal." There is the realization that by creating a collection of completed assignments and looking back through the collection for coherence and meaning, one better understands progress toward goals and learns to appreciate the work. Finally, there is the very powerful realization that going to college is about more than the degree-the learning is important and, upon reflection, makes sense.

I didn't realize the importance of the work I was doingŠ all the communication skills I was learning
while doing research.Š When I had a chance to reflect on it and was asked to describe the
experience to others in my e-portfolio, I realized that I had learned a lot more than I thought. I was
so focused on getting into business school, that if I had not had the space to stop and reflect on my
experiences, I would have never known how I much I actually gained from everything I did my first
year. - Second-year student, University of Michigan

Reflection can be an awakening for students and serves to distill the meaning from experiences. Referring to a music performance of variable quality, a teacher of one of the authors once said "there's gold in that gravel." Reflection is like panning for gold, finding the valuable nuggets from among the gravel of day-to-day campus experience. Even for students with a focus on goals, as seemed to be the case for this student, pausing to reflect proved to be critical to making valuable learning conscious and more likely to be used in the future.

Faculty Voices

Student perceptions of learning could, of course, be questioned as self-serving or inaccurate-they are, after all, not direct evidence of learning. However, faculty working with students who are building e-portfolios and reflecting upon the work in them confirm the same kinds of learning that students claim.

At the University of Michigan, first-year organic chemistry students receive honors credit for
participating in weekly, two-hour, peer-led "studio" sessions. Third- and fourth-year students who
excelled in the courses previously lead these sessions, and are under my direct supervision. These
peer teachers are all extremely positive about the integrative e-portfolio process. At our weekly
leaders meeting last night, they launched into a discussion (without being solicited) about the value
they are getting from the structured reflection exercises... both in terms of their teaching and (I
suspect what I am hearing) on their overall college experience. They seem to benefit from being
asked to explicitly think about how their teaching/leadership experiences can be transferred into
other aspects of their lives. I have been mentoring a comparable group of student leaders since
1994, and I am noticing that this group seems to possess a degree of maturity as teachers/leaders
that is higher than any of the groups from years past. I usually have to prod them a bit throughout
the term to (a) think through the various challenges they are encountering, and (b) step up to the
leadership position each week as the facilitator for our weekly dinner meetings. This group seems to
need very little guidance from me. I think this is all rather impressive, given that we are yet only
four to five weeks into the semester! I look forward to learning more about how they change as a
result of the process. - Brian P. Coppola, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry, associate chair,
Department of Chemistry, codirector of the IDEA Institute, University of Michigan

The independence and speed of learning of these students are noteworthy and it would be especially interesting to investigate whether subsequent groups of leaders benefit in similar ways from their portfolio experiences. This professor also notes that these students have enhanced their ability to transfer learning to new situations.

A different group of student leaders at University of Michigan were transformed in several ways through building e-portfolios and reflecting upon their work and experiences. This professor notes integrative, goal setting, and personal understanding outcomes for students.

Student leaders at the University of Michigan say in focus groups and individual interviews that what
is most lacking in their education is making sense of the myriad activities, community work,
research, and coursework with which they engage. This generation of college students describes
themselves as "doers." These leaders know, however, that "doing" as a substitute for "thinking and
integrating" has not served them well. A group of these leaders were among the first students at
Michigan to pilot Michigan's integrative leadership e-portfolio in a semester-long course that taught
them how to identify and integrate different types of knowledge (tacit and explicit) through a
process of dialogue, reflection, connection and demonstration. They had no trouble listing activities
on and on-off campus as well as courses that had been important to them. The challenge was in
extracting meaning from their work and how they could best connect, indeed produce, their current
goals, personal philosophy and a coherent understanding of the knowledge and skills they possessed.
These students met the challenge largely through a process called generative interviewing (a method
of knowledge retrieval that is part of the e-portfolio process) in which they were guided and
learned to guide each other to extract meaning and connection. The students who have participated
in these early pilot courses have described them as "transformative." - Patricia Gurin, Nancy Cantor
Distinguished University Professor, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies,
Professor Emerita, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, University of Michigan

Faculty, of course, are responsible for designing and assessing the assignments that may be included in students' e-portfolios. Considered from a learning-centered perspective, assignments define outcomes through what we ask students to do, foster outcomes during the process of being completed, provide opportunities for formative and/or summative assessment, and generate data on student learning that can be analyzed for ways to improve student learning. Given the time and effort spent by teachers and students alike on assignments, it makes sense to get as much out of each piece of student work as possible. From what students write about looking at their own work in e-portfolios, it is clear that they can continue to learn from assignments through guided reflections even after the assignments have been completed and graded. Faculty, programs, and institutions can also learn about student achievement through reflecting and assessing student assignments sampled from e-portfolios.

While not directly telling how her campus uses e-portfolios for program assessment, an associate dean conveys the wealth of information that lies within the e-portfolios built by students on her campus. She also makes clear that e-portfolios facilitate learning and reflection is key to the process.

If what we want is to deepen learning and to facilitate transfer of knowledge, for the first time,
e-portfolios provide a strategy that allows students to archive their work over time. The critical
part is that they also use those artifacts for intentional and promoted reflection that supports
connecting the learning across courses and disciplines and to their own lives and passions. In this way,
e-portfolios become a scaffold of learning experiences from the curriculum and the cocurriculum
that students use to demonstrate and articulate the increasing sophistication and complexity of
their understanding and thinking throughout their educational career and beyond. - Judith Patton,
associate dean, School of Fine and Performing Arts, Portland State University

Left unsaid is that Portland State University (PSU) has a periodic assessment process in which groups of faculty read student work sampled from e-portfolios to see to what extent students are achieving university general education goals. This process is a kind of structured reflection for faculty on student achievement, course goals and assignments and serves to guide subsequent planning and teaching. Rotating through a couple of university goals each year, PSU has a process that takes advantage of the wealth of information waiting to be analyzed and interpreted within collections of student work. They wisely limit the amount of student work assessed at any one time so that the process is manageable. Faculty from other campuses also recognize the mutual benefits to students and faculty.

A campus, with e-portfolios in place as flexible space for faculty and students to archive and
synthesize their work, is well-positioned for assessment. Reflection on e-portfolios of collected
works is where the evidence of learning emerges. Students may not understand the significance of
e-portfolios as they begin their college career, but they will begin to understand their own disparate
learning by the time they are finishing their four-years of collection of academic works. - Judith
Kirkpatrick, professor, Kapi'olani Community College

At Kapi'olani a study of the e-portfolio process focused on whether courses were more student-centered and if the e-portfolios assisted in integrating students' academic, career, and personal work with a stage of growth in understanding Hawaiian values. The research team designated first-year composition and second-year Hawaiian language courses for the research study, and included a control class for first-year composition. The researchers administered two instruments, the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI), and the N? Wa'a E-portfolio Survey, and analyzed the students' reflective learning analyses to explore whether the approach is truly learning-centered. Initially, instructors began the project with the hopes of transforming their students into more independent learners. At about mid-semester, the instructors realized they were transforming the way they teach.

E-portfolios as a Guide for Teaching and Learning

As students enter college, most do not imagine being responsible for their own learning. They believe that, somehow, teachers make them learn or, in some cases, prevent them from learning. Many even see assignments, required courses, and exams as obstacles to get around on the way to their ticket to the future-the degree. While there has been talk for many years about professors moving from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side," e-portfolios are developing as a teaching/learning context where this is likely to happen. The practices associated with e-portfolio-e.g., designing "authentic" assignments, using engaging and active pedagogy, periodic self-, peer- and teacher-formative assessments, and requiring students to reflect on their learning-help to move both professors and students into a teacher/learner relationship where "guiding" really works. Emphasis shifts from delivering content toward coaching and motivating students as they try to solve problems that are of genuine interest to disciplines, professions, or communities. While additional research will be completed on e-portfolios per se, there is already promise in the fact that good e-portfolio programs use a combination of practices already shown individually to be effective in helping students learn. (See, for example, research on such practices in Bransford, Brown, and Cocking [2000]).

E-portfolios are gaining support as a way for students, faculty, programs, and institutions to learn, assess, and improve through a mutual focus on the work that students complete over time-work that can both facilitate and document a range of ambitious learning outcomes.

References

Bransford, J. D., A. L. Brown, and R. R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Kirkpatrick, J., T. Renner, L. Kanae, and K. Goya. 2007. Values-driven ePortfolio journey. Final report, Kapi'olani Community College, University of Hawai'i.
Kuh, G. D. 2008. High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

The posting below gives some excelent advice on the the do's and don'ts of public presentations . It is from Chapter 2, Principle 2 - Perfection, in the book, The 7 Principles of Public Speaking: Proven Methods from a PR Professional by Richard Zeoli, Skyhorse Publishing Inc. Copyright 2008 by Richard Zeoli. Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018 or infor@skyhorsepublishing.com [www.skyhorsepublishing.com]

Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: The Benefits of E-portfolios for Students and Faculty in Their Own Words

As a speaker, you are competing with real life, and the demands of real life are intense. Unlike going to a movie, when people consciously choose to walk into a theater and forget about life for ninety minutes, most people who come to hear a speech are extremely aware of the world around them, and they are waiting-sometimes patiently, sometimes not-for the speech to end so they can rejoin that world. Your job as a speaker is to remember this and do your best to draw them into your speech.

There was a great line from a Hollywood director who once said, "If they take their eyes off the screen you've lost them." He was giving a modern variation on William Shakespeare's concept of the willing suspension of disbelief. In movies, the minute the audience stops to say, "This is just a movie," the disbelief becomes real and the connection between audience and screen is broken.

Common "disbelief" thoughts include things such as: "Come on, that can't happen; that's so unrealistic," "I wonder how much that explosion cost," "That is a stuntman, no way that's the star," or "That was the corniest line I've ever heard."

When the audience thinks these thoughts during the movie, you can be sure the movie isn't going to be winning too many awards.

And once the connection is broken, it is virtually impossible to repair.

The same is true with public speaking. The minute the audience members start to think, "This speech is going on too long," or "This guy is so monotonous," or "What time do they serve lunch?" they've stopped listening to you, and your connection with them is broken. Your job is to be aware of this and work to win the attention struggle. Think of it as a game of tug-of-war.

On one side you have the speaker pulling the audience toward the speech, and on the other side, you have the demands of the world and people's natural, limited attention spans. Now, imagine that above the attention span, the "tug," are words like:

Bills
College Tuition
Angry Boss
Car Repair
Weekend getaway
Starving
BlackBerry

These are the things that give fuel to the other side, making your job to keep the tug alive and in balance require that much more work and attention.

Most speakers think that they'll rein in their listeners with slides and pictures (and we'll discuss these tools in depth), but the key to remember is that audience attention usually comes in waves. That is to say, it's not so much that the audience is with you for a while and then you lose them for the remainder of the speech. Rather, people will be with you for a few minutes, then their attention will wander for thirty seconds or so, and then it may come back, or it may continue to wander. But people will usually check in and check out. As speakers, if we think creatively about how to keep bringing people back into focus, we'll do our job.

First of all, never be the kind of speaker who gets angry at the audience members for his own inability to keep them interested. I've heard speakers use demeaning tones and say things like:
"Come on, people, stay with me," "what, does this crowd have ADD or something?" or "Look, this is important, pay attention."

I know one thing: Those speakers have never received a standing ovation. They have not only broken the connection with their audience but also have most likely created a hostile audience that is not going to care one iota about what they have to say. There is no quicker way to lose your listeners than to insult their intelligence.

Respect you audience members' attention, and never belittle them. It's not their fault that this tug exists; it's natural. Hollywood has special effects and thematic music on its side to win the struggle. All you have is your speech. (Even if you wanted to use special effects, you could never compete with Hollywood.)

So it's your job to pull your listeners in and keep the tug-of-war in balance.
How do we do it?

Eye Contact

A good speaker will never read a speech. This sounds like common sense, but even people who wind up making note cards often fall back on reading those cards because of the security they afford. Looking into other people's eyes may seem intimidating, but it is not. It's something you do every single day when you are having conversations with people one-on-one. So why should adding a few more eyes to the mix be intimidating?
The truth is we make it intimidating because we are not used to it, but by consciously remembering that in our culture eye contact is a normal part of human interaction and something we do every time we have a conversation, we should have no problem doing it during a speech. In reality, public speaking is nothing more than having a conversation.

Here is where Principles 1 and 2 begin to intersect. Eye contact has the direct effect of signaling to someone, "I should pay attention here; someone is talking to me." It also makes people feel important and makes them feel like you care about them. And they are much more likely to put all their worries on hold and focus on you for a few more minutes if they believe you care about them.

Many years ago, a public speaking coach gave bad advice to clients who were nervous about eye contact. He told them to pick a spot on the back of the wall that is right above the audience members' heads, such as a clock, and look at that to give the audience members the feeling that you are speaking to them. Gimmicks such as this do not work, and audiences are too smart to fall for them. If you take the bad advice this coach gave, your listeners are going to wonder why you keep looking over their heads, and they will tune you out faster than they would a bad commercial during their favorite Thursday-night television show.

Another gimmick often used by coaches consists of advising people to look that the audience's foreheads to give the illusion you are making eye contact with them. All this will do is leave the audience members wondering if they somehow managed to get part of their lunch on their face or if they have really bad dandruff. Don't fall back on gimmicks. They never work.

Good public speaking is all about having that conversation with the audience. Good speakers are not afraid to look other people in the eye.

Tone & Pitch

Tone of voice and vocal emphasis are also essential to keeping this struggle in balance. Good speakers will write their remarks in a way that occasionally throws in phrases designed for vocal inflection, because when the audience hears the speaker's tone of voice shift, it is an automatic verbal cue to pay attention. If a speaker drones on and on about tax laws and all of a sudden says the room is on fire in the same tone of voice, only those smelling the smoke will pay attention. But if the speaker delivers the fire warning in the way it should be delivered-with urgency and inflection-you can bet everybody will wake up and call the fire department.
So while you should never yell "fire" in a crowded auditorium, you should write lines that cause your voice naturally to go up, and you should also write lines that cause your voice to go down, even to the point of becoming quiet. Believe it or not, when you lower the tone of your voice, it actually causes people to listen and tune in just as effectively as if you were to shout something. Plus, it's a whole lot more respectful to your audience.

So how do you write these inflection lines?

Think about places within your remarks that would allow such entries. For example, if you are giving a speech about tax law, throw this line in after a particularly boring paragraph about changes to the tax code:
"But the GOOD NEWS, everyone, is that this means substantial (dramatic pause) savingsŠ for all of us!"
Or perhaps this line: "But guess what, friends, (dramatic pause) this means we are allŠgoingŠtoŠpay a little more this year. I know, I know. This is not my favorite part of the speech."

Lines like these will bring the audience back into focus, and it will do so in a way that causes your listeners to like you much more than if you scolded them for tuning you out for a few moments.
Good speakers take the necessary time to plan such lines throughout their speeches.

Action Steps: Creating Your Key Lines

As you work on your material, think about the benefits you are offering your audience as well as any potential downside to what you are saying. Write both down in a column, just like in the example on the next page.
All of these advantages and disadvantages can be used to bring the audience's attention over to your side of the tug. As you write your speech, think creatively of where these remarks should go. Remember, people's attention spans go in waves so they are usually with you at the opening of your speech, especially if you have a strong opening, as we will discuss later. People are also usually with you during the close of your speech because they recognize that all good things must come to an end and you have prepared them in your speech for the imminent closing.

It's usually during the murky middle of the speech that people's minds tent to wander, so try to insert a line that allows your tone of voice to go up or down at least once or twice in every paragraph. This will ensure the audience member stays with you longer rather than focusing on his or her car's need for an oil change.

Benefits

Substantial savings to the family
New exploration of undersea medical cures Lower interest rates for homeowners with good credit New deductions give you more money back for dependents

Disadvantages

Increased paperwork
Big expense to the healthcare industry
Increased disclosure means harder to get a mortgage today The maximum number of dependents you can declare is four

The Dramatic Pause

President Bill Clinton is an artful user of the dramatic pause, and you should be, too. Most speakers tend to think that a dramatic pause is deadly and that the audience will feel the dead air and get antsy. Just the opposite, however, is true. A well-timed dramatic pause has the effect of sending a cue to the listener to tune in, because chances are something good is coming.
Watch Bill Clinton at a press conference. When he is asked a question, he usually pauses for a few seconds, even occasionally looking off as if he is gathering his thoughts, and then gives a very well-considered answer. And because he pauses for a few seconds, the listeners stop thinking of everything else in the world and tune in to hear what he has to say.
A dramatic pause has a number of advantages and should always be a part of your speaker's arsenal.

A well-placed pause:

Sends a verbal cue to the listener that something important is coming.
Breaks up the tone of voice, allowing the ear to recognize new vocal pitch.
Causes the audience to think that the speaker really has his or her thoughts together.
Is good theater and is a technique used all the time in quality drama by great actors and public figures.
Will always feel longer to the speaker than to the audience. So don't rush it. You will be more aware of its length than your listeners will, as they are focused not on the pause, but on your next words.

There are also things you can do to make sure your speech is going to be comfortable for everyone. Anyone who attends a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman is advised to bring a light jacket or sweater, even during a hot New York summer. That's because Dave keeps the temperature in the Ed Sullivan Theater in the 60s. Why? So people don't fall asleep! A theater or venue that is too hot will make it more difficult for you as a speaker to rein your audience in. That doesn't mean that you can always control the temperature but you can try.

Ask the event coordinator about the temperature and see if you can get to the event early to make adjustments if necessary. Remember, people's normal body temperature is approximately 98 degrees, so a group of people will cause a room to heat up very quickly. Adjust for that. I always recommend that venues keep the temperature around 68 degrees. This will leave room for the audience's natural body heat to warm up the venue without it becoming uncomfortable.

Particularly in the winter-when many venue coordinators come in from the cold and jack up the heat while they are still freezing-it is important to keep in mind how quickly a roomful of a hundred people will warm up. So take this into account.

Returning to this chapter's opening concept-that when you make a mistake, no one cares but you-remember the following:

If you are onstage and you make a mistake, such as fumbling on a word, keep going. Chances are the audience didn't notice because of the reality of shifting attention spans. The odds that your listeners were really with you, right at that moment, and that they caught your mishap are slim anyway. But even if they did notice, so what? As we've discussed earlier, they aren't going to start laughing at you, and you will be able to recover. So keep going.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting below gives some excellent - and at the same time humorous - advice on completing your PhD. . It is Chapter 2 - The PhD, in the book What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School: 199 Helpful Hints for Success in Your Academic Career by Paul Gray and David E. Drew. who are professors at Claremont Graduate University in California, one in information systems and the other in education. Between them they were students in 6 graduate programs, taught full time at 7 universities, and mentored over 50 PhDs, many of whom are now tenured professors. Copyright 2008 by Stylus Publishing, LLC. Cartoons copyright 2008 by Matthew Henry Hall. Published by Stylus Publishing , LLC, 22883 Quicksilver Drive Sterling, Virginia 20166-2102.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Shifting Attention Spans

It can be argued that you do job hunting (the subject of chapter 3) before you receive the PhD. However, the PhD is the prize you seek above all from your graduate experience. We therefore discuss it first.

(editors note: the numbering does indeed start at #7).

7. Finish your PhD as early as possible. Don't feel that you need to create the greatest work that Western civilization ever saw. Five years from now the only thing that will matter is whether you finished. If you don't finish, you are likely to join the ranks of "freeway flyers," holding multiple part-time teaching jobs.

8. Be humble about your PhD. You don't need to flaunt the degree. Everyone has one. Many of your colleagues, both in your institution and outside it, will be put off if you sign everything "Doctor" or "Jane Jones, PhD" In fact, the main use for Doctor is making reservations at a restaurant. When you call and ask for a table for four for Doctor Jones, you will get more respect and often better seating.

9. Remember that a PhD is primarily an indication of survivorship. Although the public at large may view your doctorate as a superb intellectual achievement and a reflection of brilliance, you probably know deep in your heart that it is not. It represents a lot of hard work on your part over a long period of time. You probably received help from one or more faculty to get over rough spots. Your family, be it parents or spouse, stayed with you over the vicissitudes of creating the dissertation. You stuck with it until it was done, unlike the ABDs (All But Dissertation), people who complete all the other requirements but bail out before they finish their dissertations.

10. A PhD is a certification of research ability based on a sample of 1. The PhD certifies that you are able to do quality research. Unlike the MD, which requires extensive work with patients followed by years of internship and residency, the PhD is based on a single sample, your dissertation. The people who sign your dissertation are making a large bet on your ability to do quality research again and again in the future.

11. A PhD is a license to reproduce and an obligation to maintain the quality of your intellectual descendants. Once you are a PhD, it is possible for you (assuming you are working in an academic department that offers a PhD program) to create new PhDs. Even if your department does not offer a PhD, you can be called upon to sit on PhD examining committees either in your own or in neighboring institutions. This is a serious responsibility because you are creating your intellectual descendants. Recognize that if you vote to pass someone who is marginal or worse, that PhD in turn is given the same privilege. If candidates are not up to standard, it is likely that some of their descendants will also not be. Unlike humans whose intergeneration time is 20 years, academic intergeneration times are 5 years or less. Furthermore, a single individual may supervise 50 or more PhDs over a 30-year career.

12. You must have the PhD in hand before you can move up the academic ladder. The world is full of ABDs. We talked about them briefly in Hint 9 and will again in Hint 161. ABDs may be much abler and more brilliant than you but they didn't possess the stamina (or the circumstances) to finish the degree. In our judgment, being an ABD is the end of the academic line.

13. Be aware that the key danger point in any doctoral program is the one where you leave highly structured coursework (Phase 1) and enter the unstructured world of the qualification examination and the dissertation (Phase 2). Here are two strategies to help you navigate Phase 2:

1. Stay in touch with your professors, especially your adviser. One of us insists that students come in for a meeting each week, even if nothing happened. Just the fear of not being able to report anything stimulates the mind.
2. Meet regularly, ideally every week, for lunch or dinner or afternoon coffee, with two or three fellow graduate students who are also struggling with Phase 2. Compare notes and progress.

14. A special note for the part-time student working on the dissertation. Although all PhD students used to be on campus and often worked as teaching or research assistant part-time, in many fields today that attract midcareer students (for example, education) the norm is to work at an off-campus job full-time and on the PhD part-time. Others, such as computer science students, develop an idea for a start-up company (e.g., one of the founders of Google) and drift from full-time to part-time. We applaud part-time PhD students. This hint is addressed to these students.

If you are working on your PhD part time, you will find it difficult enough in Phase 1 to tell your boss that you can't attend that nighttime budget crisis meeting or tell your spouse that you can't go to your child's soccer game because you must be in class. It is even more difficult when you're in Phase 2 to tell him or her that you won't be there because you must be home, in your study, staring at a black computer screen trying to get past writer's block.

As a part-time student, you need to find ways (in addition to suggestions 1 and 2 in Hint 13) to be physically present on campus. You can do so in many ways, such as spending time writing in a library carrel (1). Physical presence is important psychologically. If you never visit campus and become caught up in your work and family activities, you face the danger that your uncompleted PhD program can begin to seem like something you used to do in a faraway time and place.

15. Avoid Watson's Syndrome. Named by R.J. Gelles, this syndrome is a euphemism for procrastination (2). It involves doing everything possible to avoid completing work. It differs from writer's block in that the sufferer substitutes real work that distracts from doing what is necessary for completing the dissertation or for advancing toward an academic career. The work may be outside or inside the university. Examples given by Gelles include:
* remodeling a house
* a never-ending literature review (after all, new papers are being published all the time and they must be
referenced)
* data paralysis-making seemingly infinite Statistical Analysis System (SAS) and Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) runs
* perfectionism that doesn't let you submit until you think it is perfect (and it never is perfect)

If you suffer from Watson's Syndrome, finding a mentor (see Hint 5) who pushes you to finish will help you get done. For many, however, particularly those who always waited until the night before an examination to begin studying, the syndrome is professionally fatal.

16. Celebrate your PhD! When you hand in your signed dissertation and pay the last fee that the university exacts from you, go out and Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate! You've achieved something marvelous, and you are one of a very small number in the population who can say you are a PhD. A rough calculation shows that about 3 of 400 adults in the United States hold a PhD. Attaining a PhD is a big deal! Honor that.

A PhD, like life, is a journey. It marks the end of one stage and the beginning of what lies ahead. Don't fail to appreciate the moment of your accomplishment. Yes, other big moments await you. But like almost every PhD, you never had a moment this big, and it will be a long time before you have another one that matches it.

Notes
1. The library is a large building filled with books and journals. It functions sort of like Google, but deeper.
2. This hint is based on R.J. Gelles, "Watson's Syndrome," Inside Higher Education, June 19, 2006, http://www.insidehighered.com/workplace/2006/06/19/gelles

The posting below by Scott Jaschik, looks at the decrease in tenure-track jobs over the last 10 years. It is from the May 12, 2009 issue of INSIDE HIGHER ED, an excellent - and free - online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education. You can subscribe by going to: http://insidehighered.com/. Also for a free daily update from Inside Higher Ed, e-mail [scott.jaschik@insidehighered.com]. Copyright © 2009 Inside Higher Ed Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School

Year by year, various federal data sets are released, and document the steady growth of adjunct positions and decline of tenure-track jobs in the academic work force.

In an attempt to draw more attention to these shifts over time, the American Federation of Teachers is today releasing a 10-year analysis of the data, showing just how much the tenure-track professor has disappeared. The overall number of faculty and instructor slots grew from 1997 to 2007, but nearly two-thirds of that growth was in "contingent" positions -- meaning those off of the tenure track. Over all, those jobs increased from two-thirds to nearly three-quarters of instructional positions.

The growth in these jobs -- and the decline in tenure-track positions -- was found in all sectors of higher education, but was most apparent at community colleges. However, one of the most notable shifts was at public four-year colleges and universities, where over the period studied, tenured and tenure-track faculty members went from being a slight majority to less than 40 percent of faculty members. At the end point of the AFT study, tenured and tenure-track faculty members do not make a majority of faculties in any sector.

"What was shocking to me, even though I think about this all the time, was that the percentage of tenure and tenure-track faculty has shrunk to almost a quarter," said Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress, the AFT chapter at the City University of New York. "The deterioration of staffing has reached a crisis point when only a quarter are tenured or tenure-track."

National discussions about higher education have focused on issues of cost, and Bowen said that it was important to involve students and parents in looking at academic staffing and its impact on the quality of education. "Part-time faculty have done an amazing job, especially under the circumstances that they work," Bowen said. "But I think parents and students are beginning to see the difficulty when the part-time faculty member you loved for English 101 is no longer there for English 201, or to write a recommendation. You don't have that continuity."

The AFT is in fact preparing a brochure that it will be distributing to high schools, encouraging students and parents looking at colleges to "just ask" about the faculty work force. "We want people to ask 'What are the chances I'm going to be taught by a full-time faculty member?' or 'What kind of salaries do your faculty get?' " said Lawrence N. Gold, director of higher education at the AFT. "In terms of achieving our goals, consumer pressure has got to be part of it."

Given the competition among colleges for students, Gold said that institutions could be motivated to change if the people who talk to prospective students "report back that this is what they asked about."

Both Gold and Bowen -- clearly aware that some adjunct leaders have criticized the AFT's efforts as focused too much on the creation of new tenure-track jobs -- stressed dual goals. They said that they wanted to see a far greater percentage of jobs go to tenure-track faculty members. But they also said that those who teach off the tenure track must have better salaries and benefits. The AFT's campaign on these issues is called FACE, for Faculty and College Excellence.

Here are the numbers from the report, which come from the federal data prepared by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics

Distribution of Teaching Positions in Higher Education, 1997 and 2007

Job Type 1997 2007

All Institutions

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 33.1% 27.3%
--Full time, non-tenure track 14.2% 14.9%
--Part time 34.1% 36.9%
--Graduate assistants 18.6% 20.9%

Public doctoral granting universities

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 34.1% 28.9%
--Full time, non-tenure track 14.1% 14.4%
--Part time 14.3% 15.8%
--Graduate assistants 37.5% 41.0%

Public four-year colleges and universities

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 51.0% 39.0%
--Full time, non-tenure track 9.0% 10.9%
--Part time 33.6% 43.9%
--Graduate assistants 5.7% 6.3%

Public community colleges

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 20.6% 17.5%
--Full time, non-tenure track 13.4% 13.8%
--Part time 64.7% 68.6%
--Graduate assistants 1.2% 0.0%

Private doctoral-granting universities

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 34.9% 29.2%
--Full time, non-tenure track 17.3% 17.9%
--Part time 29.9% 31.3%
--Graduate assistants 17.9% 21.6%

Private four-year colleges and universities

--Full time, tenured or tenure track 39.3% 29%
--Full time, non-tenure track 15.6% 17.2%
--Part time 42.3% 52.2%
--Graduate assistants 2.9% 1.6%

The posting below looks at the impact of an important new technology on faculty lecturing and student learning. It is by James Rhem, executive director of the National Teaching & Learning Forum and is #45 in a series of selected excerpts from the NT&LF newsletter reproduced here as part of our "Shared Mission Partnership." NT&LF has a wealth of information on all aspects of teaching and learning. If you are not already a subscriber, you can check it out at [http://www.ntlf.com/] The on-line edition of the Forum--like the printed version - offers subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share new ways of helping students reach the highest levels of learning. National Teaching and Learning Forum Newsletter, Volume 18, Number 3, March 2009.© Copyright 1996-2009. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: The Disappearing Tenure-Track Job

Clickers have been quietly marching over the horizon of attention for several years. Only early adopters, however, and schools with enough money and vision to try them have come to understand that, far from being simply the latest new gadget, they offer students a pedagogically powerful blend of intimacy and anonymity that can move them from passive to active learning with the click of a button (and a battery of well-crafted questions).

Rapid improvements in the technology and especially the publication of Derek Bruff's Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creative Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009) seem poised to place clickers in faculty consciousness across the board. The attention the book has already received offers some index of the growing interest in clickers. Bruff has already been profiled by the on- line newsletter Inside Higher Education and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

How They Work

For those who don't know, clickers are hand-held devices similar to the remote controls for televisions and other media devices. They can send a specific electronic signal to a central receiving station connected to a computer equipped with software that tabulates the responses and can then display the distribution of answers on a bar graph.

In operation-especially in quantitative fields with concrete correct and incorrect answers-a professor presents a multiple choice or true/false question. Students respond by pushing buttons for answers (a), (b), (c), and so on. Then, normally, the professor shows the bar graph of how the class answered. Quickly, students can see where they stand in terms of how well they understand the material, and (just as importantly) where their classmates stand, and where they stand in relation to these peers. And students get all of this very specific feedback on their learning without risking a moment of embarrassment. The anonymity of the system allows students to confront little important truths about their progress (or lack of it) without risking a thing.

Faculty schooled a few generations back when shame and guilt were felt to have at least some pedagogical value-that is to say, in a time when students felt ashamed to make a poor grade or come to class unprepared-the ascendance of this new teaching environment may seem strange. However, as the emphasis in education has shifted over the centuries from building character to simply learning, it all makes sense. (And, of course, whether shame and guilt actually built character remains an open question.)

Anonymity's Advantages

The anonymity is "pretty important," says Derek Bruff, who teaches mathematics and serves as assistant director of the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching. "Students are often hesitant to speak up in front of their peers," he says. "A key element in that is the desire not to be wrong or foolish in front of their peers, especially in a class where there are right/ wrong answers. In other classes, they don't want to stand out or be the one with the strange opinion."

Peer pressure, says Bruff, "dampens conversation." The anonymity that clickers provide is one way of dealing with that. "It's not the only way," Bruff concedes. "There are professors that are able to create a safe environment where that's not a problem."

If escaping peer pressure and taking refuge in anonymity prove such positive elements in teaching and learning, a question that comes immediately to mind is, where do cooperative learning and other small group activities fit in? The answer? On the next click, so to speak.

Offering an answer via the clicker establishes a "buy-in," says Bruff, a commitment not simply to an answer but to the learning process. With this threshold crossed, passivity has begun to be left behind. The anonymity allows cumbersome emotional baggage to be left behind as well, lending both a purity and a more animated sense of mission to the next step, the familiar "think-pair-share."

The "Think Moment"

"We use the think-pair-share method a lot here," says Bruff, "think, talk with one, talk in the larger group. There's more risk at each stage, but giving students a warm-up experience is important because many need that moment. If a hand in the first row goes up to answer a question, their thinking is stopped. The class is then moving on. Maybe they needed 30 more seconds. Giving the 'think moment' is helpful. Then, in the pair, they get to practice saying what they think, and they get to hear other thinking which then sharpens theirs."

The silent, private "think moment" operates like moving from warm water to hotter and hotter baths in a hot spring, for example, and finally into strong currents where one may have to swim against the tide intellectually.

Just as this technologically enhanced learning environment intensifies the focus on learning and recognizing where everyone stands in the process moment to moment, it also intensifies the burden on faculty to become "agile teachers." For example, when clickers first began to be used, showing the bar chart of student responses immediately was expected. As their use has grown and influenced faculty understanding of group behavior and learning patterns, whether to show or not to show the graph has become an important "thinking-on-your-feet" decision. Even if most students agree on a correct answer, how deeply do they understand the reasoning behind it? Sometimes, to make sure their learning goes more deeply, faculty withhold the results and ask students to turn to their neighbor and talk out the reasons for their answer, especially if their neighbor gave a different answer.

"When I have that happen," says Bruff, "I tell my groups, 'Even if you agree, talk it out because you could both be wrong.' I want them to test themselves a little bit."

It's the "thinking-on-your-feet" challenge that burdens faculty. "That's a roadblock for some faculty," says Bruff. "They want 'ballistic teaching,'" he says with a laugh. "Launch lecture, and once it's off, it's off on its way." Clickers offer lots of chances for mid-course corrections, but their use also demands something of a chess player's mentality of knowing not only how the pieces move, but which move to make next for maximum advantage. Sometimes, the best move does turn out to be "creating times for telling," says Bruff (using a phrase coined by Schwartz and Bransford), time for a little lecture students need and which skillful use of clicker questions can lead them to want. For example, anticipating a common misconception, faculty may ask a question experience has shown them most students will answer incorrectly.

"The instructor then reveals the correct answer," says Bruff, "often through a demonstration. The students are surprised most of them got the answer wrong and it makes them want to hear why the right answer is right and the answer they gave is wrong."

Making Good Questions

Successful use of clickers turns on the skillful use of good questions. "Writing good questions I would have to say is the hardest part" of teaching with clickers, says Bruff. But it's also the most exciting part because it causes faculty to become intensely intentional about their teaching moment to moment, not just lecture to lecture. "That's why I like to talk about clickers with faculty," says Bruff, "because it generates this kind of conversation: 'What are my learning goals for my students?'"

There are content questions asking for recall of information, conceptual questions seeking evidence of understanding, application questions, critical thinking questions, and free-response questions. When and how to ask the right kind of question in response to where the students actually sitting before the faculty member are becomes the proof of good teaching in that moment.

One of the most interesting aspects to emerge from the use of clickers has to do with the flexibility of the multiple choice question to stimulate thinking and learning. "Many people think of the multiple choice question as being only about factual recall," says Bruff, but the one-best-answer variation probes much deeper. "A really good teacher can write really good wrong answers to a question," says Bruff, ones that key into common student difficulties with material. "When I really like 40-60% of my students to get it wrong. And I'd like them to be split between a right choice and several wrong choices, because then that means I have tapped into some misconceptions that are fairly common and need to be addressed and the question is hard enough to be worth talking about."

Metacognition and Confidence

Some of the problems that have emerged in using clickers have also turned out to reveal opportunities for increasing student learning or rather student learning about their own learning. Bruff, a mathematician, began to ponder how much confidence he could have in student learning reported via true/ false questions or even some multiple choice questions. In a true/ false situation, for example, students might guess and have a 50% chance of lodging a correct answer. Multiple choice questions might be constructed to include an "I don't know" option, but then the matter of discouraging student engagement becomes an issue. Students might retreat to the safety of an "I don't know" answer rather than commit to a response they felt uncertain about. Pondering this problem has led a number of pioneers in clicker use, like Dennis Jacobs at Notre Dame, to marry self-assessments of confidence levels with decisions about right or wrong answers. So, for example, in Jacobs' system (where clicker responses are graded) a correct answer in which a student indicated high confidence would receive five points. An incorrect answer that a student had expressed high confidence in would receive no points. On the other hand, an incorrect answer in which a student indicated low confidence would receive two points.

"If a student gives a right answer," says Bruff, "but realizes they aren't confident in it, they have a little metacognitive moment thrust upon them: they have to ask themselves 'Why wasn't I more confident in my answer? What are the standards of evidence in this field that would allow me to be confident in my answer?'" By the same token, a student aware enough of his own learning to express low confidence in an incorrect answer receives partial credit for sensing that he didn't know, thus encouraging him as a learner rather than thumping him for getting something wrong. With this system, he gets both the positive and negative points to be made through the question.

Creative Options Everywhere

One of the strengths of Bruff's book on clicker use lies in the wide range of faculty examples he includes. That range evinces impressive imagination and commitment among faculty to improving student learning, itself a pleasure in reading the book. And, while the dominant use of clickers falls in scientific fields, the book includes rich examples of skillful use of clickers in humanities courses as well. Moreover, while clickers offer the most efficient means of collecting student responses, the overall emphasis falls on collecting those responses and on the dimensions of psychology, motivation, and cognition involved in their use. Hence, Bruff includes discussion of some low-tech means of collecting student responses as well.

With clickers, as with so many other new technologies, the greatest benefit seems to lie in the way they uncover new means of improving one of the most ancient of transactions-teaching and learning. Socrates would be proud.

Contact Ferek Bruff at: Derek.bruff@vanderbilt.edu

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting below looks at what makes for outstanding, very good, and unacceptable disssertations in the social sciences. It is from Chapter 3, Aiming for Excellence in the Dissertation, in the book, Developing Quality Dissertations in the Social Sciences: A Graduate Student's Guide to Achieving Excellence by Barbara E. Lovitts and Ellen L. Wert. Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC, 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, Virginia 20166-2102 Copyright © 2009 By Stylus Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

NOTE: This book is one of three in a series that includes Developing Quality Dissertations in the Humanities and Developing Quality Dissertations in the Sciences. To find out more go to: www.styluspub.com

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Clickers

You read the scholarship of others to learn. But in the process, you also make judgments about the quality of their work. In the same way that you make judgments about the scholarship of others, your advisor and committee members make holistic judgments about the quality of their students' dissertations.

However, your faculty advisors also read student work with another purpose: They read to teach. They must read carefully to see where they can suggest improvements in students' conceptualization of the topic, in their methods, in their presentation of results, and in their writing.

Moreover, your advisors and committee read to certify quality. That is, they must make sure their students' dissertations demonstrate professional competence and capacity for future professional-quality contributions.

In short, your advisors and committee are reading your drafts and final version to determine whether your dissertation is at a level of quality that demonstrates your readiness to make the transition from student to professional.

Degrees of Quality

Like published articles, completed dissertations have been written and rewritten. The ideas and presentation have been subjected to expert criticism and honed through repeated drafts, feedback, and editing. And, like published research articles and books, most dissertations are very good. A few dissertations are remarkable or outstanding in some aspect. On the other hand, some dissertations are, for a variety of reasons, just within the boundaries of the profession's standards of quality. They are good enough. In rare instances, some dissertations are unacceptable.

The faculty participating in the study provides descriptions of what makes a dissertation outstanding, very good, acceptable, or unacceptable. In the sections following, you will find summaries of what they said about quality at these different levels. Use these summaries as a way to start planning and, later, evaluating your own work. They are also useful guides as you discuss your project with your advisors and committee members: Am I making progress toward my goal for excellence? Where do I need to make a special effort to develop my dissertation? What might I do to improve the quality?

Outstanding

Outstanding dissertations are characterized by originality, high-quality writing, and compelling consequences. They show deep knowledge of a massive amount of complicated literature and mastery of the subject matter. They display a richness of thought and insight, and make an important breakthrough. The body of work in outstanding dissertations is deep and thorough. The student demonstrates a sophisticated grasp and use of theory. In experimental fields, the experiments are well designed and well executed. The quality and care put into the measurement techniques and analyses instill confidence in the results. The data are rich and come from multiple sources

Even though outstanding dissertations are rare -faculty see them once or twice a decade, if that often -the faculty in the study were able to proved a very consistent set of descriptors. They described an outstanding dissertation in the social sciences at the higher levels of originality or significance in that it

* asks new questions;
* addresses an important question or problem;
* uses or develops new tools, methods, approaches, or new types of analyses;
* pushes the discipline's boundaries and opens new areas for research;
* has practical and policy implications;
* is of interest to a larger community and changes the way people think.

They explained that in its execution, the outstanding dissertation

* is very well written and very well organized;
* exhibits mature, independent thinking;
* displays deep understanding of a massive amount of complicated literature;
* exhibits command and authority over the material;
* challenges the literature and strongly held traditional views;
* is thoroughly researches;
* is synthetic and interdisciplinary;
* clearly states the problem and explains why it is important
* has a brilliant research design
* has well-planned and well-performed experiments (if experimental);
* is theoretically sophisticated and shows a deep understanding of theory;
* has rich data from multiple sources
* has a comprehensive, complete, sophisticated, and convincing analysis

The faculty also described the outstanding dissertation as having the potential to "illuminate an entire area," "startle the field," or "stimulate a lot of activity in the profession." Indeed, the results or conclusion of an outstanding dissertation push the discipline's boundaries and are publishable in the top-tier journals.

Along with offering new and significant knowledge, an outstanding dissertation is a pleasure to read. It has a point of view and a strong, confident, independent, and authoritative voice. Each part of the outstanding dissertation, from introduction to conclusion, is excellent, and the pieces are integrated seamlessly. The writing is clear and persuasive. The ideas are set out very clearly and concisely. The writer anticipates -and answers -the reader's questions.

Outstanding dissertations were described as "page turners," surprising and edifying the reader. Readers often react with, "Wow! Why didn't I think of that?" Other terms the faculty used to describe outstanding dissertations were "compelling," "concise," "counterintuitive," "creative," "elegant," "engaging," "exciting," "insightful," "surprising," and "thoughtful."

Very Good

The very good dissertation is very good indeed. It fulfills the purposes of the dissertation requirement and establishes the student as a capable social scientist. The majority of the dissertations that faculty see are very good, and this is the level that they expect of most graduate students.

The faculty in the study explained that a very good dissertation displays the student's mastery of the field, addresses a meaningful question or problem, and is executed competently. Although it might not hold the promise of altering the field, it has the potential to contribute to the field by expanding its knowledge and thinking. The dissertation contains material for two or three papers that could be published in top-tier professional journals.

More specifically, the faculty described a very good dissertation as "original or significant," making a "modest contribution to the field." A very good dissertation has a good question or problem. It shows understanding and mastery of the subject matter; uses appropriate, standard theory, methods, and techniques; includes well-executed research; demonstrates technical competence; presents solid, expected results/answers; and is well written and well organized.

Acceptable

A dissertation that meets the basic criteria for the award of the PhD is considered acceptable. Such a dissertation contains a sufficient amount of solid work to demonstrate that the student can do research. It might result in some conference papers, but it has little in the way of publishable material, and what is publishable is likely to be accepted by lower-tier journals.

The faculty in the study explained that an acceptable dissertation demonstrates technical competence and shows the student's ability to do research, use standard methods, and competently apply theory to a problem. However, they noted, a student might display a narrow understanding of the field. For instance, the student might present an uncritical review of the literature that does not show insight or understanding of what is important. The analysis might be unsophisticated or limited.

The acceptable dissertation shows little promise of adding much to the field. It is not very original or significant because it is narrow in scope. It typically focuses on a question or problem that is not interesting or has predictable results. It might be a highly derivative, small extension of someone else's work.

Sometimes a dissertation that is adequate may reflect circumstances. In some studies, the hypotheses turn out to be wrong or the results are not statistically significant, meaningful, or important. Sometimes an acceptable dissertation is the result of choices and compromises: The student has accepted a job or post-doc position and needs to sprint to finish. In such instances, the student has achieved a primary purpose of graduate education, which is getting a professional position.

More typically, however, an acceptable dissertation is the product of poor communication between student and advisor, or inadequate advising. Because much of this guidance should take place before you begin to write the dissertation, it is important to talk soon and in detail with your advisor and other faculty members about your topic, your research question or problem, your plan for researching it, the methods you will use to collect and analyze data, the results you are getting, and your interpretation of the results. Get early feedback on your plan for organizing your dissertation and presenting your results.

In addition, be sure to get feedback on the quality of your writing as soon as you begin to draft the chapters. Because strong skills in organizing and writing are a critical profession attribute, even if your dissertation is very good or even outstanding in other respects, it will be considered only acceptable if you cannot communicate your ideas clearly and effectively. Just as excellent writing enhances a solid piece of scholarship, weak writing undermines otherwise excellent ideas and research.

Unacceptable

It is your responsibility to produce professional-quality work, and it is your advisor's responsibility to prevent unacceptable work from advancing.

As the faculty who participated in the study concurred, faculty advisors should provide the guidance necessary to ensure that the dissertation meets professional standards. The advisor should make sure that the student is working with a clearly defined question or problem and must make sure that the student is using proper methods. The advisor should also provide prompt and constructive feedback. It is also your responsibility to follow through on your advisor's and committee's advice and guidance.

Work that is poorly written and full of errors and mistakes or has other serious flaws is not of adequate quality. The faculty in the study were clear that they would turn back a draft if the question of problem is trivial, weak, or unoriginal. Work that does not demonstrate that the student understands the relevant literature and basic concepts and the key processes or conventions of the discipline is unacceptable when

* the literature review is weak or missing;
* methods are used inappropriately, or incorrect methods are used;
* theory is missing, wrong, or not handled well;
* hypotheses are inconsistent, do not flow from theory, or are missing;
* the data are flawed, misrepresented, "fudged," or wrong;
* the results presented are obvious, already known, unexplained, or misinterpreted;
* the analysis is wrong, inappropriate, incoherent, or confused;
* the conclusions drawn from the data are invalid or oversold.

The faculty also described the unacceptable dissertation in terms of its presentation: The organization is confusion and the writing is filled with spelling and grammatical errors. They said that a dissertation that violates standards of academic integrity through plagiarism, falsification of data, or misrepresentation of data is unacceptable.

These problems should be caught early. Use the criteria in this booklet as a starting point for identifying problems or as a way to plan improvements. If your advisor and other members of your dissertation committee ask you to revise and rewrite, make sure you understand specifically what you need to do to improve -and make the improvements.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting below looks at XXXX. It is by Quentin Vicens of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, and Philip E. Bourne ( bourne@sdsc.edu) of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, Copyright: © 2009 Bourne, Vicens. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000358

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Aiming for Excellence in the Dissertation

The late Lindley J. Stiles famously made himself an advocate for teaching during his professorship at the University of Colorado: "If a better world is your aim, all must agree: The best should teach" (http://thebestshouldteach.org/). In fact, dispensing high-quality teaching and professional education is the primary goal of any university [1]. Thus, for most faculty positions in academia, teaching is a significant requirement of the job. Yet, the higher education programs offered to Ph.D. students do not necessarily incorporate any form of teaching exposure. We offer 10 simple rules that should help you to get prepared for the challenge of teaching while keeping some composure.

Rule 1: Strictly Budget Your Time for Teaching and for Doing Research

This rule may seem straightforward, but respecting it actually requires more discipline and skill than it first appears to. The key is to set aside time for both teaching and research from the beginning, with a well-marked separation (e.g., mornings will be devoted to course preparation, afternoons to experiments and manuscript writing). Firmly stick to this agenda, particularly if this is your first time teaching. Failure to do so would eventually affect the quality of your teaching or the progress of your research (or both). Over time, you will become more skilled at jumping from one commitment to the other, and therefore allowing the boundaries to fluctuate somewhat. Avoid underestimating the time necessary to fulfill teaching-related obligations (e.g., office hours, test preparation, grading, etc.) by consulting with your colleagues.

Rule 2: Set Specific Teaching and Research Goals

In order not to have one occupation overpower the other one-which would transgress Rule #1- it is a good idea to decide on specific aims for each enterprise. Compile a list of reasonable but specific long-term goals (for the month or the semester) and short-term ones (for the week) for both your teaching (e.g., finish Chapter 3 by Nov. 1; this week propose a discussion to engage students to brainstorm about the risks of GMOs) and your research (e.g., finish experiments for this project and start writing before Easter; this week do the control for my primer binding assay). Make sure you achieve them. If you don't-this is likely to happen at first-ask yourself how legitimate your reason is. Then review and adjust the goals accordingly.

Rule 3: "Don't Reinvent the Wheel"

We borrowed the title for this rule from excellent suggestions on How To Prepare New Courses While Keeping Your Sanity [2]. Most likely, you will not be the first one ever to teach a particular topic. So get in touch with the colleagues in your department who have taught the class you are going to teach, or who teach similar topics. You can also use your network and contact former colleagues or friends at other institutions. They will usually be happy to share their course material, and along the way you might also glean precious tips from their teaching experience (e.g., a list of do's and don'ts on how to approach a notoriously difficult topic). You will also learn a lot from sitting in one of their classes and watching how they handle their topic and their students. Here are more examples of precious time-savers:

1. Choose a textbook that is accompanied by rich online resources such as annotated figures, pre-made PowerPoint slides, animations, and videos. Students will thank you for showing movies, for example, as they often are a better option to break down complex mechanisms or sequences of events into distinct steps.

2. Administer a Web site for your course. Many universities and some textbooks now offer you the possibility of hosting a Web site with course-related materials, including automatically graded assessments. See, for example, the CULearn suite used at the University of Colorado (http://www.colorado.edu/its/culearn/), or more general automatic grading tools presented at http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings /227.html .

3. Gather a solid team of motivated teaching or learning assistants, who will both serve as an intermediary between you and your students and help you grade. In short, don't be afraid to ask for help!

Rule 4: Don't Try To Explain Everything

Class time should be spent guiding students to create their own explanation of the material and to develop cognitive abilities that will help them become critical thinkers. In other words, you don't want to present all aspects related to a certain topic or to lay out all the explanations for them. Thus, an effective way to teach is to get students to learn by transformative learning: beyond memorizing and comprehending basic concepts, they will learn to reflect on what they learn and how they learn it (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning and references within). Such teaching practices require that a significant part of the learning process happens outside the classroom, through reading assignments, homework, writing essays, etc. So make sure you budget time to organize these, as specified in Rule #2. Remember that in the end this will be a win-win situation: you will save time by not having to fit everything into your class time, and students will learn how to find answers through their own thinking.

Rule 5: "Be Shameless in Bringing Your Research Interests into Your Teaching"

This is yet another great time-saver, and this rule title is actually from Confessions about Stress and Time: Thoughts for Faculty (available at http://www.colorado.edu/ftep/publication s/confessions.html ). Students want to know how what you teach relates to the world around them. They also like to know what is happening in science right now, so this is where you can feed in some of your research interests (for some examples of how researchers around the world have been bringing their research into the classroom, refer to the special section of the July 6, 2007, issue of the magazine Science entitled The World of Undergraduate Education [3]. Students will welcome such connections, especially in an introductory course or in a course for non-majors. Additionally, they will feel the passion that makes you love being a scientist. On your end, you might find that preparing course materials will be easier (because you are already a master of that topic), and you might learn to be more comfortable at presenting your research in layman's terms.

Rule 6: Get the Most in Career Advancement from Bringing Your Research into Your Teaching

As a sort of follow-up to Rule #5, presenting your research in class could bring you a solid return on your investment. For example, teaching gives you exposure; talking about your research may help you recruit motivated students in your lab, which will help you advance your research, possibly by taking it in original directions. In parallel, you could also use your research to design a novel course and possibly evaluate student learning in a fashion that would make for a publication in a science education journal. Another option would be to write or edit a book, or to contribute a chapter in someone else's book that you would eventually give as a reading assignment in your class. Conversely, there is wisdom in crowds. Consider having students review aspects of your research that fit the course and get feedback. You will be surprised at what useful information can come from students critiquing a new manuscript or proposing new experiments.

Rule 7: Compromise, Compromise, Compromise

A significant part of the compromise once you accept a joint research/teaching commitment is to realize that your list of "things that in principle you would like to do but won't have time to do" will get longer. Maybe you would like to personally respond to all the students who e-mail you about any problem they may have, but, realistically, such things can't happen. Instead, a solution would be to send some general feedback in answer to the common queries and to write occasional brief personal responses. As you get more skilled at combining research and teaching, you will be able to progressively bring back activities such as scanning the most recent scientific literature and attending seminars and lectures more often. But remember to accept that no matter how skilled you are at budgeting your time for teaching and research, you will still face the conflicting demands of both, and you will have to keep compromising. In the end, compromising will sometimes imply learning to say no when pondering about taking on a novel and exciting assignment that would unequivocally conflict with your current research/teaching agenda.

Rule 8: Balance Administrative Duties with Your Teaching and Research Workload

Your responsibility as a teacher and as a researcher is to be as productive as you can be in these two areas, at the same time. This is what your colleagues and the faculty board will expect from you when evaluating you for tenure, for example. Doing service within your community (for example by sitting on committee meetings, or by being part of a local scientific club) counts as well, but not as much. In consequence, turning down yet another offer to organize a series of seminars, or to edit the newsletter of your department, is legitimate if it cuts into your productivity. Similarly, keep your ability to career advance in mind when considering taking on another teaching assignment.

Rule 9: Start Teaching Early in Your Career

This will be the best way to get exposed to some of the difficulties mentioned in the other Rules sooner rather than later. You can see this as an opportunity to learn how to add on various responsibilities in a gradual rather than an immediate manner (e.g., when "jumping" from a post-doc to a faculty position at a university). Many options are available to teach at the graduate level (e.g., by becoming a teaching/learning assistant), as well as at the post-graduate level (e.g., by teaching part-time on campus or at a local school while doing your post-doc). You may need to be proactive about looking for such opportunities, but an increasing number of universities and institutions are developing programs that formally offer teaching experience to graduate students and post-docs [4],[5].

Rule 10: Budget Time for Yourself, Too

A lot of stress can build up from a constant shuttle between teaching demands and research occupations. In order to be able to evacuate some of that tension, it is a good idea to hide some time for yourself that you will spend with your family, or to do your hobby, to exercise, to travel, etc. An unfulfilling personal life is incompatible with successful teaching and research careers. Consequently, don't forget to spend some energy learning how to balance both areas.

Finally, keep in mind that your experience can make for a valuable contribution to the scientific community, for example, in the form of a report on your efforts in science education, or by posting comments to this Editorial!

Acknowledgments

We thank Joe Ma, Clayton Lewis, and Jamie Williamson for careful reading of the manuscript.

REFERENCES

1. Editorial (2007) Those who can teach, should. Nat Chem Biol 3: 737. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 2. Brent R, Felder RM (2007) Random thoughts: How to prepare new courses while keeping your sanity. Chem Engr Education 41: 121-122. [Reprinted in a posting by Rick Reis on the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list at the Stanford University Center for Teaching and Learning at http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings /800.html ].
3. Mervis J (2007) Special section-The world of undergraduate education. Science 317(5834): 63-81. FIND 4. Coppola BP, Banaszak Holl MM, Karbstein K (2007) Closing the gap between interdisciplinary research and disciplinary teaching. ACS Chem Biol 2: 518-520. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 5. Tahmassebi DC, Williamson JR (2007) Balancing teaching and research in obtaining a faculty position at a predominantly undergraduate institution. ACS Chem Biol 2: 521-524. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE All site content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

Posting #934, The Buzz and Spin on 3-Year Degrees, talked about the renewed interest in 3-year degrees (Jaschik, 2009). Saving 25% of college costs is something that is understandably appealing to many, including students, parents and the US Congress. Happily, there exists a good example of a long-running very successful 3-year degree program proving that a high-quality university education can be delivered without any diminution of academic content. The posting below describes this program at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. It is by Robert H. Seidman, executive editor of the Journal of Educational Computing Research and a professor in the Computer Information Technology Department at SNHU.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Ten Simple Rules To Combine Teaching and Research

In May, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) graduated its 10th class of 3-year degree business administration majors. Research has shown that SNHU's 3-year students' academic achievement level is at least as high as their 4-year counterparts (Seidman & Bradley, 2002). Graduates of the program are highly successful in the job market and many decide to take a fourth year to complete a graduate degree. It comes as no surprise that SNHU is considering 3-year programs for other majors.

SNHU completely redesigned its 4-year business administration major so that it could be delivered in six semesters instead of eight. No summer-school or inter-sessions are needed. This competency and outcomes-based 120 credit honors program has proven to be very attractive especially since it lowers the cost of a university education by 25% (SNHU, 2009).

Over the past ten years, the 1st to 2nd year average retention rate is 91% (71% is the national average). The on-time graduating rate average is 75% (45% is national 4-year degree average). Despite attending for only three years, these students are fully integrated into the university community and have high levels of participation and leadership roles in student government, clubs, intramural & NCAA Division II athletics.

SNHU 3-YEAR PROGRAM FEATURES
Here are some program features to demonstrate that well-designed 3-year programs can work and do not have to short-change students nor ignore important parts of their undergraduate curriculum.

(1) SNHU 3-year program is competency-based and outcomes oriented. Competency mastery is continuously tracked and assessed. The program is not seat-time bound. For example, public speaking instruction is built into all Year-One 3-year degree courses. Therefore it is not necessary for these students to take the separate 3-credit Public Speaking course that all four year students must take. 3-year students are awarded the three public speaking credits at the end of their first year. The university's accrediting agencies are completely supportive of this approach.

The 3-year degree competencies are the same for School of Business 4-year students: communication; information technology; problem solving; teamwork; analytical skills; global orientation; legal & ethical practices; research; strategic approaches; leadership. These general competencies are made specific in a formal academic plan attached to each of the courses that include expected outcomes, assessment strategies and pedagogical approaches.

(2) Cohorts of 30 students. Year-One, Year-Two and Year-Three students move through the program in learning communities so that they take almost all of their classes together in two sections of 15 students each. The sections are remixed at the start of each semester.

(3) Active teaching and learning. The program uses the distinctions that Barr and Tagg (1995) make between "instruction" and "learning" paradigms. For example, instructors are considered primarily as "designers of learning methods and environments" rather than primarily as "lecturers." Also, the academic degree "equals demonstrated knowledge and skill" rather than "accumulated credit hours." Students are highly engaged and are held responsible for mastering program competencies. They are taught to be managers of and responsible for their own education.

(4) Computer technology. Technology is integrated into the entire program to facilitate and advance the learning process. From the very first year of the program students used their own laptop computers to participate in web-based virtual classrooms in all of their courses. Thus, their educational experiences extend well beyond their face-to-face classes.

(5) All teaching faculty meet together regularly. Faculty members participate in their own learning community. Highly involved as a group, faculty meet together on a regular basis to discuss student progress and to coordinate joint projects and assignments. For example, during the first semester freshman year, the Information Technology, English, Marketing, and Organizational Leadership teachers meet together biweekly. Mutually reinforced, highly integrated and purposeful coordinated activities are woven throughout the overall curriculum.

Faculty collaboration and student collaboration, along with student competency achievement, are hallmarks of the program. All faculty members participating in the program are considered part of a larger team and remain so during the entire academic year. Faculty members serve as resources and consultants for fellow instructors and for all students in the program.

(6) Unnecessary redundancy and overlap eliminated. Redundancy and overlap were eliminated in a process that involved almost the entire university faculty in 1995-96. Each existing course in the 4-year program was taken apart topic-by-topic and then reconstructed on a competency framework with distinctions made between initiating, reinforcing, and mastery topic levels. One example of unnecessary redundancy was that Maslow's hierarchy of needs was taught at the initiating level seven times in the students' curriculum. Academic experiences are now sequenced so that foundations for competencies are acquired and built upon in a timely and efficient manner.

(7) Student workgroups. The program is heavily group-oriented and computer technology effortlessly extends the classroom walls. Not only do students move through the program as a learning community, but students easily operate in workgroups in-class, outside of class, and during their culminating end-of-semester Integrating Experiences (see #8, below).

(8) Focused Integrating Experiences. Competencies are reinforced, expanded and reflected in a multitude of innovative and diverse academic experiences such as the creation and management of a company in Year-Three of the program and week-long Integrating Experiences during the last week of each semester in Year-One and Year-Two.

End-of-Semester Week-long: These one-week long Integrating Experiences are carefully designed to help students synthesize course material, reinforce knowledge and skills, and understand the relevance and relatedness of their studies in the program. The Experiences consist of case studies that student teams take on.

During the weeklong Experience, teams research the case, plan and design a multimedia presentation to the faculty. These presentations address the questions and directives given to the students by the faculty. Students earn 1.5 credits each semester in Year-One and Year-Two toward their 120 credit total.

Year-long: The Year-Three Integrating Experience takes the entire academic year. Students run a consulting company, New Paradigm Design, where teams take on real world projects for a wide variety of not-for-profit organizations. Students earn 9 credits toward their 120 credit total.

During the week-long Integrating Experience and during the year-long consulting company activities, faculty members act as consultants and are available to meet with teams both face-to-face and virtually through the online web-based virtual classroom environment.

The Integrating Experience and New Paradigm Design have proven to be powerful and comprehensive learning experiences for the students. Students get to experience the benefits and practical applications of their curriculum firsthand. The curriculum takes on life and becomes even more meaningful for the learners. The Integrating Experience and running the company also provide forums for faculty and students to share, discuss, debate, and advance student competency mastery. This level of faculty involvement has led to many conversations across disciplines including ways that this model might be integrated into the entire university.

3-YEAR LEARNING COMMUNITY JOYS OF TEACHING

Teaching in this 3-year program for the past 13 years has been a very rewarding experience for me. Not just because of the curriculum and the students - although those alone would certainly be enough. The extra added reward for me is the collaboration and cooperation between faculty colleagues from disparate disciplines. In academe, it's not very often that published poets and computer professors get to talk on a bi-weekly basis about the efficacy of curricula, share course content, and create joint assignments for students they have in common.

Robert H. Seidman, Ph.D.
Southern New Hampshire University
r.seidman@snhu.edu
http://tinyurl.com/DrSeidman

REFERENCES

Barr, R.B., and Tagg, J. (1995, Nov/Dec). From teaching to learning: a new paradigm for
undergraduate education. Change, 13-25.
Jaschik, S. (2009, Feb. 17). The Buzz and Spin on 3-Year Degrees. INSIDE HIGHER ED. Retrieved April
16, 2009, from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/17/three
Reis, R. (2009, March 31). The Buzz and Spin on 3-Year Degrees. Message #934 posted to
Tomorrow's Professor Blog
http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/archives/2009/03/934_the_buzz_an.html#more
[reprint of Jaschik (2009).]
Seidman, R. & Bradley, M. (2002). A Collaborative & Competency-based Three-Year Bachelor's
Degree: Empirical Results. AERA Annual Meeting - New Orleans, Division J - Faculty and the
Curriculum: Institutional and State Policy Issues and Implications. ERIC: ED481060.
SNHU (2009). Southern New Hampshire University 3-Year Honors Degree Program. Retrieved
April 16, 2009, from http://www.snhu.edu/2220.asp

* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor

The posting looks at - well the title speaks for itself. It is an academic take on the book by the same name [How to Grow a Backbone: Ten Strategies for Gaining Power and Influnce at Work, by Susan Marshall. [Published by McGraw-Hill Professional, 2000 ISBN 0809224941, 9780809224944] http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/. The posting below is by Gina J Hiatt, Ph.D and is from the Academic Ladder - Get help with the climb, which can be found at: [http://academicladder.com] © 2009 Gina Hiatt, PhD. reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: The Business of Business Education Is More than Business

"Oh, good," I said to myself, "Here are some of the books I ordered. I hope these are the ones about dealing with back pain." The first book on the pile in the box was How to Grow a Backbone by Susan Marshall. I did a double take, and then I realized it was a book I had ordered based on Meggin McIntosh's suggestion during her presentation "Antioxidants for Toxic Academic Work Environments" (recording still available).

In How to Grow a Backbone, Susan Marshall tells us why we need a strong backbone to thrive in the work world and what steps we need to take in order to develop one. Although her book is tailored to the business world, it easily translates into the academic environment.

What follows is some of what I liked best from this book, organized and summarized in a way that I hope is helpful to graduate students, post docs and professors. I highly recommend that you read it for yourself. I started reading it to help my readers, but I ended up benefiting from it in surprising ways. (Believe me, you need a backbone to be able to keep your head up in the world of Internet business.)

What is Backbone?

Marshall defines backbone as "firm and resolute character" (p.10). In action, she says, it might look and feel like courage. The word "integrity" also describes someone with strong backbone. My belief is that everyone can grow a backbone, and that academia is a perfect place for you to learn how.

How Much of a Backbone Do You Have?

This might sound like a harsh question, but it's an important one. Here are some questions that I've come up with that you can ask yourself in order to find out if you are backbone-deficient.

* Do you look at the world as if it's out to get you?
* Do you crumble when you get criticized or get negative feedback? More importantly, since no one loves to be criticized, do you have trouble pulling yourself back together after a day or two?
* Do you spend a lot of time complaining about others in a non-constructive way?
* Do you worry too much about what other people think?
* Do you avoid taking a stand?
* Do your actions not match your stated goals?
* Do you let others distract you?
* Do you avoid all risk, even small ones?
* Do you let your day rule you, as opposed to you taking charge of what you do each day?
* Are you mean and nasty?
* Are you human? By that I mean that we all need help in growing more backbone. It's normal to take avoid risks and not want to get hurt. We just need to challenge ourselves periodically to take the more difficult route, because of the advantages that can be gained by doing so.

What Are the Advantages of Growing More Backbone?

People who act with integrity feel more in control of their environment. Feeling this way is an important component of a sense of well-being. When what you do is in line with what you believe, your self-esteem is higher. Although you are taking more risks, you will paradoxically feel less fear and anxiety in the long run. When you feel in control of your environment, you will be less likely to experience a sense of hopelessness, helplessness and depression. This in turn will make it easier for you to take on challenges.

The Three Components of Backbone

According to Marshall there are three components of backbone: competence, the ability to take purposeful risks, and confidence. Each component interacts with the other.

1. Competence. Be open to growing your ability in every aspect of your academic career, and not just knowledge of your field. Seek out help in improving your writing abilities, time management skills, and ability to deal with others, for example. Cultivate experiences that will help your competence grow. List all your talents and abilities and be aware of how much you've accomplished in the past few years.

2. The ability to take purposeful risks. As Marshall says, this is "the ability to engage in intelligent, purposeful ventures on behalf of your career." By taking on appropriate challenges, you will not only succeed some of the time, but you will get practice in learning how to cope with setbacks, criticism and disappointment.

3. Confidence. This is a natural outgrowth of the first two components, and will lead you to take on more challenges. Knowing that you can survive the negative consequences of the risks you have taken will actually increase your courage and self esteem. Having more competence, of course, will make you more calmly confident in yourself and your abilities. (We're talking here about real confidence, and not the blow-hard façade of confidence that you see in nasty, immature, bullying types of academics.)

Here are suggestions culled from How to Grow a Backbone, along with examples that I've inserted to help you relate it to the academic environment.

1. Observe and assess your environment. Know the lay of the land.

a. If you're a graduate student, take an active role in finding out what it takes to get your degree. Talk to more experienced students and to all the professors that have time for you, in order to develop a cognitive map. What is the power structure in your department? Who will be most supportive of you? What professor has a reputation as a good advisor? Don't wait for others to share this kind of information with you, and don't assume you know it all. Wendy Carter's Ta-Da software (see right hand column) is excellent for giving new students a mental map of the dissertation process.

b. Professors: find out exactly what it takes in order to get tenure, understand how decisions get made in your department, who are the people in power and what are their typical behaviors in meetings, and how this compares to what occurs at other schools like yours.

2. Observe others and yourself. Listen carefully to the language that others use, and work on making your own as specific as possible. Watch body language for hints of what's really going on. Be aware that the nastiest people are often the most spineless. They know that it works in the short run to go with the low blow, and that it makes them look good, at least to other spineless people.

3. Take notes. I love that Marshall included this, because I'm an obsessive note taker myself. I believe in the power of the written word in sharpening your thoughts and helping you clarify and remember what matters. Here are examples of where taking notes could make a difference.

a. You meet with your advisor, who mentions three changes s/he'd like to see in your chapter. You take notes and write her/him a brief email afterwards, thanking him/her for the meeting and summarizing those suggestions, asking her/him to let you know if you didn't understand them correctly. This is helpful later when your advisor asks you why you made those ridiculous changes.

b. You're in a boring departmental meeting when two colleagues suddenly go at it with each other. Everyone is emotional. You write down your observations and read your notes later to help you assess what happened. You keep these notes as a record, when others have played the telephone game and changed the truth. This will help you keep yourself level and be more aware of what's happening in your environment.

4. Mind map. As many of you know, I love mind mapping as way to organize content that you are trying to write about. But it also works well as you navigate through the thornier or more complex issues in life. As Marshall points out, "it helps to empty out what's crammed into your cranium," to "enhance the information you want to keep after you've sorted and organized it," (p. 86), and to allow "for unhampered and undisciplined free association of thought, with the assurance that by writing everything down, you can go back to sort, categorize, and make sense of what you produced" (p. 88).

a. Use mind mapping to plan what you want to accomplish in the next month or three-month period. When you're done, you can then list and rank your priorities.

b. Make a mind map of your 5-year career plan.

5. Become clear on decisions you need to make, and then make them. This can be scary because choosing one step in favor of another always carries some risk. Learn to deal with the anxiety that this brings. In the long run you'll find that making a decision feels better than not making one. Be aware that your day is filled with decisions, big and small. Often the small ones determine the trajectory of your day. ("Should I play this computer game or write during this free half hour?") And keep in mind that in some cases there is no right or wrong decision. There is just the necessity of making a decision. So flip a coin and move on.

6. Extract unimportant thoughts or issues from your priority list. "Have a purpose for your thinking. Any information that doesn't work toward your purpose is, at least for the moment, extraneous" (p. 93) Once you've separated these issues out, throw them out, either physically or mentally.

7. Advance with a purpose in mind. Always ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" When you meet with your advisor or a mentor for a specific purpose, make sure that the goal of the meeting is met. Come prepared with specific questions and make sure they get answered.

8. Seek out people who are functioning successfully, who get the results that you would like to get. Role models will influence you and inspire you.

9. Ask purposeful, targeted, direct questions in a respectful way.

a. In a job interview, don't just worry about what they think of you. Ask about things that matter to you, such as, "How do people in this department settle differences?" Don't accept facile answers; probe or re-ask your question when needed.

b. Ask your advisor, "Could you be more specific about what you don't like about this chapter?"

c. Ask the departmental chair, "Could you put that in writing?"

d. Ask yourself questions, too. Some examples are "What am I afraid of?" and "What do I want?"

10. Don't succumb to intimidation techniques from others. This includes "killer phrase, such as "You don't know what you're talking about." Marshall goes into detail about this, and I recommend that you read this if you are dealing with people who cope by using intimidation.

And one more note: Academic leaders, such as department chairs, DGSs, and deans, should be motivated to create an environment that fosters backbone in everyone. I say this because backboneless environments cause "ideas to be lost, thoughts to go unspoken, frustrations to pile up, and consensus building to become a core competency" (p. 25). That doesn't sound like a very good place to work or attend university, does it?

I've written and talked about the harshness of the academic environment before (see "How Academia Messes With Your Mind (and what to do about it)" - you can still get the MP3.) Therefore it's the ideal place to practice backbone-building skills. I'm sure your backbone will be put to the test any day now - try one of these suggestions and let me know how it goes!

By Gina Hiatt, Ph.D. President and Founder of Academic Ladder, LLC, http://academicladder.com; and the Academic Writing Club, http://academicwritingclub.com