41 COCC Teaching Support

Andria

Over the past few years support for new teachers has grown at COCC.  Today Stacey Donohue posted a link in our "Commlines" bulletin board to a blog post by Dr. Andria Woodell.  Andria writes about her work with Philip Zimbardo's Heroic Imagination Project.  She explains the project thusly:  "The main premise is if social psychologists can educate people about topicssuch as apathetic bystanders, obedience and conformity or situationalblindness, then individuals will be more aware of these circumstances and stand against them when necessary.  "

So the students in the HIP enter into teaching teams.  Over the past couple of years I've been among the observers that these students practice in front of before going off into the world to do their presentations to other audiences.  One peculiar aspect of these practice sessions is that Andria wants us practice audience members to be kinda wicked -- rude, looking at cell phones, arguing with the speakers, etc.  It's very hard for me, after years of teaching public speaking, to not give positive nonverbal feedback (smiles and head nods) to student speakers.

In her post Andria says "The last two years, working with the HIP projects and the COPE club has ranked among some of the most rewarding moments in my career."  I enjoy hearing about teaching and mentoring experiences that bring such pleasure to a friend.  It reminded me of the great experiences I used to have with the Phi Theta Kappa students back in the early 90s when I advised the honor society.

This blog post was part of a new site called The Teaching Commons.  I think this is an absolutely wonderful addition to college teaching support.   When I started out at COCC, learning new methods for teaching was a matter of visiting other people's classes or having special departmental meetings where people discussed what was working for them in the classroom.  Often I was too scared to ask for help because I didn't want to look incompetent or weak.  Thus it's great to see all that the college offers now in the way of support for teaching.

When I started teaching at Idaho State, I was just thrown into a classroom with the assumption, I suppose, that I would swim or sink.  It was pretty much the same at the University of Utah.  Most research institutions don't offer a lot of training in teaching for their graduate students and of course it's the undergraduates who suffer.  The Chronicle of Higher Ed. reported on a recent study by Wabash College’s Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts which claimed that many first year students report that they rarely experienced clear and organized teaching.  Fortunately, however, my favorite professional organization, WSCA, always had superb yearly panels on Great Ideas for Teaching Speech.

I also spent quite a lot of my early years professional improvement plan money on teacher training, including a chunk on a week-long course from Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan on using games in the classroom.

I've heard that there have been some wonderful campus wide teaching academies but since I'm short timer saying goodbye to the profession, I have not attended.