Faculty Development Overview

Faculty Development

One of the main goals of the Center is to promote the development of faculty, teaching assistants and students with respect to teaching and learning.  The following services are provided (click the link for more information):

Individual Consultation		Workshops & Programming (coming soon)		On-demand & Anytime  Information		Newsletters		Educational Discussion Forum		Faculty & TA Orientation (coming soon)

Individual Consultation

Personalized assistance has proven to be the most effective way to solve teaching problems, support and sustain successful teaching, and encourage the development of new teaching skills. The goal of consultations is to provide individualized help that is appropriate for the faculty member or TA's level of skill and his/her own goals for development. Consultations may focus on interpretation of student evaluations, student/teacher interactions and classroom dynamics, pedagogical techniques and strategies, planning student projects and writing assignments, using interactive teaching strategies, improving testing and grading practices, using technology effectively in class or similar issues.

The Center also offers peer-review of teaching.  The peer-review process is currently being developed in collaboration with the Curriculum Committee and Assessment Committee.  The main purpose of the peer-review is for formative assessment.  Part of the peer-review process can include Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID).  SGID is a method of assessment that uses facilitated small group discussion among students to provide feedback to an instructor for the purpose of improving teaching, developing ideas for strengthening the course, and enhancing communication between students and teacher about the teaching and learning process.  To request a peer-review, email Adam at apersky@unc.edu

Workshops & Programming

At this time the Center offers the 5-minute Time Out for Teaching workshop.  These will occur regularly throughout the year during Division meetings.  Handouts from these workshops can be found in the Learning & Teaching Resource web page.  For other teaching workshops, please see the Center for Faculty Excellence's workshop schedule.  The Center will develop its own programming.  To request programming, email Adam at apersky@unc.edu

On-Demand/Anytime Information

To better meet faculty schedules and to provide, on-demand, anytime/anywhere, information,CEEP is developing  on-line presentations and linking to already developed on-line workshops and training. One example are the “Take 5 for Teaching.”  from the Center for Faculty Excellence at Central Michigan University These videos are 4 – 5 minutes in length and focus on one specific issue. The primary goal of these videos is to give you anytime access to “bits” of information that can be directly and immediately applied to your classrooms.

Newsletters

The Center distributes a quarterly newsletter named the Time-out for Teaching Newsletter.  Newsletters are distributed as hard copies to on-campus faculty and electronically to all faculty.  The newsletter archives can be found here. 

Educational Discussion Forum

The Education Discussion Forum was initiated as an outlet for faculty to discuss the teaching and learning process. Discussion are held monthly and are centered around a topic and a few selected articles from the literature. The focus of the forum is how to provide the research element of education and how to apply that research to everyday teaching and learning processes, that is, designing of instruction. The topics of the discussion, articles and e-mail listserve can be access through Blackboard — once logged in, click on the "Courses" tab and search for "PHCYEDUJOURNALCLUB.GRP"

Faculty & TA Orientation

Faculty and teaching assistant (TA) orientation with respect to teaching and learning is under development.  For TA orientation, visit the Center for Faculty Excellence's program.