Learning and Teaching More Effectively

Updated 16-Jun-2018

• Compiled by Richard W. Slatta Professor of History & ex-Director of the First Year Inquiry Program, North Carolina State University, winner of the 2000 CHASS Lonnie and Carol Poole Award for Excellence in Teaching AND
• Maxine P. Atkinson ex-Director of First Year Inquiry Program, ex-head of the NC State Sociology Dept., Professor of Sociology, winner of numerous teaching awards, North Carolina State University. Slatta and Atkinson are available [jointly and individually] to conduct teaching and learning workshops on a variety of topics:
  
  

  course planning and development	innovative teaching methodologies
  teaching creative & critical thinking	teaching student research skills
  teaching first-year students	inquiry-guided learning [IGL]
  active learning through technology	teaching effectively online
  designing study abroad experiential learning courses	enhancing intercultural competencies

  Workshops may be customized to suit your needs

  Some students are satisfied to take a course at face value and to perform the tasks required. Other students wish to know more about the "whys" of a course. Why do we do what we do? What value is it to you? What theory or assumptions lie behind the course design and assignments? The links below explore many of the pedagogical issues important to good course design. Many of the links will also help you know yourself and your special learning needs and challenges better. Many of the tools will help teachers teach better.

  Online Essays

• An Inquiry Guided Approach to Learning and Teaching
• Rubrics: Why and how to build them
• Slatta's Teaching Philosophy
• Embedding Diversity in Course Content and Assignments" by Richard W. Slatta, originally in NCSU FCTL Newsletter, 1 (Nov 2006): 1, 4-5.
• Teaching first-year students
• Advice to Students from my father, J. E. Slatta [Teacher, school superintendent, basketball coach, supportive father, 1900-1975]
• Maxine P. Atkinson, "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Revisited" Emphasis: Teaching and Learning, 12: 3 (May 2003).
• Maxine P. Atkinson, "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Reconceptualizing Scholarship and Transforming the Academy," Social Forces, 79.4 (2001) 1217-1229. Accessible from NCSU campus; requires NCSU username.

  Learning and Teaching Links

  Aphorisms on Learning and Teaching	SoTL: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning	Learning and Teaching Issues
  Web-based Learning	Inquiry, Problem-Based, Collaborative Learning	Resources for Teaching First-Year Students
  Writing, Speaking (Communicating) Across the Curriculum	Service Learning	Rubrics and Assessment

  SoTL: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

  1. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning(JoSoTL)
  2. Maxine P. Atkinson, "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Revisited" Emphasis: Teaching and Learning, 12: 3 (May 2003).
  3. Maxine P. Atkinson, "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Reconceptualizing Scholarship and Transforming the Academy," Social Forces, 79.4 (2001) 1217-1229. Accessible from NCSU campus; requires NCSU username.
  4. Doug Wellman, "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" Emphasis: Teaching and Learning, 10: 2 (November 2000).
  5. Articles (PDF) on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Carnegie Foundation
  6. SOTL Resources, Indiana University

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     Learning and Teaching Issues

  7. Jon Mueller's Excellent Authentic Assessment Toolbox
  8. All Kinds of Minds Dr. Mel Levine's excellent institute (in Chapel Hill, NC) for undestanding differences in learning. "It's harder to be a kid than an adult. Kids are asked to be generalists in school, to do everything fairly well. We adult don't ask that of ourselves."
  9. Blue Web'n: Annotated links to a wide range of learning sites Aimed at K-12 but excellent access via subject
  10. Some Thoughts on Teaching and Learning
  11. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire by NCSU's Rich Felder and Barbara Soloman effort. Take this brief inventory to learn more about your learning style. A good course offers challenges to a wide range of learning styles. What's your predominant style? Knowing it can help you better match your mind and your course work.
  12. Theory Into Practice Database Learning theories, domains, concepts
  13. Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric Despite the weirdo name, some good, applicable ideas.

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      Web-based Learning

  14. Incorporating Active Learning into a Web-based Ethics Course by John A. N. Lee Department of Computer Science, and Center for the Study of Science in Society Virginia Tech
  15. Interactive Learning with a Web-based Digital Library System by John A. N. Lee Department of Computer Science and Center for the Study of Science in Society Virginia Tech

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      Inquiry (IGL), Problem-Based, Collaborative Learning

  16. Univ. of Buffalo Case Studies in Science
  17. PBL at the Univ. of Delaware
  18. Constructivism and the Seven E's Excite, Explore, Explain, Expand, Extend, Exchange, Examine
  19. GENERIC PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING ESSENTIALS
      1. Students must have the responsibility for their own learning.
      2. The problem simulations used in problem-based learning must be ill-structured and allow for free inquiry.
      3. Learning should be integrated from a wide range of disciplines or subjects
      4. Collaboration is essential
      5. What students learn during their self-directed learning must be applied back to the problem with reanalysis and resolution.
      6. A closing analysis of what has been learned from work with the problem and a discussion of what concepts and principles have been learned is essential.
      7. Self and peer assessment should be carried out at the completion of each problem and at the end of every curricular unit.
      8. The activities carried out in problem-based learning must be those valued in the real world.
      9. Student examinations must measure student progress towards the goals of problem-based learning.
      10. Problem-based learning must be the pedagogical base in the curriculum and not part of a didactic curriculum.
      11. A more accurate title might be "student-centered, problem-based, inquiry-based, integrated, collaborative, reiterative, learning."

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      Writing, Speaking (Communicating) Across the Curriculum

      Essential skills for everyone in our information age
  20. LabWrite NCSU program to improve science lab writing.
  21. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. First published in 1918, it remains an excellent guide to good writing. Some NCSU students very resistant to "writing across the curriculum," indeed, to writing at all. Strunk shows that my "radical" new writing demands--clarity, active voice, correct grammar --are very old, well established, and still worth applying.

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      Service Learning

      Thanks to Janey Musgrave, NC State University, Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service, for assistance in compiling these links.
  22. Service Learning Links, NC State Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service
  23. Association for Experiential Education
  24. [Robert] Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
  25. Energize, Inc., an international training, consulting and publishing firm specializing in volunteerism
  26. Do Something, a national nonprofit organization that inspires young people to believe that change is possible
      

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