Faculty to sharpen expertise

Fifteen Georgia College & State University professors have committed to a seven-week workshop to create better assessment tools and improve the student learning experience throughout the university.

The Office of Academic Affairs has dedicated more than $18,000 to this year’s eighth annual Faculty Development Workshop (FDW),

This contribution, along with grant funds allotted by Department Chair of Early Childhood and Middle Grades Education Charlie Martin, provided supplies, textbooks and Pocket PCs for the FDW.

“This year a different approach is being used with assessment,” said Vice President Anne Gormly, who approved funding for this year’s FDW. “We’re making sure we know that what we’re doing in the classroom is making a difference.”

This year’s workshop will focus on assessment as well as the traditional topic of technology, said associate professor of teaching and learning and founding trainer of FDW, Dr. Autumn Grubb.

She said a contributing factor to the refocusing was GC&SU’s accreditation association, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

In 2004, GC&SU’s eligibility for SACS reaccredidation was focused heavily on the topic of assessment throughout the university.

The lack of experience with assessment at GC&SU was the catalyst of the proposal that assessment become the new focus for the FDW, Grubb said.

Grubb was granted the proposal for the eighth annual workshop in 2005, and suggested PCs as the implemented technology for the program.

For the first seven years of the FDW, laptops were the technological advancement offered as a reward initiative for participants who met certain requirements. This year, however, all professors participating in the program will focus on assessment with the use of advanced technology. Each participant may earn a Hewlett-Packard iPac Personal Pocket Computer upon successful completion of the program.

“What we are asking them [participants] to do is develop an assessment plan for their classes,” said Grubb.

“We are asking them to look for ways that they can implement this [PC] into collecting data from assessment.”

The workshops will focus on revealing the complexity of the assessment process to professors, Grubb said.

“Assessment is about the teacher looking to see where students are at, and then taking that information and adjusting their teaching,” said Grubb. “It’s not just about looking at the teacher or just looking at the students. It’s about looking at the big picture, the whole environment.”

Professors who volunteered to participate in the workshops commit to a seven- week program that involves three hours of class per week. The program will begin this year on the week of Jan. 24, and participants will attend sessions on either Mondays or Fridays.

Participants must explore techniques of assessment in provided textbooks, employ the techniques in their classes and become “leaders of assessment” in programming within their departments.

Workshop participants will be asked to provide explanations at the workshops of their attempted assessment techniques, and return as alumni to serve on future advisory teams of FDWs.

Bill Wall, chair of Biological & Environmental Sciences, said he felt the program made such a difference when he attended in 1998, he decided to participate in the assessment workshop as well.

“[In 1998] I learned how to develop Web pages and learned a lot of useful things,” said Wall. “I viewed this as a chance to do that again.”

Although assessment has become the main focus of the workshops, technology is still an important aspect of the program, said chief information officer Jim Wolfgang.

GC&SU professor and alumnus to the program Jan Andrews said the program provided her with helpful computer skills when she attended the program in 1999. She is now a member of the advisory team for FDW.

“[The workshops] really brought back the enthusiasm I had for teaching…Students were way ahead of me with computers and it helped me catch up to them,” said Andrews. “I felt I needed to give back because of all the FDW did for me.”

The workshops have the potential to create a campus-wide impact by enabling professors to localize and address problematic areas for students throughout the university, Grubb said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 28 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry