Week 3 - Assignment - Exploring the Faculty Development Resources

[Ray Purdom]

Next Wednesday, we will sample the resources in MERLOT related to faculty development.

We will examine the materials in the Pedagogy Portal, the Faculty Development Collection, and the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT)

http://pedagogy.merlot.org/
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?category=2295
http://jolt.merlot.org/

We will also look at some of the Tips for Teaching with Technology provided by various discipline communities.

http://facultydevelopment.merlot.org/TipsForTeachingWithTechnology....

Between now and Wednesday, I encourage you to explore these areas yourself and please post here any items that you found particularly interesting

[Bonnie Mullinix]

I think the pedagogy portal is fantastic now and holds even greater promise. It seems to be a wonderful way to bring forward our ability to strategically search the rich collections that have been developed by so many Centers for Teaching and Learning across the country and across the world. I also think the federated search feature is wonderful (http://fedsearch.merlot.org ). It makes me wonder, whether or not the custom google search engine that the POD Network has developed might work as an addition to this? (http://podnetwork.org/search.htm#faculty ). While there may be problems, it could be worth considering.

[Ray Purdom]

I think Cathy found a good number of those resources using the POD Network search engine. I used the custom Google search engine to create a similar search of the UNC Teaching and Learning Centers.

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=010363222337592724388%3Azkqmiovsvny

[Ray Purdom]

An additional thought - it would be nice if the Federated Search could include the PID Network search engine. However, It think there are some technical problems - formatting to the Federated Search format and relevancy of search results. The Federated Search process has a way of evaluating the relevance of a found resource. The Google search does it differently.

[Robin Marion]

Browsing through MERLOT is a bit like peeling layers off an onion...the more you learn about the features, the more you discover you didn't know.

I look forward to participating as a member of the editorial board and a peer reviewer, and will set goals for myself so that I am plugging away at the inventory of as yet unreviewed materials.

[Cathy Swift]

That's great to hear, Robin. We welcome your participation!

[Theresa Flaherty]

Robin - your comment about MERLOT being like peeling layers off an onion is quite true. Enjoy your experiences with this truly wonderful resource.

[Esperanza Zenon]

I was happy to have access to JOLT. I am currently doing some research on the effectiveness of chat with graduate students and JOLT has some articles that I will definitely use.

[Cathy Swift]

Esperanza, please continue to check the JOLT site. There is a new issue every three months and there are a lot of articles that can help out, especially with online classes. They also always welcome manuscripts as well as people who hope to peer review manuscripts of others.

[Blaine Morrow]

Esperanza,
Can you tell me more about your research? Are you, for example, defining effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes?

[Sstephany Head]

Under http://pedagogy.merlot.org/, Classroom Management / Faculty andStudent Civility was excellent. I am always looking for ways to ensure that students that may not be the easiest to teach are embraced to ensure their success. I also found this link to be something I would forward to peers - excellent.

[Cathy Swift]

I'm glad to hear that Stephany. There are a lot of hints there for handling "unruly" students, but in a respectful manner.