Faculty Resource Center
Services
The Faculty Resource Center provides aids to help improve teaching effectiveness. All are voluntary, non-evaluative, and outside of the formal reappointment and promotion process of the college. After taking advantage of these services teachers can, if they wish, invite peers, Deans and others commenting on the record to observe and report on the outcomes.You are encouraged to review the confidentiality policy of the Faculty Resource Center.
Videotaping a Class Session
Viewing ourselves on a videotape is a painful experience for many of us, whether it is from a taped class session or a panel discussion on cable TV.
Nonetheless, watching oneself teach is an excellent way to assess teaching behaviors and classroom interaction. The Center, in collaboration with Academic Media Services, arranges the videotaping of classes for feedback on presentation and teaching skills. This is a confidential service, and the tape is yours to keep. The tape is viewed in private, either by yourself or with a colleague.
Reasons why you might consider being videotaped:
- to assess presentation strengths and weaknesses [including physical behavior, body language, speaking habits]
- to look at questioning strategies and student responses
- to see the balance of lecture and interaction
- to experience the class or training from your students' perspective
If you are interested contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo (X-7823, Lperezst@ramapo.edu ) and she will arrange with Academic Media Services to have a student aide tape all or part of a class session.
Here is an additional resource:
University of Oregon, Videotaping Self-Evaluation Guide
Backuplink: http://tep.uoregon.edu/services/videotaping/selfeval.html
Early Feedback
Some instructors, three or four weeks into a class, obtain feedback through the use of a student evaluation form, or simply by conducting a “how-is-it-going” class discussion with students. This allows you to adjust your teaching in time to make a difference.
The Faculty Resource Center can provide various forms for use in early course evaluation and can help to identify a colleague who may support you in this process if you wish.
If you would like more information on early course evaluation, please contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo (X-7823, Lperezst@ramapo.edu ).
Classroom observations
All of us throughout our careers at Ramapo College are required to have on-the-record peer evaluations of teaching effectiveness. The Center offers an additional opportunity to have one or more that is strictly confidential for development, not evaluative, purposes.
Contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo at X-7823, Lperezst@ramapo.edu
Individual Consultations
Many of the services offered by the Center involve individual consultations that are confidential. There are obviously other matters, not covered by these programs, affecting your professional development for which you also need advice or direction. No records are kept of these consultations.
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Mentoring Program
Ramapo College has no academic departments, only interdisciplinary schools. This different, even unique, culture can require a transition.
The Mentoring Program is designed to help tenure track faculty members and librarians in their 1st and 2nd years to adjust to Ramapo College. It links an experienced faculty member or librarian with someone just starting out.
The Program is voluntary and supplements any mentoring relationships developed elsewhere in the College.
To request a mentor or to volunteer as a mentor, please contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo
Teaching Circles
Teaching is generally, and unfortunately, an isolated activity. We find it hard to make the space to reflect on teaching together, partly because of more pressing matters, partly because it is difficult to find a place and time to meet in a group, and – most discouraging of all – partly because we are fearful of sharing our limits and frustrations as teachers.
The Center sponsors semester-long Teaching Circles. We accept suggestions for teaching and learning books to read. The Center will provide a personal copy of the “book of the semester” for those who sign up to participate.
The fall 2008 Teaching Circles are organized on the topic of assessment, based on the book by Linda Suskie's " Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide." (Anker, 2004).
It will be up to the members of the Circle to decide how often to meet (six to eight times during the semester), and how to choose and rotate (or not) the role of facilitator.
Expert Teachers
This is a wonderful opportunity to observe award-winning teachers in their classrooms. Many of the past recipients of the Henry Bischoff Excellence in Teaching Award still at Ramapo are included.
These faculty members have generously agreed to open their classrooms on a limited basis to less experienced teachers and then meet one-on-one sometime afterward to discuss what took place. The purpose is to help faculty members beginning their teaching careers to become more effective in the classroom.
If you want to participate in the program as an observer, contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo. We can discuss which faculty member most closely fits your interests and contact him or her directly to set up the appropriate arrangements.
Note to experienced faculty: If you want to volunteer to be listed as an expert teacher, please contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo.
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Faculty Learning Communities
Faculty Learning Communities (FLC's) are ongoing discussion groups that allow colleagues to gather from across disciplines to discuss and develop their skills around a specific teaching and learning topic.
In the fall of 2008 the FLCs will focus on the theme of "Engaging Online Learners." We will develop our online courses and review Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt's "Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom."
Writing Circles
The Faculty Resource Center has two Writing Circles each semester. Faculty who participate have an opportunity to share their work with others and to receive feedback in a supportive atmosphere.
Scholarship Circles
The Faculty Resource Center offers scholarship circles in which faculty are able to present, discuss, and further develop their scholarship with a group of peers.
If you are interested in developing a scholarship circle, please contact Lysandra Perez-Strumolo
