ATE fellows promote teaching excellence
2023-24 marks the first year of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment’s Advancing Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellows program. Through the program, OHIO faculty with pedagogical expertise support, develop and promote evidence-based teaching practices.
Advancing Teaching Excellence fellows are focusing on peer teaching observation programming, promoting excellence in STEM instruction, support for faculty involvement in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and equitable assessment.
Peer Teaching Observation Program
Linda Rice, professor with the English Department, chairs a committee that has designed a protocol for conducting teaching observations, created rubrics to align teaching assessment with the OHIO conceptualization of Teaching Excellence and developed a training program to ensure consistent implementation. In the spring semester, the group plans to pilot all documents and processes, make revisions/improvements where needed based, conduct a training for observers and make final recommendations for the program’s next steps.
Committee members include Professor (Child and Family Studies) Jenny Chabot; Clinical Associate Professor (Physician Assistants Program) Cheryl Geng; Associate Professor (Communication Studies) Angela Hosek; Associate Professor of Instruction (Analytics and Information Systems) Mark Rowe; and Associate Professor of Instruction (Music) Jennie Smith.
STEM Instruction
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Corey Beck’s work involves identifying specific learning challenges for undergraduate students taking STEM courses at OHIO and developing strategies for instructors to help students overcome these challenges.
During the fall semester, Beck surveyed STEM teaching faculty and undergraduate students to understand each group’s perception of student needs. In addition, he designed and led a workshop on effectively incorporating generative AI within STEM curricula. He is currently developing a series of workshops to be offered in the spring semester with tentative topics including Innovative Pedagogy in STEM Education, Inclusive Teaching Practices, Supporting Neurodiverse Learners, and Technology Integration in Teaching.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Assistant Professor of Marketing Andrew Pueschel collected faculty feedback on supports needed for increasing SoTL productivity. Pueschel has planned SoTL faculty writing sessions beginning in January 2024 and running through the end of the spring semester. These sessions will take place each Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and create a space and supported open hours for instructors to develop and complete SoTL projects. Instructors are invited to continue sharing feedback on additional preferred supports for their involvement in SoTL and to join the writing sessions.
Equitable and Effective Assessment
Professor of Geological Sciences Greg Springer has focused his work on large introductory course faculty and how they align assessment to learning outcomes. He has surveyed colleagues on their practices to design a spring semester workshop series on course and assessment design.