Colleagues,

Brown Bag Talk by Dr. Wilson Warren: "Bridging the Distance between Academic and K-12 History Teachers."

For the past fourteen years, much of Bill Warren's teaching, research, and service as an academic historian has focused on history education, including teaching methods courses as well as a variety of outreach efforts to elementary and secondary teachers.  He has seen vast differences in the values and perspectives of academic historians and many K-12 history teachers.  Although not all, certainly many K-12 history teachers view academic historians' ideas, including their advice on how to better teach history at the K-12 level, with suspicion.  Professor Warren will elaborate on ways that academic historians, in particular, might try to reach out to their K-12 counterparts to bridge this distance in perspectives. Dr. Bill Warren is a professor of History at Western Michigan University and a St. Ambrose Honors Program alumnus, class of 1983.

The Brown Bag is scheduled for Mar. 15 (Thursday) at noon in the O'Keefe Library. (Dr. Warren will also be consulting with the History Department and visiting several classes during his stay which concludes on Friday, Mar. 16.)

TEACHING CIRCLES

The Strongest Link teaching circle will meet on Monday, March 19, 2007 at NOON – Faculty Dining Room

The Teaching Circle, “Alternatives to Lecturing,” will meet on Wednesday, March 21st with several guests attending. All members of the St. Ambrose Community are welcome to attend meetings of this teaching circle. Please contact Carol Lyon, Secondary Education Department, at LyonCarolR@sau.edu or Jessica Gosnell, Philosophy Department, at GosnellJessica@sau.edu if you have any ideas for or questions about the circle.

A Third Circle? Maureen Baldwin has begun discussions regarding starting a teaching circle about learning communities. If anyone has an interest in participating in such a circle please get in touch with Maureen

PUBLICATIONS RECENTLY RECEIVED

The Professor in the Classroom, vol. 13:14 arrived recently and will be in the wall pockets soon. It is entitled "Six Powerful Behaviors Practiced by Master Teachers" and also includes several tips on communication skills. The six behaviors include: share your passion for the material being taught, work to make students feel capable, respected and important, try to know as much as possible about students' lives outside of class since that information can help engage ("hook") those students in class. Three more suggestions fill out this tri-fold that will be available soon in the wall pockets. Regarding communication skills this number suggests using "positive speech to more fully engage students, keep hidden agendas to a minimum, and use the word "could" rather than "should" since "could" suggests a choice and "should" presses directly at the student's potential resistance.

The Teaching Professor (21:2) for February 2007 arrived recently and will be in the wall pockets soon. It includes brief articles on: understanding what we see happening in class, what teachers learn when they take classes, benefits and risks of problem-based learning, more positive outcomes for using group quizzes, helping students to take stock of their own learning, pairing vs. small groups: a model for analytical collaboration, and humor, getting a handle on what's appropriate. Several of these articles are quite good and worth a few minutes over a cup of something warm in the dining room, old snack bar or in the coffee shop on Harrison St. CTE periodical publications are also available in the College of Business (with Allison Ambrose) and in the ACCEL program through Neala McCarthy.

College Teaching (55:1) arrived recently and includes articles on a new approach to teaching research papers, applications of concept mapping, and using humor in the classroom, intellectual property development and use for distance education courses. Request to see the CTE copy by emailing Paul Jacobson with your request.

LAST MIDWEST FACULTY SEMINAR OF THE YEAR

The Midwest Faculty Seminar at the University of Chicago has announced the fourth seminar of the year for faculty at member institutions. The topic of the seminar is"Epidemics in an Era of Globalization." The seminar will be held at the University of Chicago on May 3-5. A detailed description follows. Please note that registration deadline is April 10. I've heard very good things about the most recent seminar from two of the Ambrose faculty who attended. More about that in forthcoming posts from the CTE.