Faculty Teaching Retreat

We had a great time at the recent Annual Faculty Teaching Retreat. Peter Doolittle was excellent. One of the underlying themes that he repeatedly addressed was the need for students to be put into situations where they can not only receive information, concepts, etc, but also for them to be able to process what they are learning, observing, experiencing. As we have come to understand the inquiry cycle better, it seems that explicitly using that as a strategy for student activity and learning allows for that processing to occur, especially through the discussion and reflection components of the cycle.

In addition, Prasanta and I were extremely pleased with the turn out at our concurrent session. We gave an overview of the inquiry cycle and summarized some of the things that we feel we learned from the our learning community discussions of the fall semester. We thank all who attended that session. That gave us confidence that we are providing a learning community in which many find value.

One activity that we used was called the Seven-Fingered Hand exercise. This was an extremely successful activity in engaging the audience. We only scratched the surface of discovering what we can do with that type of activity. If you are interested in what that exercise is, see the Creative Think website.

We will be discussing these and other concepts more during the Spring semester. Come and join us.

Thursdays at 3:15-4:45, 428 Armory.

We also have started a wiki that contains some of the materials and discussion summaries from last semester of the Undergraduates Engaging in Inquiry community. This wiki, called Learning Through Reflection, Inquiry and Innovation, is a compilation of work by Walt Hurley and Judy Sunderman. More to come on that website.

Spring Semester Poster

Undergraduates Engaging in Inquiry

Welcome Back

We are starting a new semester of the Undergraduates Engaging in Inquiry learning community. Look for our poster and concurrent session presentation at the 2008 Annual Faculty Retreat: Using the Science of Instruction to Foster Learning, held on January 31.

Learning Community Weekly Discussions

When: Every Thursday, from February 7 through April 10

What time: Gather at 3:00 pm for refreshments, discussions 3:15 – 4:45 pm.

Where: 428 Armory

Weekly programs will include:

• Nuts-n-Bolts of integrating inquiry into your courses
• Learn from the Expert about how to make your strategies actually work
• Critical Friends from our learning community who can provide feedback on proposals and innovative ideas

Undergraduates Engaging in Inquiry is a learning community that explores the role of inquiry in student learning and development. This community of scholars, facilitated by Walt Hurley and Prasanta Kalita (2007-2008 Distinguished Teacher Scholars), is open to all who are interested in helping their students become better learners, becoming more scholarly teachers, taking an active role in a community of like-minded learners, and sharing scholarly work with colleagues.

Drop by for conversation, sharing of ideas and experiences, scholarly discussion of inquiry and learning, and of course, refreshments.

Hope to see you there.

Thanks

From Prasanta, Cheelan, Judy and Walt, thanks to everyone who supported us during this semester of stimulating discussions.

We are in the process of planning for next semester. We expect to have regular weekly meetings (probably Thursday afternoons) again to continue discussions about students and inquiry. More details on those later. We hope that you will be able to join us for those meetings.

Don't forget to register for the upcoming All Campus Teaching Retreat on January 31, 2008. See this CTE website for information and registration.

Happy Holidays.

Resources

The following may be of interest to participants in the Undergraduates Engaging In Inquiry group:

• Bruce Michelson mentioned IRIS as a mechanism for finding funding opportunities. IRIS has an alert service that allows faculty to establish parameters for searches. Searches can be run on demand or completed automatically with the results emailed to you. Here is a link to that site: http://iris.library.uiuc.edu/~iris/alert/
• The Spellings Commission was mentioned in discussions recently. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings established this commission to examine the future of higher education. The final report of the commission has the potential to influence higher ed policy for years to come. Basically, the Commission focused on undergraduate education determining that it should be more affordable, more accessible, more accountable, and of higher quality. That report is available for download at: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/index.html
• The Association of American Colleges and Universities has made their journal available on line. In the current issue an article called Why Teacher-Scholars Matter describes a study on the value of undergraduate research in higher education. Although it will come as no surprise to participants in UEI, the study finds that undergraduate research projects have a strong positive effect on student outcomes. The article is worth reading. Author George Kuh from Indiana University is very influential in the field of higher ed. My guess is that this article will probably renew the push for additional undergraduate research opportunities for students. The article is available at: http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa07/le_fa07_perspectives2.cfm
  

Indian Professors attend UIUC and Undergraduates Engaging in Enquiry

Three engineering college professors from the G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in India were on UIUC campus last week (Oct 27-Nov 5) attending a training especially designed for them by the CTE (Dr. Laura Hahn). The GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology was estabished by the University of Illinois in 1960's in the land grant pattern. Recent vist to that university by our college of ACES Dean Dr. Robert Easter has sparked new interests and collaboration - that's what brought the Indian professors to our campus. The training "Teaching Learning Methods for Engineering Faculty for Becoming Effective Teacher and Learner in Today's Educational Environment" was sponsored by the UIUC Colleges of ACES and Engineering and the Center for Teaching Excellence. The Indian professors (Dr. A.K. Swami, Dr. C. Lal, and Dr. A. Ashok) left with very high impression on UIUC's committment and dedication to student learning. They attended the Enquiry seminar on Oct 31 and participated in the discussion. Cheelan Bo-Linn and Laura Hahn will now be visiting their university in the winter break, conduct a teaching workshop and initiate discussions about establishing a Center for Teaching Excellence there.

Survey results--NSSE

Here is the website for the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2007_Annual_Report/ I think we've mentioned the NSSE in our inquiry group. It's the best survey of students available for actually getting at engagement and learning.
Notice that the USA Today article that's linked begins with an account of undergraduate research!
Libbie Morley