Most of you are aware that the JagSuccess Early Intervention Program will be required for all 100- and 200-level courses this Fall.  This means that all faculty teaching 1oo- and 200-level course syllabi should contain information about the program.

The following paragraph is recommended by Academic Affairs:

JagSuccess

JagSuccess is a program intended to help students be successful in 100-200 level courses. If you are not doing well, you will receive an email instructing you to see your professor along with instructions to access an online tutorial intended to help with common problems affecting academic performance.  Watch for this email during week 8 of this semester.

Also, it is recommended that you have a syllabus statement on plagiarism and academic honesty.  The latest “official” version I have is as follows:

The University of South Alabama is committed to the fundamental values of preserving academic honesty as defined in the Student Handbook: The Lowdown. Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty and must be avoided. Plagiarism is using somebody else’s ideas in your writing without correctly identifying such sources. As one resource for helping students avoid plagiarism, your written work in this class may be submitted to Turnitin.com, or a similar detection service, or require you to do so, for an evaluation of originality and proper use and attribution of sources. Assignments submitted to Turnitin.com will be included as source documents in a restricted access database solely for the purpose of detecting possible plagiarism in such documents. As part of this process, you may be required to submit electronic as well as hard copies of your writing. You agree that by taking this course all assignments are subject to submission for originality review. A paper not submitted according to procedures set by the teacher will normally be penalized or not be accepted at all.

Finally, you should have a statement on  your syllabus about students with disabilities.

If you have a specific disability that qualifies you for academic accommodations, please notify the instructor/professor and provide certification from Disability Services.  (OSSS is located in Room 270 of the Student Center – 460-7212).

PowerPETAL is a day-long series of activities intended to help all new and experienced faculty get the semester off to a good start.  The program will feature 7 sessions facilitated by fifteen experienced USA faculty, and attendees can come and go as they please.  Lunch will be provided to all who register by Wednesday, August 18.

Where:  312 University Library

When:   August 20, 2010

9:00     Getting the Semester off on the Right Foot: First Day Activities for Engaging Students from the Start

1. Phil Carr (Anthropology)
2. Brenda Litchfield (Instructional Design)
3. Rob Gray (PETAL/English)

10:00   Strategies and Programs for Promoting Student Success in the Classroom and Beyond

1. Nicole Carr (Academic Success/Sociology)
2. Elisa Kennedy (Physical Therapy)
3. Jim Connors (Earth Sciences)

11:00   Creative Course and Time Management Strategies for Large Classes, Online Classes, and Other Sorts of Classes

1. Jeanne Maes (Management)
2. Doug Haywick (Earth Sciences)
3. Nicole Carr (Academic Success/Sociology)

12:00   Lunch featuring Roundtable Discussion on Engaging Students

1:00     Strategies for Designing and Teaching Blended Courses to Improve Efficiency and Outcomes

1. Jack Dempsey (Electronic Learning/Instructional Design)
2. Al Chow (Management)
3. Sam Fisher (Political Science)

2:00     Innovative Approaches to Assessing Student Learning

1. Brenda Litchfield (Instructional Design)
2. Bret Webb (Civil Engineering)
3. Bill Young (Developmental Studies)

3:00     Making Your Syllabus a More Effective Tool for Teaching and Learning

1. Rob Gray (PETAL/English)
2. Tom Meyer (Nursing)
3. Cindy Stanfield (Biomedical Sciences)

I’ve had debates with several faculty over the years about Turnitin–whether we should use it as a teaching tool, whether we should use it at all, etc.  As the campus administrator of Turnitin, I must say that I have long been ambivalent about the program.  I certainly recognize that it is needed, given that academic dishonesty, both here and nationwide, seems to be ever trending upward.  However, I must also say that there is something about it that makes me uncomfortable.  I’ve never liked the term “Orwellian,” but it would seem to apply here.

It just seems to me that academic dishonesty is a lot like crime:  if we really want to be serious about stopping it, we have to take a serious look the conditions that cause it to happen in the first place.  A recent article by Emrys Westacott in Philosophy Now, as luck would have it, right as we renew our Turnitin contract for another year, looks at this issue from a different angle by exploring the moral and cultural effects of the kinds of surveillance that Turnitin represents.

Does Surveillance Make Us Morally Better?

I encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below.

This article was posted on The Chronicle’s website yesterday.

Video Lectures May Slightly Hurt Student Performance

By Sophia Li

No clear winner emerges in the contest between video and live instruction, according to the findings of a recent study led by David N. Figlio, a professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University. The study found that students who watched lectures online instead of attending in-person classes performed slightly worse in the course over all…

Click here to read the entire article.

The article itself is somewhat weak, and the link to the recent study is somewhat moreso, but the real value of the article is in the discussion that takes place in the comments.

I believe it is the kind of discussion that we need to be having during our course redesign process here at USA….

This might be a good opportunity for someone to present.

Sir Ken Robinson gives an excellent testimony to how we need to move beyond data-driven quantification to more organic, more poetic ways of teaching and learning.

from TED Talks, 2010.

I was stumbling around the Internet today and happened upon an article on The University of Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning’s website.  “The Nine and a Half Commandments of Good Teaching” were compiled by Robert A. Ferguson, a former Literature Professor at Chicago (he is now at Columbia).

Ferguson’s commandments are:

1. Make the classroom your own.
2. Effort!
3. Remember the formal process of instruction.
4. Be aware of your students.
5. An idea is not an idea until you hear it from your students.
6. Never answer your own questions.
7. Take a few calculated risks in your class and, now and then, even some uncalculated ones.
8. Welcome change.
9. Make sure that they enjoy it

Ferguson chooses to have nine and a half commandments instead of ten because he wants to keep the list open-ended.  So his 9.5th commandment is: It is what your students take outside of the classroom, not what they do within it, that counts.

To read Ferguson’s discussion of each of these “commandments” and several additional insights as well, visit http://teaching.uchicago.edu/handbook/tac04.html.