The end of the semester and the start of a new one

University teaching has a distinct cycle tied to the semester schedule. It starts with a lot of excitement about new adventures and opportunities and finishes with a sense of exhaustion and then completion and gratification. You all have done a great job "hanging in there." It has become clear that you deal with many challenges, and I hope a number of things we covered in this course has helped you personally deal with some of those challenges.

Here is the summary of points I took away from your final blog. I formated them as suggestions you may want to follow.

GRAD 6100
Final Blog Summary

1) On identifying learning styles. If you don’t have the time or tools to do so, remember that you will always have different learning styles in your class/lab. The best approach is to offer a number of different learning activities that actively engage students: make them do something, have them reflect on what they learned from it, and what they will do with what they learned.
2) Teaching a course is all about time management. It is really easy to get caught up in teaching related activities because they are immediate and always require your attention. Appropriately limit the time you spend on teaching related activities and develop strategies that help you deal with the tasks quickly and effectively (such as using clear and simple rubrics for grading).
3) Create lesson plans in outline with a timeline. If you need to put the critical text/items students really need to know in the lesson plan or on a PPT
4) Learn to manage your time; decide on a strategy, any strategy and execute it!
5) Keep working on your writing skills and use the resources available to you.
6) Work hard on clarifying the learning objectives and goals. They should drive all activities you have the students complete and the type of assessments (quizzes, projects, exams, paper, etc) you require of them to show they understand the material. They will guide your test question writing as well.
7) Use Classroom Assessment Techniques (like the one-minute paper and others) to find out what students are thinking.
8) Go back through the semester’s materials and your textbook to refresh/renew/learn about effective teaching strategies. It’s all there.
9) Make the syllabus a tool of communication to inform the students what the course is about; make them read it by quizzing them over it (for example)
10) Designing a course takes a lot of forethought and an in-depth understanding of the material, especially what should be learned first, second, third…; in other words the sequencing (scaffolding) of material that becomes progressively more complex. No easy way around this one.
11) Know the assumptions you are making about your students, their learning and your teaching, and check if they are correct or not.
12) Reflect on this semester, learn from your experiences, and think about improvements you want to make next semester.
13) Don’t hesitate to ask for help when you’re stuck with a teaching problems or a problem student.

Goals following graduation

Here is the summary of your thoughts on goals beyond graduation.

Summary of Blog 11
1. Get out in the community and expand my contacts and network to help in the job hunt.
2. Get a residency/internship/post-doc position but find a good on that fits your goals
3. Adjust your goals as conditions change
4. Keep your plan over your desk and update it weekly
5. Use your time in grad school for more than just completing your classes. Use all the resources available to benefit your future goals.
6. Align your graduate projects, thesis, dissertation to your future goals; plan your activities in graduate school to benefit you beyond your diploma.
7. Enter your goals into your time management system and give them priority in your daily actions
8. Collaborate with others and let them help achieve my goals
9. Focus! on what is really important and spend time on that.
10. Have a backup plan that is attractive to you as well, just in case things don’t work out.
11. Do things during graduate school that you want to do after graduation; it will help you learn whether that is really what you want to do; if so, it will give you valuable experience.
12. Get involved in something you are really passionate about, it makes everything more worthwhile

Resources at UTEP

Thank you for the many ideas on resources available on campus that have helped you. These suggestions will help others as well, I'm sure.

1) Electronic databases such as ISI Web of Science and Pub Med are wonderful. Learn how to search effectively using these database tools and they can be very helpful. The librarians will teach you how.
2) Career Services will work with you on your resume.
3) Check the “Job Mine” website
4) Learn how to use RefWorks or EndNote to create literature databases for each of your research projects. Check the UTEP library website or Endnote’s site, http://www.endnote.com/ because if you are not using these tools in your writing, you are wasting a lot of time.
5) Going to the library to make copies of articles is inconvenient; not all articles have full-text online copies. The UT-TeleCampus digital library is a much better resource for online copies.
6) You have to pay for the interlibrary loan service, but it’s not too expensive. Just make sure you really need the article.
7) If you want to survey your class use Survey Monkey. The free version allows 10 questions and 100 responses and it’s easy to set up, http://www.surveymonkey.com/Home_Pricing.aspx
8) Mspace is a useful place to store documents you may need when you are away from home or campus.
9) Check into Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) and attend their conferences on preparing future faculty.
10) http://www.pubmed.gov/ is a helpful tool as are other niche sites within your discipline such as http://www.diabetes.org/ and others.
11) Don’t forget Google Scholar, Bing, and other discipline specific sites such as http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ to get started with your searches.
12) The UTEP Writing Center is a place you should definitely visit.
13) The Disabled Student Services Offices can be of great help, and can set you up with helpful software such as Dragon speech recognition software http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/
14) A few more databases: WorldCat (World Catalog), IIMP (International Index to Music Periodicals), Academic Search Complete, ProQuest, and JSTOR (Journal Storage). ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center), PsychInfo and Proquest for dissertations and theses.
15) The CETaL and ORSP workshops have been helpful, especially on how to use rubrics to grade more efficiently and effectively.
16) YouTube has a wealth of science-related instructional videos on topics such as micropipetting, cell cultures techniques, and others. Great tools to help students in lab sections.
17) Build and tap into your networks through attending seminars, workshops, meetings, visiting with colleagues and faculty in your area and outside.
18) Instructional Support Services can help with instructional technologies and supports “i-Peer” which allows students on teams to evaluate each other’s team work behavior anonymously
19) The UTEP-VPN login allows you to access your UTEP computer and resources from off-campus sites.
20) Goldmine has been a great resources to make registering and paying for classes online easy.
21) The UTEP license for Turnitin (turnitin.com) is helpful in allowing students to submit their papers to check for plagiarism before they turn it in for a grade.
22) You may also want to check into the support program Human Resources offers. You will be surprised. http://admin.utep.edu/Default.aspx?alias=admin.utep.edu/hr

Recommendations on Moving Your Research Projects Forward

I read very good suggestions in your blogs on how to get started with your research and keeping it on track. Below is the summary of your thoughts. My suggestion are to
1) visit with your professor(s) on a weekly basis;
2) Manage your time effectively and on a daily basis;
3) Learn how to use relevant databases, websites, and search engines effectively;
4) Learn to use RefWorks or EndNote to build your own database of articles.
5) Finally, and we have not talked about this much, adopt healthy liefstyle behaviors. Instead of going out to lunch, bring your own healthy sandwich and keep plugging along. Take an exercise break around mid-day for 30 min or so. It will keep you in much better spirits during the afternoon. Cook your own dinner on Sunday afternoon/evening. Freeze/refrigerate daily portions so you can just pop them in the microwave when you get home. This save you many hours over going out to eat or cooking each day, and you’ll like the food. It also saves you a ton of money. Stop drinking sodas, they only give you empty calories, a sugar/caffeine boost and then you crash. Drink tea instead.

Here are your suggestions

Blog 9 Summary: Research Success and Expectations
1) Early communication with advisors can be difficult. Going to your advisor with a plan and taking initiative may be one solution.
2) It’s important to have in-depth discussions with your advisor about your topic, but go prepared as best as possible. Narrow down your topics to a few that really appeal to you and you’re excited about, learn how to use databases and search engines well, and then read the relevant literature. Knowing what is relevant and what is not, can save you lots of time.
3) Set up a regular schedule of meetings with your advisors, preferably on a weekly basis especially if you are signed up for independent study, research project, or thesis/dissertation. Insist on it.
4) Get clarity on what is expected of you.
5) Daily planning and managing your time is critical to stay on track with your research. Congratulations.
6) Teaching and grading easily takes over; have to be careful in your time management and adopting efficient grading strategies.
7) Partnering with other grad students on research can be helpful
8) Make sure to live a healthy lifestyle: eat healthy and exercise. It really does help, you’ll be amazed at the amount of energy you gain.
9) Getting into research projects can be very rewarding and exciting: Discovery always is.
10) If you can get on a grant or be part of a group that applies for one, do it. It will be a helpful experience to go through that process. If the grant funds your thesis or dissertation research, even better.
11) Get started with research in your very first semester, even if it is just helping out a more senior graduate student. It would also have been helpful if you had been involved in research projects during your undergraduate years.
12) Apply for graduate scholarship and fellowship. They greatly benefit your resume/CV
13) Research usually takes more time than you think it will; it is easy to get pulled into non-productive directions as well. Keep your focus when looking for resources and don’t get distracted by other interesting topics.

Classroom Observations

Some of you attended the peer observation workshop I presented this semester. I explained in it why peer observation of teaching is important. On of the most important reasons is that your peers know things about teaching and the work that goes into the preparation of good teaching that students do not. Therefore peers are better equipped to observe those elements.

It is important to note that teaching is a very complex activity, the success of which is influenced by a large number of variables. To demonstrate successful teaching we cannot solely rely on the perceptions of our students, but have to show its impact from multiple perspectives using multiple, relevant measures. Student feedback is only one of those measures, even though their input is important because they are the ones doing the learning.

To know good teaching depends on experience, and the study of teaching and learning literature, Fortunatly, a large body of research exists from which "best practices" can be derived. Unfortunately, many faculty members are too busy with other responsbilities to engage in the study of teaching and learning. This is where centers for effective teaching and learning can play a critical role.

To class this blog I want to share the valuable comment I read in your blogs on classroom observations.
Blog 8 summary: Observations
1) Observations are effective in that you got to observe different methods of teaching; you can ignore the content and look at the actual teaching behaviors and actions.
2) Fascinating to watch student interaction with the teacher and their body language
3) Difficult to assess folks who just give a talk (lecture) to distribute valuable information [HM Comment: distributing information can be done on a pamphlet or in a book. What is the role of the person who distributes the information? Shouldn’t s/he do a bit more than rattling off a PPT and list of items to ensure participants in the session really do understand the important points? You know that we all “filter” information based on our own experiences and knowledge. If you want folks ‘to get it right” you probably have to do a bit more than simply give them the information].
4) Explaining tasks clearly at the beginning of the session is key to success for the students’ learning and the flow of the session.
5) The observation provides new ideas on teaching, especially active learning techniques.
6) Just because you gave a good lecture doesn’t mean the students actually understood the material.
7) Being observed really helped because of the constructive feedback received.
8) It was not clear initially how you could benefit from a peer observation, but the observation helped see what grabs students’ attention and things (mistakes) to be careful of.
9) Good teachers guide students in discovery rather than provide them with answers.
10) Observing a class is completely different from attending it as a student, because now you see the “finer points” of good teaching.
11) Received very practical feedback on classroom management
12) Teaching strategies have changed for the better over the last decades in a number of instances, but there are still stalwarts and traditionalist teachers who only deliver information.
13) Some people should not be teachers because they have no teaching skills and don’t understand the process.
14) Lectures results quickly in a loss of attention by the students.
15) Big classes are intimidating.

My Professional Development Plan

My Professional Development Plan

I have to be honest here. I never really put together a professional development plan. My plan was to work hard. I have to say that this approach has paid off, especially at UTEP, but it also left me wishing I had done things differently.

I still am painfully aware of how much a good mentor could have helped me early on in my career. My career path would likely have been completely different had I had the support I needed at that time. I scrambled to get publications and presentation and it did not matter whether my efforts were focused. I just worked hard to get those pubs out, which left me without focus and little expertise in any area.

A good development plan would have helped me lay out my path (especially important during the pre-tenure years) that I could have sustained after tenure. The lack of focus, not having developed a core research group of graduate students, and consequently a well-functioning lab, my research program did not amount to much. If I had to do it again, I would do it very differently. It's not use crying over spilled milk, therefore I now try to help young faculty establish a better career path early in their profession through the UTEP Collaborative Faculty Mentoring Program.

My professional development plan for the future is somewhat ill-defined. I have numerous goals related to the tasks in my portfolio as an Associate Provost that are important for UTEP. Maintaining the current mentoring program, growing CETaL and making sure its events help faculty, establishing a sustained leadership development program, and ensuring that our interim report to SACS is of high quality are foremost in my mind.

As many of you have commented, I am too busy taking care of business to be able to think where I want to go or achieve over the next 3-5 yrs. To be honest, a personal retreat and vacation would be nice about now to help me prioritize and set some goals.

From Your Personal Development Plan

I read your blogs on your personal development plans and distilled a few themes.
1) Create goals and put them in a schedule, a timeline, focused on achieving the tasks necessary to accomplish those goals
2) Stick to your schedule and complete the tasks needed to achieve your important goals first
3) Dedicate substantial quality time and effort to your most important goals
4) Update your current documents and maintain them in your electronic portfolio
5) Rewarding yourself for your accomplishments
6) Some of the things you have to do may not contribute to reaching your goals (like some of the elements covered in this course)
7) It’s difficult to think beyond one year and identify targets to work towards
8) It is difficult to create a plan for TA responsibilities because they change from semester to semester and even within one semester.
9) Thinking about all the uncertainties can be overwhelming, but you can handlge it by taking one step at a time.
10) Set regular meetings with your advisor to make sure your progress steadily towards graduation.
11) Collect essential information that will help you in your decision making processes.
12) Making a plan is difficult, but sticking to it is even more so.
13) Identifying the smaller tasks and steps needed to complete larger goals is even more difficult than identifying those goals.
14) The really difficult thing is to manage time effectively on an hour to hour basis.
15) Grading responsibilities are taking a toll on educational responsibilities, balancing all activities is difficult
16) Take concrete steps towards completing goals for graduation; Get an advisor, narrow down your topic of research.
17) The most difficult part is deciding on 3-yr (long term) goals, because they don’t align you’re your current education or you can’t see beyond the daily responsibilities that need your attention
a. Taking time to develop a plan to manage time is a waste of time. Focus on what needs to be done now and take things one semester at a time. The future will present itself.
b. No plan, just do what needs to be done now, but some organization will make life better
18) What does a professional development plan look like?

So what is your next step?
In your philosophy statements many of you identified what was important to you and what you would like to accomplish. Reflect on that again. Your values and beliefs can point you in the right direction. If you love teaching, for example, you may not want to consider a position at a research institute no matter how good you are at research. Your values can be your guides in determining your longer terms goals. Similarly, if you have longer term goals you’re passionate about, see whether your current activities will allow you to achieve them. If you perceive mismatches, you may want to adjust your plan.

Constructing a Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophies

Writing a clear and coherent teaching philosophy is not an easy task. It requires intense self-examination and reflection focused on your most sincere beliefs and values about teaching and learning. That process takes time and a lot of effort.

As you know by now, there are a number of helpful documents, and I have shared a few with you that can help you get started. You can find copies of these materials on the course’s Blackboard site and on the CETaL website at http://cetalweb.utep.edu/home under resources.

I developed my teaching philosophy a number of years ago, and to be honest, I haven’t looked at it in a while. That means that the old version is likely hopelessly out of date…or it may surprise me. So I looked for it and here is the most recent version from 2006. It was part of my professional statement as a department chair.

“As a teacher it is my duty and responsibility to help students gain the skills and knowledge necessary to become independent learners, who can successfully navigate an increasingly complex society, and take leadership responsibilities for their personal lives, their family, as well in larger contexts. Through the application of collaborative teaching strategies in my classes, I have been able to more actively engage students and help them gain confidence in their abilities to learn independently and socially (i.e. in small groups). The learning and study strategies I weave into my course reportedly have helped them perform better in courses they took afterwards. I have found students to be more engaged and interested in their own learning when they are given personal responsibility and are held accountable for their actions. They become less dependent on the instructor and participate more in the course activities. I am convinced that active, cooperative learning strategies in the classroom should no longer be an option. These are strategies all instructors need to employ in their classrooms. The evidence is clear: cooperative learning effectively employed is far superior to any other teaching strategy. As a department chair, I encouraged faculty to open their classrooms to peer visits and mentoring to enhance their personal teaching strategies and incorporate models of cooperative and active learning. Teaching and learning are the reasons why universities exist, and preparing future leaders through education is our primary purpose and legacy. In order to serve our students best towards that goal, we should adopt the most effective strategies, even if this requires continuing education and additional effort”.

Based on the documents and criteria I shared with you, I need to take some time and revise this version. Many of the ones you wrote are much better than my version. I promise I will do so, but I don’t know when that will happen.