Sherrerd Center for Teaching & Learning
2014-2015 Annual Report
Floyd Cheung, Director
August 21, 2015
Introduction:
The Sherrerd Center for Teaching & Learning (SCTL) was founded in 2009 through a generous
bequest from the family of Kathleen Compton Sherrerd ’54 and John J. F. Sherrerd, longtime
supporters of excellence in teaching at Smith College. This report summarizes the organization,
mission/core goals, activities, budget expenditures, and reflections/recommendations regarding the
Sherrerd Center for 2014-2015.
Organization:
Director:
(serving a three-year term)
Floyd Cheung
Associate Professor of English Language & Literature and American Studies
Administrative Assistant/Coordinator
Christine Pelletier
2014-2015 Advisory Board Members: (serving three-year terms)
Floyd Cheung, Director (English and American Studies)
Patricia DiBartolo (Psychology)
Angie Hauser (Dance)
Judith Gordon (Music)
Susannah Howe (Engineering)
Tom Laughner (Director of Educational Technology Services)
Borjana Mikic (Engineering)
Beth Powell (Psychology)
Sara Pruss (Geosciences)
Alan Rudnitsky (Education and Child Study)
Kevin Shea (Chemistry)
Sujane Wu (East Asian Languages and Literature)
Members met monthly during the academic year.
Notes:
Floyd Cheung began a three-year term as the director starting July 1, 2014. Thanks to advice from
previous director Kevin Shea and all Advisory Board members and with the support of
administrative assistant Christine Pelletier, the director was able to continue the good work of the
Sherrerd Center. The director is grateful to many colleagues and others who volunteered their time
and expertise to present and participate in various workshops, luncheons, and other programs.
Provost Katherine Rowe has proven to be an invaluable partner as well, especially in helping to
launch two initiatives: increased attention to faculty development for colleagues beyond their first
two years and expanding partnerships between professors, teaching staff, and students.
1 Christine Pelletier continued to be a critical member of the Sherrerd Center team. While working 10
hours per week on Center activities, Christine made all aspects of the Center run efficiently and
smoothly. She coordinated all Center activities, maintained our website, tracked our budget, and did
anything else that needs attention. Alas, she left the College as of August 13. We have engaged
Johanna Ravenhurst to fill her position temporarily and plan to conduct a search for a permanent
hire with IRB Directors Phil Peake and Nnamdi Pole.
Our long-term vision is to incorporate a space for the Center in a renovated Neilson Library, but we
continue to make good use of our physical space, a conference room and small faculty
library/reading room in Seelye Hall adjacent to ETS. Throughout the year, it is used for Advisory
Board meetings, New Faculty Seminars, informal and formal meetings of the Davis Educational
Foundation sponsored faculty development group, as well as for faculty and ETS meetings and
study. Our Teaching and Learning Resource Library has grown to approximately seventy titles (see
appendix A) Books can be read in the room or checked out. In the next year, we intend increase
awareness of the Resource Library and continue to make the room available for faculty, staff, and
students who will be welcome to use the room for reading/meeting/studying when it is not in use
by the Sherrerd Center or ETS. We hope that it will provide a comfortable, quiet space for these
uses going forward.
Mission & Core Goals
The Mission and Core Goals of the Sherrerd Center were developed by a working group formed to
frame a vision for the Center in 2008-2009, and further refined by the founding director, Borjana
Mikic, in consultation with the Advisory Board in 2009-2010. These serve as a formal statement of
the priorities of the Center to be reviewed and revised when needed by the Board. In addition, this
formal statement of the Mission & Core Goals serves as an aid in communication with external
constituencies (e.g. potential donors and funding agencies).
Mission:
The primary aim of the Sherrerd Center for Teaching & Learning (SCTL) is to enable the academic
success of all Smith students through faculty development efforts that support teaching and learning
at the College.
Core Goals:
Based on the understanding that there are many ways to teach well and that teaching is always
improvable, the Sherrerd Center undertakes its mission in an effort to strengthen the value of
teaching and learning in the larger institutional culture by pursuing the following Core Goals:
•
Create opportunities for faculty to engage in a continuous discourse about student learning,
addressing such questions as:
-­‐
-­‐
-­‐
What do we know about how people learn?
What are our learning goals for our students?
How should students be engaged in order to take ownership of their own learning?
•
Support new faculty as they develop into excellent teachers;
•
Disseminate knowledge of the craft of teaching to support ongoing faculty professional
development;
•
Provide opportunities for faculty to learn from one another by sharing innovative teaching
practices and strategies for improving student learning;
2 •
Build synergy between faculty development efforts and student academic support services
(e.g. Jacobson Center, Educational Technology Services, Quantitative Learning Center,
Disability Services, Libraries, etc…);
•
Enable the academic success of students from diverse backgrounds by promoting best
practices for inclusive teaching, investigating achievement gaps in student learning, and
supporting strategies for overcoming such gaps;
•
Enhance Smith’s efforts towards creating a culture of purposeful inquiry among students;
•
Ensure that consideration of teaching and learning inform campus decision making;
•
Improve measures of teaching performance so that they provide information useful to the
teachers themselves and can serve as reasonable indicators of teaching performance for the
purposes of re-appointment, tenure, and promotion;
•
Support the scholarship of teaching and learning among faculty from diverse disciplines.
Our underlying philosophy is that all of the initiatives supported by the Center should be based on
principles emerging from the learning sciences. Thus, the development of a theoretical conception
of teaching and learning provides the overarching principled framework linking all of the Center’s
efforts and initiatives. Put simply, we believe that all teaching is improvable, and we aim to help
faculty achieve this goal by providing opportunities to discuss and reflect on the theory and practice
of teaching. Our regular events fall into several categories: faculty discussions (teaching arts
luncheons and teaching circles), faculty development (workshops and the teaching and learning
seminar), new faculty programming, and conference travel funding. After a successful grant
submission, we coordinated a three-year institutional Davis Educational Foundation faculty
development grant on knowledge building that came to a satisfying conclusion in 2015. These
initiatives and other miscellaneous activities are described below.
Faculty Discussions
Teaching Arts Lunches:
Teaching arts luncheons are faculty-led discussions on current pedagogical issues held on Fridays
from noon until 1:00 p.m. usually in the Neilson Browsing Room where a buffet lunch is provided
by the Provost’s Office. The primary aim of these lunches is to provide an opportunity for faculty to
learn from one another as they share their practices and experiences as teachers. We generally hold
6-8 lunches per semester and have a diverse array of faculty and staff attendees and presenters, as
well as presentations by guests. The events continue to be very well attended, with most
presentations attracting 45-65 attendees.
Table 1: 2014-2015 Teaching Arts Lunch Topics
Date
September 12, 2014
Discussion Topics
Teaching and Advising Diverse Students: What Can We Learn
from Whistling Vivaldi?
Floyd Cheung (English and American Studies)
Lauren Duncan (Psychology)
September 26, 2014
Tricky Advising Moments for Study Abroad
Lisa Johnson, Assistant Dean for International Study
3 Janie Vanpée (French Studies, Comparative Literature, Lewis Global Studies
Center)
October 3, 2014
Teaching with the Archives
Carrie Baker, Director of the Archives Concentration (Study of Women &
Gender)
Susan Van Dyne (Study of Women & Gender)
Shannon Audley-Piotrowsky (Education & Child Study)
Sara Eddy, Writing Instructor, Jacobson Center (English)
October 17, 2014
Online Learning Task Force
Joseph O'Rourke, Associate Provost
October 31, 2014
The Intersection of Faculty Mentoring and Student Research, with
Fellowships Advising
Margaret Bruzelius, Associate Dean of the College
Don Andrew, Smith Fellowships Program Adviser
Jess Bacal, Director of the Wurtle Center for Work & Life
November 7, 2014
The Landscape of Education Technology at Smith
Deborah Keisch, Instructional Technologist, ETS
November 14, 2014
Refreshed, Revised, and Reinterpreted: The New Permanent Collection
Galleries at the Smith College Museum of Art
Maggie Lind, Associate Educator for Academic Programs, Smith College
Museum of Art
December 5, 2014
Discussion of the First-Year Reading Experience
Jane Stangl, Dean of the First-Year Class
Floyd Cheung (English and American Studies)
January 30, 2015
A Summer Humanities Lab--Some Thoughts about Expanding Research
Opportunities
Kevin Quashie (Afro-American Studies)
February 6, 2015
Learning and the Brain: what brain science is teaching us about learning in
the age of information overload
Kathleen Casale (Education & Child Study)
February 13, 2015
What Makes Teaching Sink and Float: Lemons, limes and being ‘in it
together’
Shannon Audley-Piotrowski (Education & Child Study)
4 February 20, 2015
The Smith Libraries' Information Literacy Program
Anne Houston (Libraries’ Director of Teaching, Learning & Research)
Barbara Polowy (Head of Hillyer Art Library)
February 27, 2015
How and Why to Engage Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching
Alison Cook-Sather (Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education at
Bryn Mawr College, Coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Institute at
Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, and Jean Rudduck Visiting Scholar at
University of Cambridge)
March 6, 2015
Grading for Growth
Joshua Bowman (Mathematics & Statistics)
March 13, 2015
Lessons from the Field: How a sabbatical in industry informed and
invigorated my teaching
Susannah Howe (Engineering)
April 3, 2015
Teaching Large Classes: Strategies to make students feel like they are in
small classes
Kevin Shea (Chemistry)
April 10, 2015
The Logic of Stereotypes
Al Mosley (Philosophy)
April 24, 2015
Solving Conflicts around Technology in the Classroom
Katherine Rowe (Provost, Dean of Faculty)
Julia Collins '17 (Student Government Association)
Anna Sternberg '15 (Student Government Association)
Teaching Circles:
Teaching Circles are small groups of faculty with similar pedagogical interests. Members of a given
"circle" meet to talk about their teaching, share questions and strategies, get advice, and occasionally
sit in on a class or two. We continued to encourage the circles to meet on three pre-set dates
throughout the semester in Neilson Browsing Room with lunch provided by the Sherrerd Center.
Some groups have been able to meet on these dates while some continued to meet periodically, at
their convenience. We added four new circles to the roster this spring: Engaging Students as
Partners in Learning and Teaching (led by Floyd Cheung), Teaching Large Classes (led by Kevin
Shea), Designing More Meaningful, Challenging and Engaging Learning Experiences (led by Laura
Kalba) and Creating Student-Centered Learning Opportunities in Foreign Language Classrooms (led
by Atsuko Takahashi). We added two new circles to the roster this fall: Standards-Based Grading
(led by Joshua Bowman) and Making Cross-Cultural Connections through Online Partnerships (led
by Rebecca Hovey and Janie Vanpée. We also reserved a table for an “Open Discussion” about
teaching and learning.
5 Table 2: 2014-2015 Teaching Circle Topics Theme
Online/Blended Learning
Leader
Joseph O'Rourke
Teaching Circle on Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching
Floyd Cheung
Teaching Large Classes
Kevin Shea
Diversity in the Curriculum
Dawn Fulton
Designing More Meaningful, Challenging and Engaging Learning
Experiences
Laura Kalba
Creating Student-Centered Learning Opportunities in Foreign Language
Classrooms
Atsuko Takahashi
Design Thinking
Borjana Mikic
Standards-Based Grading
Joshua Bowman
Making Cross-Cultural Connections through Online Partnerships
Rebecca Hovey
Janie Vanpée
Open Conversation
Workshops:
The Center sponsors faculty- and guest-led workshops throughout the academic year. Our best
success has been during the January J-Term and as part of the Provost’s Office May/June Faculty
Development Workshop series. This year, we sponsored the following workshops:
Table 3: 2013-2014 Workshop Details
Date
October 17, 2015
Workshop
Scholarly Productivity
Workshop by Helen
Sword, University of
Auckland
Attendees
39
6 Representation
Afro-American Studies,
Anthropology, Art, Biological
Sciences, Classical Languages
and Literatures, East Asian
Languages & Literature,
Education & Child Study,
Engineering, Environmental
Science & Policy, Geosciences,
Government, History, Jacobson
Center, Latin American &
Latina/o Studies, Mathematics &
Statistics, Philosophy, Physics,
Psychology, Religion, Sociology,
Study of Women & Gender,
Young Science Library, Five
Colleges, Union College, UMass
Amherst, Vassar College,
Wesleyan University, Williams
College
December 18, 2014
Board of Counselors
Panel Discussion with
Mid-Career Jr. Faculty
Members
8
American Studies,
Anthropology, Biological
Sciences, Chemistry,
Mathematics & Statistics,
Philosophy, Psychology
January 20, 2015
New Faculty Syllabus
Design Workshop and
Discussion of Ken Bain
Book What the Best
College Teachers Do
12
Biological Sciences, Chemistry,
East Asian Studies,
Environmental Science & Policy,
Government, Landscape Studies,
Psychology
January 22, 2015
Discussion of Alison
Cook-Sather book
Engaging Students as
Partners in Learning and
Teaching
27
Anthropology, Biological
Sciences, Chemistry,
Comparative Literature,
Computer Science, East Asian
Languages & Literature,
Economics, Education & Child
Study, Engineering, English,
Government, Jewish Studies,
Mathematics & Statistics,
Physics, Psychology, Spanish &
Portuguese Studies
February 27, 2015
How and Why to
7
Engage Students as
Partners in Learning and
Teaching Workshop by
Alison CookSather (Mary Katharine
Woodworth Professor
of Education at Bryn
Mawr College,
Coordinator of the
Teaching and Learning
Institute at Bryn Mawr
and Haverford Colleges,
7 Anthropology, Chemistry, East
Asian Languages & Literature,
Economics, Education & Child
Study, English, Mathematics &
Statistics
and Jean Rudduck
Visiting Scholar at
University of
Cambridge)
May 15, 2015
Designing Assessments
by Al Rudnitsky
Anthropology, Biological
Sciences, Chemistry, East Asian
Language & Literature,
Education & Child Study,
English, Exercise & Sport
Studies, Mathematics &
Statistics, Physics, Psychology,
Spanish & Portuguese Studies,
Spinelli Center, Wurtele Center
May 21, 2015
What One Year of
Write-on-Site and
Writing Accountability
Did for Our Research
Workshop by Simon
Halliday and Kim
Dionne
Afro-American Studies,
Anthropology, Economics,
Education & Child Study,
Jacobson Center, Mathematics &
Statistics, Physics, Psychology
Events for New Faculty:
As part of their orientation to Smith College, new tenure track members of the faculty received a
copy of Ken Bain’s book, What the Best College Teachers Do. The Sherrerd Center led an interactive
orientation session on the importance of teaching and learning at the College, which was followed
by monthly lunches with the Director and another member of the Advisory Board (either Patty
DiBartolo and Borjana Mikic). These lunches provided new faculty with relaxed opportunities to
come together to share the successes and challenges of the semester in a safe and supportive
environment, thereby creating a strong cohort within the group. On average 3-6 faculty members
attended each event. We began the fall semester with a panel discussion led by two relatively new
faculty members, Maren Buck and Simon Halliday, focused on “What I Wish I Knew When I
Started My Career at Smith.” Our two other meetings in the fall were more informal and included
discussions of how to deal with difficult students, how to teach large classes, and how to balance
work and life. The three spring lunches included facilitated discussions with on grant writing
opportunities with Marilyn Woodman, faculty governance with Floyd Cheung, and faculty council
with Rick Millington.
As mentioned above, we also coordinated a teaching workshop for new faculty on January 20. At
this session, Al Rudnitsky led a group discussion on syllabus design. We followed this with a
discussion led by the director of What the Best College Teachers Do and how this can inform our ideas
of teaching. The attendees participated in thoughtful and spirited discussion, and we met our goal
of getting new faculty to talk about teaching with senior colleagues who are passionate about their
time in the classroom.
Beginning in 2011-2012, the Sherrerd Center took on the role of coordinating the Board or
Counselors, the College’s formal new faculty mentoring program. In consultation with the Provost,
we matched new tenure-track faculty with a mentor from the Board of Counselors, we arranged a
8 September training session for Board members, and we facilitated informal meetings between new
faculty and their mentors over the course of the year. We also hosted an end of the year celebratory
lunch for mentors and mentees.
Table 4: 2014-2015 Board of Counselor and New Faculty Pairs
Mentor
Mentee
Elizabeth Spelman (Philosophy)
Gwen Spenser (Mathematics)
Nalini Bhushan (Philosophy)
Camille Washington –Ottombre (Environmental
Science & Policy
Patrick Coby (Government)
Andrew Berke (Chemistry)
Borjana Mikic (Engineering)
Steve Moga (Landscape Studies)
Bill Peterson (Psychology)
Bozena Welbourne (Government)
Vera Shevzov (Religion)
Lisa Mangiamele (Biological Sciences)
Support for Travel to Teaching Conferences:
The Sherrerd Center continues to fund faculty travel to teaching-related conferences. This year, we
fully or partially funded faculty participation at the following conferences:
Table 5: 2014-2015 Conference Travel Awards
Recipient Conference Joseph Baldwin Eastman School Choral Symposium Mary Undergraduate Neuroscience Education: Challenges and Solutions in Harrington Creating Sustaining Programs CARLA (The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquistion) Molly Falsetti Improving Language Learning Styles-­‐and Strategies-­‐Based Instruction Lisa Mangiamele Teaching physiology with hands-­‐on experiments Beth Powell New England Conference for Student Success Glenn Ellis Knowledge Building Summer Institute Borjana Mikic Knowledge Building Summer Institute Al Rudnitsky Knowledge Building Summer Institute Kevin Shea New England Conference for Student Success Kathleen Casale Learning and the Brain Conference Kevin Shea New England Faculty Development Fall Conference Mona Kulp National Science Foundation Environmental Chemistry Workshop Floyd Cheung Professional Organization and Development Annual Conference Michael Barresi Case Study Conference 9 Other Activities
Davis Educational Foundation Faculty Development Grant
This grant was closed out as of July 31. The successful award of this grant ($153,000 over three
years) was one of the most important achievements from the 2011-2012 year. We proposed a
faculty development model focused on transitioning faculty from the Teaching and Learning
Seminar to major course revision and implementation. This involved creating a cohort of eleven
participants as well as four faculty fellows with experience creating idea-centered learning
environments. We began this project during the summer of 2012 and completed our first year of
work at the end of the 2012-2013 academic year. The fellows and participants met regularly to plan
and discuss substantive course revisions and implementation. This resulted in the creation of classes
focused on knowledge building principles that were idea and student centered, and we hope the
number and success of these classes will continue to grow.
This year, there were 13 participants including Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh and Isabel Huff,
colleagues from Springfield Technical and Community College. Like last year, the Sherrerd Center
paid for Kevin Shea’s stipend as the fifth fellow. (Since they are not members of the Smith
community, Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh and Isabel Huff did not receive stipends.) We also had four
observers who did not receive a stipend.
The following are knowledge building-oriented presentations and publications by members of the
group:
Publications:
Rudnitsky, A., Ellis, G., Mikic, B. (in press) Knowledge Building and Higher Education, To be
published in Leading Student Achievement: Networks for Learning (LSA), Volume 3.
Ellis, G.W., Ipesa-Balogun, H.A., Yu, Y., Zhang, Y., Jiang, X. (2014) Developing a Learner-Centered
Classroom through Collaborative Knowledge Building, Proceedings of the American Society for
Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Indianapolis, IN, June 15-18.
Rudnitsky, A., Ellis, G.W., Shea, K., DiBartolo, P. (2013) Professional Development in a Liberal
Arts Setting, To Improve the Academy, Vol. 32, 127-144.
Ellis, G.W. and Yu, Y. (2013) Using Knowledge Building to Support Deep Learning and the
Development of 21st Century Skills, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering
Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Atlanta, GA, June 23-27.
Presentations:
Duncan, L., DiBartolo, P. and G. Ellis (2105) A Blended Learning Approach to Idea-Centered
Learning, Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts, Bryn Mawr, PA.
Rudnitsky, A., Elllis, G. and Mikic, B. (2014) Taking a Knowledge Building Approach to Teaching
College Undergraduates, Knowledge Building Summer Institute, Laval University, Quebec City,
Canada.
10 Shea, K. M. "Student-Faculty Collaboration in Organic Chemistry Course-Based Research", New
England Faculty Development Consortium Spring Conference, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT,
May 29, 2015
Mikic B, Rudnitsky A, Dewald A, Desai A (2015) Using a Computer Supported Learning
Environment (CSLE) to Promote Knowledge Building Pedagogy in an Undergraduate Strength of
Materials Course. 122nd Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education,
July14-17, 2015. Seattle, WA.
Mikic B & Rudnitsky A (2015) An Emergent Approach to Design Thinking and Collaborative Team
Composition: using the OpenIDEO framework and principles of Knowledge Building pedagogy to
redesign an introduction to engineering course. Proceedings of the Mudd IX Design Workshop,
May 28-30, 2015. Harvey Mudd College, Pomona, CA.
Table 6. 2014-2015 Davis Educational Foundation Fellows and Participants
Faculty Fellows
Participants
Lauren Duncan (Psychology)
Borjana Mikic (Engineering)
Glenn Ellis (Engineering)
Al Rudnitsky (Education & Child Study)
Kevin Shea (Chemistry)
Shannon Audley-Piotrowski (Education & Child Studies), Judy
Cardell (Computer Science and Engineering), Floyd Cheung
(English), Patty DiBartolo (Psychology), Bosiljka Glumac
(Geosciences), Simon Halliday (Economics), Jina Kim (East
Asian Studies), Dana Leibsohn (Art), Sarah Moore
(Engineering), Sara Pruss (Geosciences), Julianna Tymoczko
(Mathematics & Statistics), Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh (STCC),
Isabel Huff (STCC)
Observers: Alexandra Burgess (Psychology), Nathan Derr
(Biological Sciences), Katherine Halvorsen (Mathematics &
Statistics), Sujane Wu (East Asian Languages & Literature)
Faculty Book Discussion
In January, Floyd Cheung facilitated a book discussion of Alison Cook-Sather’s Engaging Students as
Partners in Teaching and Learning. This session drew twenty seven attendees and sparked a productive
discussion about current partnership efforts already underway at Smith, as well as ways to expand
such partnerships. Faculty members were particularly interested in making sure that the widest
possible range of students can participate. We observed, too, that partnerships can take many forms
from an activity in a single class to working with paid learning assistants over a semester or more. As
mentioned earlier, Cook-Sather also presented at a spring semester Teaching Arts Lunch and
conducted a workshop on the same day.
Sherrerd Center Website
We view this site as a resource for the entire Smith community and as our method of
communicating with the broader academic community outside of Smith. Information on the site is
regularly updated and sorted into the following categories: goals, advisory board, board of
11 counselors, teaching arts lunches, teaching circles, conferences, presentations, workshops, resources,
pedagogical articles by Smith authors, links, in the news, news and events, and a section of resources
for new faculty.
Committee on Educational Technology
Beth Powell, a member of the Advisory Board, also serves on CET to help coordinate our activities.
Educational Technology Services Coordination
Tom Laughner, the Director of ETS, attends all Sherrerd Advisory Board meetings to enable close
coordination between ETS and Sherrerd Center programming.
Department Lunch and Dinner Discussions on Teaching & Learning
In order to encourage departmental discussions on teaching and learning, the Sherrerd Center has
provided funding for departments to meet over a meal. This year, the Center helped fund a retreat
for the Spanish and Portuguese Studies department.
Interactions with 5-College Teaching and Learning Centers and Other Institutions
Floyd Cheung attended meetings of the 5-College Teaching and Learning Center directors once or
twice per semester. These interactions proved fruitful for sharing ideas and learning about other
Centers.
In February Floyd Cheung consulted with Dr. Rodelio (Rae) Manacsa, Associate Professor of
Politics at Sewanee: University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, about how the Sherrerd Center
operates. In June Floyd was interviewed by Hanover Research about how to organize a teaching and
learning center.
Future Plans:
The director will begin with meeting Dwight Hamilton, the College’s Chief Diversity Officer, once
per month in order to collaborate on improving teaching and learning for diverse students and
improving mentoring for new faculty members, especially those from underrepresented groups.
The Sherrerd Center will work with the Provost during 2015-16 to review the College’s current
course evaluation system. The director has gathered ideas already from colleagues after the
dissemination of spring 2015 course evaluations. Al Rudnitsky will help lead this effort.
Since the Davis Foundation grant has run its course, energy spent in that direction for the past three
years will refocus on the Teaching and Learning Seminar. Instead of meeting every month,
however, the leaders have decided to conduct a discussion of the film Most Likely to Succeed in the fall
and follow up with a multi-day seminar in January. We are likely to combine this with our annual
book discussion, which this year will feature the Cambridge Handbook to the Learning Sciences. The
Center is grateful to Glenn Ellis, Al Rudnitsky, and Borjana Mikic for leading the seminar. Zaza
Kabayadondo will join the leadership group in 2015.
Depending on the outcome of the Committee on Mission and Priority’s strategic planning process
and interest from faculty, especially those on the Teaching Circle for Engaging Students as Partners,
the Center will promote opportunities for expanding partnership initiatives like those described in
Alison Cook-Sather’s book. For instance, faculty stipends, pay for student partners, and more
administrative support would be necessary.
12 While the Sherrerd Center did some programming for associate professor-level faculty development
and organized some writing workshops and groups, this kind of work will be gradually shifted over
to the newly reconfigured Associate Dean of Faculty’s office.
We will continue to promote and fund activities that are successful and central to our mission. We
will continue to offer opportunities for faculty to discuss and improve their teaching through
Teaching Arts Luncheons and Teaching Circles. We will provide faculty development programming
like the Teaching and Learning Seminar, and topical workshops. We will continue to coordinate
activities of the Board of Counselors and introduce new faculty to the culture of teaching and
student learning at Smith. We will encourage faculty to take advantage of our travel funds to attend
teaching conferences. And we will continue to build our resource library.
APPENDIX A: Sherrerd Center Resource Library List of Holdings:
Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective James, Allison & Stephen D.
Thinkers
Brookfield
Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions,
Departments and General Education
Walvoord, Barbara
Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age
Bereiter, Carl
Surpassing Ourselves: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Implications of
Expertise
Bereiter, Carl & Marlene
Scardamalia
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Dweck, Carol
Engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide to the
Process, and How to Develop a Project from Start to Finish
Bishop-Clark, Cathy & Beth
Dietz-Uhler
Teaching Students to Think Critically
Meyers, Chet
Promoting Active Learning: Strategies for the College Classroom
Meyers, Chet & Thomas B.
Jones
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
Steele, Claude, M.
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School
Committee on the
Developments in the Science
of Learning
Academic Controversy: Enriching College Instruction Through Intellectual
Conflict
Johnson, David W., et al.
Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking
Halpern, Diane F.
Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory That Compels and
Practices That Succeed
Harward, Donald W.
Course for Change in Writing: A Selection from the NEW/Iowa Institute
Klaus, Carl H. & Nancy Jones,
Editors
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
Kaufman, James C. & Robert
Sternberg, Editors
Effective Teaching for STEM Disciplines: From Learning Theory to
College Teaching
Mastascusa, Edward J., et al.
Presumed Incompetent: Intersections of Race and Class for Women in
Academia
On Teaching the Minority Student: Problems and Strategies
Pemberton, Gayle
Teaching From a Multicultural Perspective
Roberts, Helen, et al.
To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty, Instructional and
Organizational Development, Volume 31
Groccia, James E. & Laura
Cruz
13 Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty
Lang, James M.
The Culture of Education
Bruner, Jerome
Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical
Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom
Bean, John C.
Tips for Improving Testing and Grading
Ory, John C. & Katherine E.
Ryan
Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College
Classroom Will Improve Student Learning
Bowen, Jose Antonio
Mastering the Techniques of Teaching
Lowman, Joseph
A Guide to Faculty Development
The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences
Sawyer, Keith R.
Handbook of College Teaching: Theory and Applications
Prichard, Keith W. & R.
McLaren Sawyer, Editors
What the Best College Students Do
Bain, Ken
The Aims of College Teaching
Eble, Kenneth, E.
The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding
Egan, Keiran
Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning: A Guide for College
and University Faculty
Williams, Kimberly M.
Creating Significant Learning Experiences
Fink, L. Dee
The First Year of College Teaching
Fink, L. Dee
Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power
of Adult Learning Experiences
Daloz, Laurent, A.
To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty, Instructional and
Organizational Development, Volume 28
Nilson, Linda B. & Judith E.
Miller
Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students'
Self-Awareness and Learning Skills
Nilson, Linda
Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Nilson, Linda & Claudia J.
Faculty Time
Stanny
The Art and Craft of Teaching: Ideas, techniques and practical advice for
communicating your knowledge to your students and involving them in the Morganroth Gullette,
learning process
Margaret, Editor
Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College
Carnes, Mark C.
Creating the Future of Faculty Development: Learning from the Past,
Understanding the Present
Sorcinelli, Mary Deane, et al.
Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning: Across
the Disciplines, Across the Academy (New Pedagogies and Practices for
Teaching in Higher Education)
Kaplan, Matthew & Naomi
Silver
Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology
Miller, Michelle D.
Peer Teaching: To Teach is to Learn Twice
Whitman, Neal A.
Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Brown, Peter, et al.
The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors
Filene, Peter
Assessing and Improving Your Teaching: Strategies and Rubrics for
Faculty Growth and Student Learning
Blumberg, Phyllis
Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds
Light, Richard J.
14 Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus
Boice, Robert
Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing
Boice, Robert
New Directions for Teaching and Learning: Fostering Critical Thinking
Who Teaches? Who Learns? Authentic Student/Faculty Partners
Jenkins, Robin R. & Karen T.
Romer
The Essence of Good Teaching
Ericksen, Stanford C.
Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative
Ways of Thinking and Acting
Brookfield, Stephen D.
Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students
Question Their Assumptions
Brookfield, Stephen D.
Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic
Classrooms
Brookfield, Stephen D. &
Stephen Preskill
How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching
Ambrose, Susan, et al.
The Peak Performing Professor: A Practical Guide to Productivity and
Happiness
Robinson, Susan
Learner-Centered Teaching: Putting the Research on Learning Into
Practice
Doyle, Terry
The Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain
Doyle, Terry & Todd
Zakrajsek
Teaching What You Don't Know
Huston, Therese
The Best of The Teaching Professor
Various
McKeachie's Teaching Tips
McKeachie, Wilbert
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite & The Way to a
Meaningful Life
Deresiewicz, William
15