Activities
The Distinguished Teaching Academy (DTA) at ASU was launched in Spring 2006. The members include all faculty honored as Parents Association Professor of the Year or President’s Professor. The mission of the Academy is to foster and reinforce a culture of teacher-scholars committed to promoting teaching and learning excellence and to facilitate the enhancement, recognition, and celebration of teaching at ASU. Members have support for individually-proposed projects to improve teaching and learning at ASU. In addition, as a group, the DTA is committed to four projects during AY 2007-2008 (and likely well beyond):
I. Build a university-wide dialogue and recommendations to the Provost regarding teaching evaluation: This project began with a concern expressed by the Provost that ASU needs a consistent approach, university-wide, for evaluation of teaching. Afsaneh Nahavandi (University College) and Andrew Smith (SOLS) are taking the lead on this issue, working with other faculty and administrators. They will examine best practices nationally, both in the evaluation of teaching and in reward systems for excellent teaching. A university-wide event will be planned on this topic during AY 2007-2008.
II. Promote visibility for excellent teaching: Neal Lester (English) and Jane Maienschein (SOLS) are leading our effort to gather narrative information and to develop ways to institutionalize the flow of information to the administration and faculty about excellent teaching at ASU. Ideas such as student-professor narratives (rather than focus on one or the other), web postings, and recognition of exemplars are being discussed.
III. Consider the balance between teaching and research and the commitment to teaching at this Research I university: Ron Roedel (Electrical Engineering) and Ken Morrison (Religious Studies) are taking the lead in discussions about how to address the role of teaching and teaching expectations at ASU. They will work closely with Nahavandi and Smith (who are leading the group on evaluation of teaching). Ideas such as working with chairs to identify teaching loads and the logic behind them, rewards for teaching while conducting research, and evaluation of faculty contribution to teaching are being discussed.
IV. Improve technology support for teaching: Teaching is not well supported with adequate, let alone innovative, technology. Randy Cerveny (Geology) and Peggy Nelson (SHESC/Barrett) are leading on this issue, in collaboration with Adrian Sannier (University IT). The condition of classroom technology support and differential use of technology across disciplines, class sizes, and academic levels are being discussed. In addition, the group is examining ways to enrich the knowledge students have about courses of study.
Download a copy of this document.
If you are interested in any of these projects, contact Peggy Nelson (MNelson@asu.edu), current President of the DTA, Felicity Snyder (Felicity.Snyder@asu.edu), staff assistant to the DTA, or visit the DTA webpage at http://www.asu.edu/dta/index.html.
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