This faculty learning community is designed to meet the needs of women faculty who are newly appointed to their positions; while most of these women come to the position of assistant professor after a lengthy career in education or human services (e.g., counseling, human resources, corporate training, etc.), the professoriate places unique demands on the individual, and women in particular tend to struggle with these demands. This faculty learning community seeks, therefore, to provide untenured women with the opportunity to learn from and network with each other in a shared, supportive environment that draws upon shared vision and goals, collective creativity, shared leadership, and the unique strengths each woman brings to the learning community.

For more information about this Faculing Learning Community e-mail Caryn Wells.

Improving Student Understanding by Design

UbD addresses the question: “how do we make it more likely—by our design—that more students really understand what they are asked to learn?” (Wiggins & McTighe, p. 4). The key approach used by Understanding by Design is called backwards planning. Typical planning begins with goals and proceeds to planning instruction to address those goals. In backwards planning, goals are the start, but instead of planning instruction, the question is asked: what evidence could students produce that would show they met the goals? With these evidentiary outcomes in mind, instruction is then designed to help students produce that evidence of understanding. While this process may appear simple, it is challenging to enact in teaching practice.

For more information about this Faculing Learning Community e-mail Mark Olson.

Development of Integrative Case Studies for Teaching Basic Sciences: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach

The purpose of this learning community is to organize a group of Oakland/Beaumont faculty with expertise in biological sciences to develop integrative case-studies to teach basic sciences. The case-studies will be designed to be used either as an alternative or to supplement traditional didactic lecture. The case-studies will be used in team-based learning exercises to provide a novel and fun approach that engage undergraduate, graduate and medical students in active learning processes of basic science concepts.

For more information about this Faculing Learning Community e-mail Robert Augustyniak.

Best Practices of Teaching Research Journal Club

The mission of Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OUWBSOM) is to create a learning community that will enable students to not only become skillful and compassionate primary caregivers, but also lifelong learners. This mission will be accomplished, in part, by creating an integrative interdisciplinary curriculum for medical school students. The development of this curriculum and the organizational structure of the school of medicine create a unique opportunity to explore and discuss existing educational research for all disciplines. In the spirit of the mission of the school, we are creating a learning community to facilitate interactions between newly hired basic science and clinical faculty with existing faculty at OU. The learning community will discuss educational research on the best practices for learning. The goal is to explore the literature, examine the data, and incorporate educational practices supported by research into the curriculum. It would also serve as a forum for interested individuals outside the school of medicine to contribute to the developing curriculum. Lastly, these discussions will promote professional development and serve to enhance teaching strategies and/or techniques both in- and outside the school of medicine.

For more information about this Faculing Learning Community e-mail David Rodenbaugh.

Surveillance, Privacy, and Security - SurPriSe

This learning community will explore the relevance of surveillance, privacy, and security to teaching and research. All three, surveillance, privacy, and security have undergone major changes in the last three decades. Significant factors have included technological developments (e.g. the Internet, development of large shared databases, increasingly sophisticated software for data mining), the globalization of the economy and the enhanced importance of borders to control population migration, the spread of disease, and other social problems, and alteration to the legal and social landscape subsequent to 9/11 via the war on terrorism. Understanding these three topics and the relationships among them inherently requires an interdisciplinary perspective.

For more information about this Faculty Learning Community Thomas Lauer or Jay Meehan.