Faculty Opportunities and Resources

• Currents In Teaching and Learning is now accepting submissions for its Spring 2012 issue (deadline is November 15th, 2011).  For more information about this publication and how to submit, please click here.
   
• Educational and Professional Development workshops are frequently held for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Visit our events page to learn about upcoming workshops.
   
• Peer Learning Assistants are undergraduate students selected by the faculty member to facilitate teaching and learning activities that might otherwise be difficult for the faculty member to carry out by him/herself.  Experience at other institutions and in several FYSs and other introductory level courses at Clark has shown that PLAs are most useful in facilitative roles, e.g. giving students feedback on early drafts of writing, leading small group discussions, working with individual students who are having difficulty, facilitating group project work (in or out of class), and/or facilitating online discussions on Blackboard. Because they are undergraduates, as is the practice at Clark, PLAs do not grade student work, and they generally do not have the content expertise to serve as substitutes for graduate teaching assistants. PLAs are paid $8.50 per hour (AY06-07) from federal work-study funds or from other institutional funds, or some choose to take academic credit (e.g. independent study or directed reading) for their work. PLAs generally work about 10-15 hr/wk. CETL offers:
  
  1. Assistance in redesigning your course to incorporate the inquiry based learning that PLAs can help to facilitate.
  2. Logistical assistance for hiring and managing PLAs.
  3. Training for PLAs and the faculty who employ them.
  
  To discuss how PLAs might help improve your students' learning while reducing your workload, please contact Mary-Ellen Boyle or Danny Fontaine.  
   
• We offer confidential individual teaching consultations to anyone who teaches at Clark, including full time and part time faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Consultations are typically requested when an instructor has a specific teaching area in which s/he has questions or wishes to improve, but can also be requested for more general teaching feedback. A consultation typically begins with a meeting to determine your interests and needs and to review your course. If you wish, we may proceed to one or more classroom observations, with written feedback provided, and/or continue with additional meetings. Other possibilities include, but are not limited to, videotaping your class and reviewing your student ratings. You make the decisions, and we tailor the consultation to your needs and available time. Most importantly, the consultation is completely confidential. Unless you choose to share information or reports with other people, no one else will ever know that the consultation took place, let alone its content or results. Consultations are done by Mary-Ellen Boyle.
   
• The Colleges of Worcester Consortium Certificate in College Teaching Program. The certificate program is designed for graduate students, adjunct faculty, and full-time faculty who are either pursuing or engaging in a career in academia. This program offers graduate students and faculty the opportunity to learn best practices in college teaching with the theoretical background that supports it. Courses may be taken "a la carte" or in pursuit of the 1.5-unit Certificate in College Teaching. Clark faculty and graduate students may qualify for tuition reimbursement for Certificate courses.  The Certificate in College Teaching Program was recently featured in an article in the Teaching Professor Newsletter.
  
  
• There are a number of local and national conference and workshops on effective teaching and learning. Please check out our External Events page for a listing. Please note that if you are interested in attending, CETL can provide partial funding.

Faculty Resource Documents

TA Feedback and Evaluation Process