Tech Quarterly Article on Faculty Development at SDSM&T, Spring 2003

By Dr. Kate Alley Director of Academic Initiatives   A $300,000 grant from the Bush Foundation will help the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology faculty face the challenges of education. In Nov. 2002, the Faculty Development Committee (FDC) at Tech received a the three-year grant from the Bush Foundation in response to its funding proposal, “Complexity and Coherence: Integrating Research and Curriculum Development to Create new Learning Environments.” Each year, the members of the FDC – Dr. Alvis Lisenbee, professor, Department of Geology and Geological Engineering; Dr. Rod Rice, associate professor, Department of Humanities; Dr. Lee Vierling, assistant professor, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences; Dr. Stan Howard, professor, Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering; Dr. Michael Hudgens, assistant professor, Department of Humanities; Dr. Frank Matejick, associate professor, Industrial Engineering program; Dr. Mike Batchelder, professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Dr. Kerri Vierling, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering – are responsible for awarding $67,870 in Bush funds and $10,000 in institutional funds for workshops, travel, and teaching enhancement projects. Since this Bush grant is new for the 2002-2003 academic year, the committee members find themselves doing outreach and explaining how, precisely, the “themes” of the Bush grant translate into projects and plans that can be funded. There are three themes of the grant: Theme #1: Collaborating through research and design Promoting lifelong learning and improving the classroom experience through faculty and undergraduate collaborative projects such as research, design, and investigations. This theme means supporting student and faculty projects that foster and reinforce student commitment to learning as a lifelong, repetitive process. The Faculty Development Committee hopes to see requests for projects and travel that link in-class learning and learning beyond the classroom. Theme #2: Improving pedagogy and the curriculum Expanding scholarly activity in pedagogy, defined as the art and science of teaching, and curriculum development with an emphasis on collaborative efforts. This theme means supporting projects, travel, and workshops that encourage the testing of innovative instructional practices and increasing understanding of the learning process. Through this theme, the FDC hopes have a strong positive impact on the curriculum at many levels. Theme #3: Integrating and linking curricular concepts Integrating and linking curricular concepts and instructional approaches within and across disciplines to improve curricular continuity. Conceptually, this theme may be the newest. The FDC is seeking to support faculty efforts to link aspects of the curriculum. The committee’s idea is to accomplish this by focusing on key skills or concepts and to use them to link courses, programs, and even co-curricular activities, such as involvement in student government or international student groups. The committee is now considering a proposal, for instance, to use a teaching unit on ethical thinking in an engineering context in courses in three different programs. And, the committee hopes to fund development work on the “ethical dilemma” lessons already used in the freshman-engineering course, GE115. The committee expects the impact in this example will be that engineering students will be given multiple opportunities to exercise their abilities to reason ethically as engineers before they face real-world choices. The members of the FDC believe this approach to learning is worth funding. So, as you can see, “developing” faculty does not mean that faculty members need remediation. Rather, they need to be supported in their ongoing efforts to expand their horizons of knowledge and teaching practices. Engineering education is subject to many new demands. New engineers, for example, must graduate with experience working on project teams. They must have an understanding of how their engineering decisions will impact society. They need a grasp of contemporary issues, and, as suggested above, the ability to think ethically as engineers. Teaching such skills and attitudes is challenging to professors who have devoted their lives to studying chemical engineering or computer science, or another specialty area. Our social sciences, humanities, and science faculty members are feeling similar pressures to remain current with new instructional practices and the very large amount of new research being done on how the brain learns. As in the area of assessment (See story, page BLANK), Tech faculty are moving into the future together in an active, exploratory way. This is no time to be adverse to change in American higher education. Thanks to the work of the assessment committees and the Faculty Development Committee, Tech is definitely finding its way.

Contact: SDSMT Academic Initiatives

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