2012
Norman Fortenberry to present Engineering Lecture
Mar. 19, 2012—Norman Fortenberry, executive director of the American Society for Engineering Education, will deliver a lecture titled “Engineering Excitement” Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 4 p.m. in Jacobs Believed In Me Auditorium, Featheringill Hall. A reception in Adams Atrium follows the lecture. Fortenberry was appointed executive director of the ASEE in May 2011. He is a...
CIRTL Coffee Hour 3/20: Maintaining balance and resilience in your professional and personal life
Mar. 16, 2012—The 2011-2012 CIRTL Coffee Hour Series provides an opportunity for STEM (science, technology, engineering, & math) graduate students and post docs to get together online and talk about careers and the academic job search. The series is facilitated by a mix of young faculty who have recently secured positions and more seasoned tenured faculty. This year’s...
Alternatives to Generic Teaching: A Plenary North of the Border
Mar. 15, 2012—On February 25, CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick presented a plenary session, “Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Engaging Your Students and Your Discipline,” at the 2012 Spring Conference of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia. The FPSE is organization of unionized faculty in British Columbia’s institutions of higher education. This year’s conference, held in Vancouver,...
Upcoming Event: Assessing Student Learning
Mar. 14, 2012—Join us for this upcoming teaching workshop! Assessing Student Learning Date & Time: March 20, 4:10-5:30 Facilitator: Nancy Chick, Assistant Director Format: Teaching Workshop Audience: Faculty, Graduate and Professional Students, Post-docs, and Staff This session will equip participants with strategies to better understand what and how their students are learning—or not learning. ...
Citing a Tweet? Bruff quoted in USA Today Article
Mar. 12, 2012—Ever wondered how to cite a tweet? Or if it was even permitted? Last week, the Modern Language Association (MLA), one of three major style sources for academic writing, released formal guidelines on how to cite tweets. An article about the new guidlines was featured in The Tennessean and USA Today in which the CFT’s Derek Bruff...
New Book from CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick on Signature Pedagogies
Mar. 12, 2012—by CFT Director Derek Bruff Exploring More Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (2012) just hit the stands a couple of weeks ago. This is big news at the CFT because the lead editor is Nancy Chick, our new Assistant Director. This book is the follow-up to Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to...
VU Student Develops Math App for Visually Impaired Students
Mar. 8, 2012—This week, the Vanderbilt VUCast and the Research News at Vanderbilt site feature the work of Jenna Gorlewicz, a graduate student in the Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory (MED Lab) at Vanderbilt University, and her adviser Robert Webster, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who directs the lab. Gorlewicz has developed and is testing a new Android app, one...
From the Stacks…
Mar. 8, 2012— The New Digital Storytelling by Bryan Alexander From the publisher… Digital storytelling uses new media tools and platforms to tell stories. The second wave of digital storytelling started in the 1990s with the rise of popular video production, then progressed in the new century to encompass newer, social media technologies. The New Digital Storytelling: Creating...
Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow Spotlight:Evelyn Patterson
Mar. 6, 2012—Each month, the CFT Newsletter highlights the work of our Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows. This month, Evelyn Patterson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, talks about her teaching philosophy and interests: My research uses two subfields of sociology, demography and criminology, to undertake an essential task, the demography of incarceration. I investigate fundamental issues...
How do you know what your students are learning—or NOT learning?
Mar. 5, 2012—Which assessment techniques do you find particularly effective or efficient? How do you select when and how often to assess your courses? What then does deep learning in a course look like? And how can it be achieved? The CFT is hosting two events later this month that address these questions and more. In the...