The following is from Faculty Focus, an electronic newsletter from Magna Publications that deals with teaching on line. I learned first hand about this “Restrained Participation” technique as a student in the author’s (Dr. Karen Swan) class. While taking graduate courses at SUNY Albany I had the good fortune to take a number of courses from Karen Swan. This particular tip REALLY works.
Mr. James B. Greenberg
Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
Milne Library
SUNY College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 607-436-2701
fax: 607-436-3081
IM: oneontatltc
"Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"
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From: Faculty Focus <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:02:59 -0500 (CDT)
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Volume 1, Issue 10
Volume 1, Issue 10: October 25, 2004
You are receiving this email because you are a subscriber to Faculty Focus or you signed up to receive this E-Newsletter from Magna Publications. If you wish to unsubscribe or change information on your account, please use the links at the bottom of this message.
Please forward this e-newsletter to all your colleagues. Information to subscribe is near the end of the newsletter.
Ginny Haight, editor
In this issue:
Regulating Faculty Members' Paid Outside Work <#Regulating>
Instructor's 'Restrained Participation' in Threaded Discussions Gives Students Control, Ownership of Learning <#Instructor's>
- Deadlines and LatePenalties <#motivating>
Regulating Faculty Members' Paid Outside Work
According to the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the percentage of faculty members who engage in paid outside work increased to 33 percent in 1999 from 21 percent in 1993. Alexei G. Matveev, associate director of institutional effectiveness and assessment at Norfolk State University, proposes three possible explanations for this increase:
- There has been an actual increase.
- The increase is due to increased scrutiny.“I did a study on university regulations on outside work, and more and moreuniversities require that faculty report their outside activities,” Matveev says.
- There has been a change in academic culture inwhich faculty members are increasingly valuing their expertise not just to produce publicgood but also for personal gain. As a result, faculty are more straightforward indiscussing their involvement in paid outside work.
Because the research in this area is “fragmented,” the question of which of these applies is unclear, Matveev says. What is clear is that faculty are often criticized from within and outside academia for their outside work.
Critics of faculty outside work argue that when faculty concentrate their efforts outside the institution they run the risk of reducing their effort, integrity, and quality of work at their home institution. On the positive side, faculty outside work can enhance the individual’s, department’s, and institution’s expertise and reputation, which can attract other faculty, students, and funding.
“If you look at the purposes of [outside work] policies, they encourage faculty members to apply their expertise to outside employment. For example, one institution's policy explicitly states that faculty should be encouraged to engage in activities beyond their regular university duties. The main concern about outside work is not intellectual property but rather conflict of commitment. They don’t want faculty to engage so much in outside work that they do not perform their obligations to the academic community,” Matveev says.
Most institutional policies on this issue allow faculty to engage in paid outside work one day per week. (Whether that is a work week or calendar week varies.)
Department-level policies
In his study of outside work policies at 70 institutions, Matveev has found that the balance of external activities varies among individuals, disciplines, and institutions. For example, the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (published in 2001 based on 1999 data by the National Center for Education Statistics) found that, on average,
- income from outside work derived by engineeringfaculty amounts to 14 percent of their base salary
- income from outside work derived by humanitiesfaculty amounts to 8 percent of their base salary
- income from outside work derived by businessfaculty amounts to 17 percent of their base salary.
Based on these findings and his own review of policies, Matveev believes that the most effective policies are developed at the department level.
The above is an excerpt taken from the newsletter Academic Leader. To read the rest of this article, sign up for a trial subscription to Academic Leader. You will have access to this article and many more articles for academic administrators, academic deans, and department chairs. Go to http://www.magnapubs.com/subscribe/9altrial.html to sign up now.
Instructor's 'Restrained Participation' in Threaded Discussions Gives Students Control, Ownership of Learning
When Karen Swan, research professor in the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University, taught online courses, she used a very simple rubric for threaded discussions: each posting should relate to the course material and the student’s experience. This, combined with a technique she calls “restrained participation,” helped achieve her goal of eliciting diverse opinions.
Modeling, not dominating
Since the goal of the threaded discussion was to get students to express their opinions and react to each others’ opinions, Swan made it a point to not dominate the discussion. However, students need guidance, particularly early in the course, Swan says.
Although online discussion is more equitable and democratic than classroom discussion, there is the danger that students will view the instructor as the authority, which can hinder student participation.
Swan used this perceived authority to model appropriate participation. “Students tend to adopt the [communication] styles of the instructor. If I’m formal, they’re going to be formal. If I’m conversational, they’re going to be conversational,” Swan says.
She also made it a point to reduce the psychological distance between her and her students by
- revealing things about herself
- being self-deprecating
- responding to students by their first names
- using inclusive statements, referring to “we”or “the class.”
“If I want to talk about a particular concept I will use examples from my own experience. Hopefully, they’ll experience me as a person, not as a teacher.”
Gradually, she reduced the number of postings she made to the threaded discussion. In the first two weeks of her courses, Swan would respond frequently to students’ postings. “Everybody knew I was listening and that I cared about their opinions. But a teacher’s response can just kill a discussion. So by the end of the course, I would be in there very little,” Swan says.
Journaling
Swan made it a point to have some interaction with each student each week. Not all of this interaction was in the threaded discussion, however. Swan also had an individual dialogue with each student each week. Students were required to post at least one journal entry per week to which she would respond. The content of this dialogue was open-ended. It could be reflection on the week’s work or something personal. Journaling also provided Swan with feedback she used to improve her courses.
“I’ve gotten everything from ‘My cat died.’ to very long, thoughtful reflections on the course material,” Swan says. “It’s like making eye contact in the class, but it’s really nice because you can do it with every student.”
As the course progressed and Swan gradually withdrew from the threaded discussion, this one-on-one communication reminded students that she was still actively engaged in the course even if she wasn’t as active in the threaded discussion.
Contact Karen Swan at [log in to unmask]
The above article is an excerpt from On-line Classroom, a monthly newsletter that enhances its readers’ ability to offer quality online courses. Subscribe today at www.magnapubs.com <http://www.magnapubs.com> or call 1-800-433-0499.
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November 9, 2004 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (Eastern)
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Deadlines and Late Penalties
By Adam Chapnick, University of Toronto, [log in to unmask]
Although I love to teach, for a number of years, I experienced a great deal of agony while attempting to determine what constituted appropriate grounds for granting a student an extension on a course assignment. How long should the extension be? Should it make a difference if the student asked for an extension two weeks in advance as opposed to the day before? And who was I to pass judgment on the impact of a personal crisis on a student’s capacity to complete an assignment on time? Because most of us still lack pedagogical training in these important instructional details, policies on deadlines, extensions and penalties vary across departments and institutions, leaving too many students justifiably confused, if not angry.
As an instructor who takes deadlines seriously, and believes that assessing late penalties is a practical and effective means of demonstrating the importance of timely work to the learning process, I have put a great deal of thought into ways to develop a policy for deadlines, late penalties, and extensions that is both fair and reasonable. I’d like to share my solution. It is one that fits with my philosophy of teaching and one that has successfully kept my students satisfied.
In my courses, all assignments have a fixed due date. I do not allow any extensions, and I impose a 5 percent per business day penalty on all late submissions. I begin to impose that penalty, however, five days after the assignment is officially due. (It is worth noting that my assignments are always due in the middle of the week so that the five days include the weekend). Even though there is no formal penalty, students who plan to submit papers during those five days after the official due date are strongly encouraged to inform me of their intention to do so in advance (out of professional courtesy). Moreover, after the official due date, I do not provide students with any feedback or guidance on their assignments. After the official due date, my time is dedicated to marking those papers that were submitted on time.
Mine is certainly not the only solution but, hopefully, this article will get us talking. Establishing workable policies for deadlines and extensions is a crucial part of successful teaching that deserves more attention than it has received.
The above is an excerpt from The Teaching Professor newsletter. The Teaching Professor offers a combination of concise information and inspiration to help faculty members in all disciplines teach more effectively. Subscribe now at http://www.magnapubs.com/subscribe/magnapubs_tp.html or call 1-800-433-0499.
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