Looking for another way to engage the Center for Teaching on your campus? Try contributing to their blog. Here are a few mentioned in a message from the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (also known simply as “POD”) discussion list:
- Thinking Out Loud (University of Northern British Columbia)
- Tomorrow’s Professor (MIT and Stanford)
- Writing, Teaching, and Learning at Elon (Elon College)
- LCCC – Center for Teaching Excellence (Lorain County Community College)
Is there a teaching center (or writing center) blog on your campus? If so, do you contribute? Let us know.
Our teaching center does not yet have a blog but the library is very involved in the development of the center. The Center for Teaching and Learning at Mississippi State University was established in January 2006—so it is still very new. Both our campus Information Technology Services departments and the Library joined forces to support the center. I serve as the associate director (while continuing my role as head of our library instructional services department in the Library). By working directly in the center, I’m hoping the library can be an integral part of this emering service on campus.
I would love to hear how other libraries have interacted with the teaching/learning centers on their campuses.
Thanks!
Deborah Lee
Mississippi State University Libraries
Very cool! Plus, as Associate Director, you’re in a prime position to start a teaching center blog 🙂
Regarding collaboration with teaching centers, Lisa Hinchliffe and I included a couple of items related to this in our recent ARL SPEC Kit (“Instructional Improvement Programs,” August 2005). Here are a few stats:
*62 respondents indicated that their campus supported a teaching center
*the most popular forms of collaboration were: (1) librarians provide workshops on new information resources available to support teaching and research through the teaching center (58%); (2) librarians provide workshops on how to design effective library assignments through the teaching center (50%); (3) librarians contribute to the design and delivery of faculty development workshops aimed at helping faculty integrate IT into their teaching (45%).
We’ve currently got a spot on the Center for Teaching Excellence advisory board here on our campus, and the director of the center works with us when planning orientation for new faculty, recommending services to professors and so on. Some librarians have written for their newsletter but there is no blog (yet). We’re very visible to the center and they in turn help promote us to the instruction community.
Samantha Hines
University of Montana-Missoula
Thanks for the link!
I find the act of creating a blog is an integral part of my own professional development – regardless who reads it. It forces me to keep my eyes open and seek out info that is interesting to me and relevant to my career…and I hope others find it beneficial too!