Carol Rutz

Faculty Professional Development and Student Learning: What is the Relationship?

Change • May/June 2012 Proposition: Educators improve their pedagogy through professionaldevelopment programs, and students learn more as a result. Doctoral programs vary widely in their preparation of graduate students for their professional roles, often providing unequal attention to the areas in which faculty are traditionally evaluated: research, teaching, and service. And even the most well-prepared new or seasoned teacher benefits from ongoing exposure to pedagogical innovations based in research on human learning. Recognizing the merits of lifelong learning by professionals engaged in a scholarly career that includes classroom teaching, many colleges and universities invest in workshops, speakers, and other activities designed to provide continuing education to faculty.

Integration with Writing Programs: A Strategy for Quantitative Reasoning Program Development

As an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, quantitative reasoning (QR) risks falling through the cracks between the traditional “silos” of higher education. This article describes one strategy for developing a truly cross-campus QR initiative: leverage the existing structures of campus writing programs by placing QR in the context of argument. We first describe the integration of Carleton College’s Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge initiative with the Writing Program. Based on our experience, we argue that such an approach leads to four benefits: it reflects important aspects of QR often overlooked by other approaches; it defuses the commonly raised objection that QR is merely remedial math; it sidesteps challenges of institutional culture (idiosyncratic campus history, ownership, and inertia); and it improves writing instruction. We then explore the implications of our approach for QR graduation standards. Our experience suggests that once we engaged faculty from across the curriculum in our work, it would have been difficult to adopt a narrowly defined requirement of skills-based courses. The article concludes by providing resources for those who would like to implement this approach at the course and institutional level.

Forging On-Campus Connections to Enhance Undergraduate Student Reasoning, Writing, and Research Skills.

ABSTRACT Research and writing are critical components of an undergraduate education. Partnerships between economics faculty and campus resources can improve student research and writing skills. Here, the authors describe programs at three different campuses that bridge department and campus resources: the Empirical Reasoning Lab at Barnard College, the Writing Program at Carleton College, and the Librarys Data Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The authors describe each programs mission and structure, provide examples of its impact on student learning, and discuss administrative factors (and hurdles) to consider in implementing similar programs elsewhere.