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Section 3.4 Fall Term: Voting on Additional Changes and Continuing the Re-envisioning Process

  • Schedule a faculty meeting specifically for discussing and voting on the changes for majors and minors

    • Facilitate a discussion of each category of proposed changes and vote on each separately
  • Schedule a faculty meeting specifically for discussing and voting on proposed new specialty courses

  • Continue to engage the faculty in collaboratively discussing and developing plans

    • schedule regular meetings of faculty teaching the upper division courses, such as every 3 weeks
    • engage faculty in generating questions about the curriculum they would like to discuss
    • ask one or more to facilitate a meeting focused on one of those questions
    • focus some meetings on brainstorming connections among the courses as a whole
    • focus some meetings on reflections about what happened in individual courses such as what went well, what were the challenges, and what changes might be made
    • focus some meetings around specific issues needing attention
    • welcome faculty teaching earlier or later courses to join the conversation

  • Prepare new faculty for teaching interactively in the reformed courses

    • assign new faculty to shadow faculty teaching courses to which they will be assigned
    • recognize extra effort required for the faculty member who is being shadowed
    • count shadowing as a teaching assignment
    • make sure shadower understands this is not a break from teaching

    • have department head specify expectations that shadower:

      • comes to and participates in every class session
      • comes to and participates in every meeting preparing for and/or debriefing class sessions
      • assumes responsibility for preparing for and facilitating some small group activities
      • assumes responsibility for preparing for and teaching some sessions

    • coach the shadower in ways to:

      • use interactive engagement strategies
      • welcome and work with student ideas likely to emerge during exploration of a topic
      • facilitate “wrap-up” discussions after activities exploring a topic
      • plan and teach a session
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