Section 8.8 Scheduling on-going faculty curriculum meetings
Create a department culture in which faculty expect to meet regularly to discuss teaching, where such discussions focus upon details of what happened in courses as well as connections among courses, and strategies employed.
Establishing cycle of multiple curriculum meetings each term, separate from the regular all-faculty meetings.
Separate the faculty into those teaching introductory courses, those teaching upper division undergraduate courses, and those teaching graduate courses. Set-up a regular schedule for multiple meetings of each group each term. For example, faculty teaching upper level courses meet on Tuesdays, 3-5, during weeks 1, 4, 7, and 10.
Creating culture for curriculum meetings in which faculty expect to discuss what happened, changes made, student understandings and challenges noted during a course.
Focus upon discussing aspects of teaching and learning and avoid getting diverted to discussing administrative issues during these meetings.
Encouraging discussion of connections among courses, of dependencies for topics taught upon what students learned in prior courses and will learn in future courses.
During some meetings, have one faculty member focus on what happened in a particular course and include tracing the dependencies for topics taught here across earlier and later courses.
Focusing occasionally on strategies such as facilitating whole group discussions; initiating, monitoring, and reflecting upon small group activities; and fostering student questioning.
During some meetings, have faculty members share examples of a particular strategy and discuss aspects such as how students' confidence and ability to ask productive questions seems to be developing across the program.