Teaching Teams Program | Faculty Manual

A Faculty Resource Manual for Participants in the Teaching Teams Program and the Einstein’s Protégés Program

The Manual’s Purpose. This manual captures six years of experience (Fall 1998 - Spring 2004) of operating the Teaching Teams Program as a University-wide, peer-assisted learning program that represents one pathway to the current Holy Grail of higher education in the State of Arizona: learner-centered education. The material presented here creates a perspective for learner-centered education that ranges from broad institutional goals to actual classroom experience with working models that readily adapt to different class sizes and disciplines. The intended audience includes:

Instructors. This manual will help instructors-of-record of undergraduate courses (both ranked faculty and graduate teaching assistants) become better informed about the practical aspects of incorporating peer-assisted learning techniques into their courses.

Students. Much of the manual is about peer assistants themselves, including their roles on teaching teams and their influence on student outcomes.

Learning Specialists. The material in this manual connects frequently to the University’s academic support units (e.g., Libraries, Learning Center, Writing Center) because learner-centered education integrates the institution’s skill development resources with the faculty’s expertise in content delivery.

Administrators. Peer-assisted learning represents more than just a cost-effective way to teach more students with diminishing State support because, if adopted widely enough across the curriculum, it could actually improve some of the basic (and sometimes embarrassing!) public measures of an institution’s undergraduate program (e.g., student outcomes, first-year retention and graduation rates).

The Manual’s Organization. The sections of this manual progress from idealized expectations for student learning to classroom achievements that actually improve student outcomes. The sections could be read in sequence by those new to the Teaching Teams Program, or reviewed individually by those already participating in the program.

Section I introduces multiple sets of institutional expectations that are supposed to guide how instructors teach their courses. Their collective focus is on incorporating active learning strategies into what would otherwise likely be lecture-only course formats. This perspective provides a natural opening in Section II to describe the University’s Teaching Teams Program and to track its evolution into multiple types of peer-assisted programs such as Einstein’s Protégés and Student Faculty Mentors.

Section III is for instructors who are considering using the teaching team model in their courses. We suggest that instructors begin the process by first reflecting critically on their assumptions about student preparedness, reviewing the student learning objectives built into their curricula, and assessing the levels of these learning objectives according to Bloom’s taxonomy. This exercise may well lead to some degree of curriculum development in order to create effective roles for peer assistants in their courses.

Section IV provides practical advice on the mechanics of recruiting and managing teaching teams. Much of the content of this section is based on interviews with several dozen instructors who use teaching teams, including first-time participants and multi-year veterans. One generalization is worth noting. Participating faculty in the Teaching Teams Program look for enthusiastic, self-motivated, academically sound students with an interest in the subject matter and a desire to help classmates succeed. What this means operationally is that participating faculty have made the Teaching Teams Program into a holistic, multi-level peer support system, not a traditional tutoring program built primarily around content experts. In fact, the word “tutor” does not appear in the broad spectrum of roles that peer assistants assume on teaching teams, one consequence of which is that dissemination of false information has never been a problem in the program.

Section V is devoted to faculty experience with teaching teams. One significant finding is that the time commitment to managing teaching teams is not as onerous as some would believe. Another conclusion is that peer assistants are quite perceptive in advising their supervising instructors how to improve the teaching team experience.

Section VI summarizes available data on student learning outcomes in classes with teaching teams, the ultimate measure of effectiveness of any learning program. Peer assistants themselves outperform expectations based on their academic profile, but so also do their classmates in the Einstein’s Protégés Program where academic success is promoted through critical competencies development.

The remaining sections of this manual include descriptions of resources that the Teaching Teams Program maintains for instructional personnel (Section VII).

Harold P. Larson
Project Director, Teaching Teams Program
Professor of Planetary Sciences
Department of Planetary Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

The five topics reviewed below provide complementary guidelines for teaching undergraduate courses that adhere to sound learning principles and the University of Arizona’s publically declared goals for excellence in education. Collectively, they set the scene for introducing peer-assisted learning (PAL) in general (see, e.g., Topping & Ehly, 1998), and the University’s Teaching Teams Program (TTP) in particular (Teaching Teams, 2004), as a cost-effective, pedagogically sound delivery system for curriculum development, innovation, and reform.

The Student-Centered Research University. The University’s vision statement is “to be a preeminent student-centered research university” (Arizona, 2004). This goal is articulated especially well in the Boyer Commission Report (Boyer, 1998) that urged large public research universities to restructure themselves in ways that allow their graduate students and research programs to strengthen the quality of undergraduate education. Specific recommendations included making research-based learning the standard, embedding technology and communication skills into course work, and educating graduate students as apprentice teachers. The report’s emphasis on replacing the passive, lecture-only course format with more active learning environments is incorporated into the guidelines for the University’s General Education Program (Guidelines, 2004).

Learner-Centered Education. The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) launched an initiative in 1999 to promote learner-centered education (LCE) throughout the Arizona university system (LCE, 2004). This strategy advocates improving student learning both in classrooms and in decision-making processes and policies at all levels of the University by recognizing and respecting the individual needs of students who have different learning styles, dissimilar skill inventories, and diverse cultural backgrounds. LCE-compliant courses integrate content delivery with learner-centered activities such as collaborative group work, research projects, problem-based inquiry learning, and skill development. LCE places the responsibility for learning on the student with the instructor’s role shifting from lecturer to facilitator. That is, students do not just listen to teacher-centered lectures, but become engaged in activities that produce deeper understanding of course content through skill development that is readily transferable to life and work. Competency-based assessment is an integral part of LCE to maintain the high academic standards that are a traditional characteristic of higher education.

Critical Competencies Development. “Critical competencies” (CCs) means the combination of essential learning competencies (e.g., note taking, exam preparation, time management), information literacy competencies, and communication skills that foster life-long learning in students. These competencies connect to recommendations in the Boyer Commission Report (Boyer, 1998) that undergraduates be provided with opportunities to frame questions, conduct independent research to find answers, and communicate results. Courses structured in this way create learner-centered environments where inquiry is the norm, problem solving is the focus, and critical thinking defines the process. Developing critical competencies requires an understanding that these abilities are not extraneous to the curriculum, but must be woven into its content, structure, and sequence. Consequently, it is not desirable to teach critical competencies in stand-alone elective or remedial courses. Instead, instructors must provide opportunities for students to develop critical competencies within their curricula. The most urgent point-of-need for critical competencies development is in general education classes dominated by lower-division students. High first-year attrition rates (≈23%) and low graduation rates (≈55%) at the University of Arizona and most other large public research universities demonstrate that too many students lack the critical competencies required to succeed.

Universal Design. LCE strives to respond to the needs of all learners, regardless of their diverse characteristics and learning styles. Universal design (UD) is a movement (Universal Design, 2004) whose goals in education explicitly extend LCE’s attention to students with physical and learning disabilities. Adherence to UD criteria means that learning is accessible by all people to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaptation or specialized design and without compromising the learning objectives of the instructor. Instructors share responsibility with the University to make classes accessible to all students (Accessibility, 2004), including making sure that no student encounters barriers to acquiring class notes (Notes, 2004) and accessing instructional materials in both written and electronic formats (Web Access, 2004).

Focused Excellence. President Likin’s focused excellence strategy emerged in Fall, 2002, in response to ABOR’s request to Arizona’s universities to consider new directions in anticipation of permanently constrained State funding (Likins, 2002). This plan reaffirms the University’s commitment to achieving academic excellence as a student-centered research university by “doing fewer things better.” This strategy has not been articulated at the individual course level, but it makes excellent pedagogical sense to put such a spin on focused excellence in this manual because many instructors feel so compelled to “cover the material” that lecturing dominates their courses. As a consequence, they deal too timidly with the most important criterion to creating a learner-centered curriculum: “less is better.” That is, instructors should adopt fewer teacher-centered content goals and develop them in more depth by devoting more time to learner-centered practices such as group work, research projects, discussions, and skill development.

A. Background. Peer-assisted learning is the practice of using suitably trained and motivated students to help other students. Variations on this basic idea have been used on many different scales in a variety of educational settings ranging from elementary schools to institutions of higher learning throughout the world. Measurable positive effects of PAL include degree of aspiration, college grade point average, graduating with honors, intellectual self esteem, analytical and problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, and overall academic development (Astin, 1993). Most often, the motivation to adopt PAL techniques is to provide students with vital resources that primary instructors cannot give. Peer assistants may be better qualified, for example, to help students with basic social skills, interpersonal communication, and study skills. Peer assistants can also operate both within and outside the classroom, thus providing multiple levels of support in locations and at times that are most effective in supporting curriculum objectives. Finally, peer assistants offer a cost effective approach to maintaining an accessible and diversified academic and professional support system because they are quite willing to work for non-monetary types of compensation, such as academic credit in their training courses and opportunities to develop faculty contacts that could lead to effective letters of recommendation and other valuable assistance to their academic and professional development.

Although the pedagogical value of PAL techniques is rarely disputed, they are still not widely practiced. One impediment is setting up the infrastructure that is required to recruit and train peer assistants and coordinate their activities, especially in large-scale, institution-wide programs. Another sobering challenge is maintaining high levels of accountability for peer assistants’ participation in the learning process. This means monitoring their preparation and attitudes and, especially, guarding against the dissemination of false information during their interactions with students. Finally, even when an institution’s administrators and educators advocate the application of PAL techniques in classrooms, it is often difficult to convince more than a few teaching faculty to implement them. Teaching faculty, especially in large research universities, are often unaware of basic education theory and they rarely, if ever, browse the latest results in education research. Their preoccupation with their own research specialties competes with the increase in time that would have to be committed to developing PAL-based curricula, and the prospect of taking on increased risk adds to their reluctance to introduce PAL into their courses.

B. The Teaching Team Model. The Teaching Teams Program is a variation of PAL that emerged at the University of Arizona in 1998 as a grassroots collaboration of faculty and staff who wanted to mitigate the negative influence of large, passive classes on learning (Larson et. al., 2001). The model’s fundamental unit is the teaching team which consists of the instructor, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), if any, and peer assistants. This collaborative unit provides multiple levels of support both inside and outside the classroom to help students construct their own knowledge (active learning), develop fundamental skills necessary for academic and professional success, and build confidence working with the course material.

The Teaching Teams Program calls its peer assistants preceptors, a term that as far back

as 1440 stood for an instructor or tutor. In more modern times, the word has acquired discipline-specific meanings, such as in the medical field to identify a physician that gives practical training to a medical student. The Teaching Teams Program adopted this term for its peer assistants to avoid direct comparisons with more traditional peer mentor and peer tutor roles that often are limited just to out-of-class help with course content. To prepare and reward preceptors for their contributions to learning, they earn academic credit in training courses designed and taught by TTP staff (see Preceptor Registration and Training). Workshop topics include collaborative learning strategies, learning styles, dealing with difficult students, conducting peer reviews of writing assignments, and incorporating academic experience into portfolios.

The wide range of possibilities for integrating preceptors and their specialized training into course activities is reviewed in Section IV.C. As a consequence of this flexibility of the teaching team model, TTP has experimented with many different types of preceptorships, each supported by a specially focused training course. The basic teaching team model emphasizes providing the instructor with additional help to deliver a more active curriculum. The Einstein’s Protégés variation of the teaching team model, described below in Section II.C., emphasizes helping students develop their critical competencies while doing assigned course work. Advanced preceptorships include the Student Technology Preceptorship, the Faculty Mentor Preceptorship, and discipline-specific preceptorships (e.g., writing, math, leadership, and education). Not all are offered every semester; see Appendix B for the current list of preceptor training opportunities.

The Teaching Teams Program is a Level IV Program (a “comprehensive learning system”) in Keimig’s (1983) hierarchy of learning improvement programs. Level IV programs offer the highest potential for improved learning and instructional reform because they are designed around students’ particular needs and attitudes and they require faculty to employ multiple strategies to help students develop critical competencies in the context of their curricula. For comparison, Level I programs include isolated courses or activities that provide remedial skills. Level II programs, such as centrally-located campus tutoring programs, provide learning assistance to individual students. Tutors must deal with the needs of students from many different classes, so they do not attend lectures and most do not even know the instructors of these courses. Level III programs include course-specific supplementary activities, such as Supplemental Instruction (Martin & Arendale, 1994) that improves the effectiveness of traditional tutoring programs by assigning student leaders to specific faculty and requiring them to attend lectures.

C. The Einstein’s Protégés Program. The Einstein’s Protégés Program is a heuristic, holistic implementation of PAL that empowers specially trained preceptors to bring the often-underutilized resources of the University’s academic support units into instructors’ classrooms. Einstein’s Protégés preceptors help classmates improve their critical competencies while applying them to their instructor’s course work, thus providing a relevant context for developing skills and iterative positive feedback when students successfully apply them. They also serve as peer buffers to soften and create a more positive perspective for faculty expectations that might otherwise seem harsh and impersonal. Learning specialists design and teach the preceptor training course in critical competencies development (UNVR 297a, see Preceptor Registration and Training), and they also facilitate workshops for instructors (TIIK Workshops, 2004) to encourage them to reflect critically on how their assumptions about students’ proficiencies influence the design of their course work.

Einstein’s Protégés is not a remedial program. Instead, the name projects a built-in image of success by reminding students who may be performing poorly by traditional academic standards, as did Albert Einstein in certain subjects, that they can still succeed by developing confidence, imagination, and good learning habits. Participating students quickly realize that critical competencies development is discipline-independent and immediately applicable to their other classes, thus amplifying its benefits to their academic growth. Everything that Einstein’s Protégés aspires to–higher grades, improved learning competencies, applicability to other classes, pride–is embodied in the following statement:

Students. The ultimate test of PAL is the impact that peers have on student learning outcomes. In the six years between Fall 1998 and Spring 2004, TTP has influenced the learning environments in 329 courses with teaching teams in which more than 45,700 students were enrolled. Student outcomes are reviewed in Section VI.B.

Preceptors. The Teaching Teams Program has trained 2013 preceptors in the six years between Fall 1998 and Spring 2004. Most volunteered because they wanted to do well academically in their courses, they wanted to create new academic networks, including faculty contacts, and many were interested in teaching as a career. The preceptor experience is discussed in detail in Section VI.A. and in Stover et. al. (2001).

Graduate Teaching Assistants. An instructor’s decision to engage preceptors on a teaching team creates interesting new opportunities for GTAs to improve their teaching proficiency skills and to broaden their teaching portfolios beyond traditional GTA duties such as grading. Preceptor/GTA interactions are described in detail in Section IV.E. and in Wood et. al. (2001).

Faculty. In the six years between Fall 1998 and Spring 2004, 129 instructors from 52 academic units have taught courses with teaching teams. Instructors describe their teams as unique, enjoyable experiences because they were able to work closely with motivated students in large classes where it is difficult to get to know any students. Faculty experience with teaching teams is reviewed in detail in Section V.

The University. Focused excellence is provoking profound and permanent institutional changes that will lead to fewer programs, higher expectations, and more accountability. This situation should make TTP especially welcome and timely because it has implemented University-wide learning improvements by redirecting existing resources rather than by creating entirely new, complex, and/or expensive programs. Also, TTP identifies and engages an almost unlimited and annually renewable pool of paraprofessionals–motivated undergraduate students and their vested interest in acquiring a quality education–that is ideally suited to implementing the learner-centered practices that characterize focused excellence in education.

A. What Must It Be Like to Be a Student in Today’s World? Being a college student has never been easy. Because memories fade non-linearly in favor of positive experiences, instructors who were most likely exemplary students themselves need to be reminded of the broad range of daunting personal, social, and intellectual challenges that present-day students face in their college years. Many of these challenges can develop into barriers to academic success, but few symptoms other than disappointingly low grades and chronic absenteeism may be obvious to instructors who only see anonymous faces in lecture-only courses. Instructors who have high expectations for their students increase pressure to get good grades, but academic rigor alone may not guarantee effective learning and, worse, it can intensify other problems that may eventually cause students to drop classes and even drop out of school.

Instructors should therefore ask themselves if they are unwittingly exacerbating their students’ apprehensions by overestimating their abilities to think critically, manage time well, and recognize and contribute to scholarly discourse. Such a “disconnect” between the methods and abilities of faculty to teach and students’ actual readiness levels to learn can be bridged by embedding practice with critical competencies in assigned course work. These and other LCE-type activities promote more holistic approaches to teaching and learning that show sensitivity to students’ preoccupation with growing up without having to lower academic standards and expectations. Teaching teams, in particular, provide multi-level support systems that can respond effectively to individual students’ unique blends of academic, social, and personal concerns. Getting help with course-specific questions is always appreciated, of course, but one of the most effective tonics that help students cope with college life is increased confidence in their abilities to succeed, as demonstrated with the quotation below.

B. List Your Teaching Goals and Student Learning Objectives. Instructors who decide to conduct their courses with teaching teams should thoroughly review their teaching goals and student learning objectives to make sure that their teams will actually operate in learner-centered environments. In very general terms, instructors should involve teaching team members in the types of activities illustrated in the lower half of Figure 4 that are guaranteed to enhance student learning. The suggestions in Figure 4 (right) are too vague for course-specific applications, however. Instead, instructors should use the template in Figure 5 (below) to evaluate an existing course or design a new one consistent with the LCE practice of active student engagement. Appropriate roles for teaching team members will emerge naturally from this exercise.

Teaching Goals. The top-down structure in Figure 5 is defined by the instructor’s primary teaching goals, that is, idealized expectations for student learning. The three teaching goals listed in Figure 5 are for illustration only; others could be substituted or added to this list, depending on the course. The key point is to articulate all teaching goals first, some of which may only be latent in instructors’ minds, because all other elements of the curriculum flow from them.

Student Learning Objectives. For each teaching goal in Figure 5, there should be one or more student learning objectives which are more concrete descriptions of what students are expected to do in the course. Student learning objectives provide context for lecture topics and assigned course work, and they provide opportunities to engage teaching teams in class activities (e.g., role playing, demonstrations, discussions, lab assistants). Student learning objectives are logically connected to the more generalized teaching goals above them, and they are explicitly connected to two hallmarks of LCE below them: critical competencies development and assessment of learning outcomes, both of which offer many opportunities to engage teaching team members (e.g., peer review of writing, note taking proficiency, test preparation, time management).

C. How Much Learning Occurs in Your Course? Practical use of the template in Figure 5 will generate a complex two-dimensional structure that might require a poster board to display. A number of important insights are revealed when a course is analyzed completely in this way, three of which are discussed below.

Are Your Teaching Goals Empty or Top Heavy? If a teaching goal does not fan out into a rich array of student learning objectives, skill development opportunities, and assessment activities, then the instructor is probably just talking to the class with little student engagement and learning taking place. The instructor should either drop this particular teaching goal or completely revise it according to LCE practices. If there are too many teaching goals, each developed with multiple learning objectives, then the instructor may struggle just to cover the material before the semester ends with little or no time for LCE activities. In this case, the instructor should revise the course around a smaller number of goals and objectives that collectively still provide coherent, although not necessarily complete, coverage of the subject matter.

Are Your Expectations Disconnected from Student Preparedness? Knowing the type and distribution of critical competencies that show up under multiple student learning objectives in Figure 5 is important to avoid overestimating students’ abilities to handle assigned course work (the “disconnect” mentioned in Section III.A.). It is also an aspect of curriculum design that need not overburden instructors with more work because help is so readily available. For example, the Einstein’s Protégés Program (Einstein’s Protégés, 2004) trains preceptors to support critical competencies development in their supervising instructors’ courses. Other University support services include information literacy workshops facilitated by subject librarians (Subject Specialists, 2004), on-line skill development workshops available in the University Learning Center (Workshops, 2004), and writing assistance provided by the Writing Center (Writing Center, 2004) and the Writing Skills Improvement Program (WSIP, 2004). Instructors need only identify critical points-of-need in Figure 5 where extra support should be applied, and in many cases let the teaching team or other support personnel implement details. For example, an instructor might require all students to attend a customized information literacy workshop organized and facilitated by a librarian, or recruit Einstein’s Protégés preceptors to lead weekly study groups.

Are There Barriers to Learning in Your Course? Still another use of the course analysis in Figure 5 is to examine each entry critically for barriers to student learning. Barriers include any physical aspect of the learning environment that affects students’ mobility and their ability to see or hear. Language barriers include impediments to being able to communicate immediately and effectively in speech and writing, including electronic exchanges. Due dates for assigned course work may constitute time barriers for a few students, but this condition should not be confused with rampant procrastination that is more properly diagnosed and treated as a time management skill deficiency. Personal differences due to socioeconomic status, culture, age, and gender may generate barriers to learning, especially in group work. Instructors are empowered to use several strategies to remove barriers that prevent students from mastering their courses’ learning objectives. Various types of accommodation allow particular students to meet objectives through alternate means (e.g., longer time for tests), while curriculum redesign may be required to eliminate a barrier (Universal Design), thereby making the course more effective for all learners.

What Levels of Student Learning Do You Attain? Having all means of assessment identified and organized in Figure 5 allows instructors to use Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) in Figure 6 to evaluate the

levels of student learning in their curricula. Knowledge represents the lowest level of student learning. Instructors tend to ask questions in the knowledge category 80-90% of the time, especially on multiple choice tests. The questions themselves are not bad, but using them all the time is. Instructors must therefore embed higher level questions and tasks in their courses that require students to think critically and in depth. If not, it is unlikely that most students will be able to transfer the course work to real life or even apply it to their other classes. The absence of higher level learning tasks may be the primary reason that students complain on evaluations, especially in general education classes, that courses were mostly busy work with no relevance to their major field or to their personal lives. The flip side of this situation, however, is that students will often declare courses to be “too hard” on evaluations when instructors make more than a token effort to involve them in higher level learning activities. ABOR’s definition of LCE clearly states, however, that instructors must engage students in activities that produce deeper understanding of course content that is readily transferable to life and work. This is equivalent to saying that course work must provide substantial practice in the higher levels of learning in Bloom’s taxonomy. LCE also holds students accountable for their learning at all cognitive levels. In general, TTP has noted that PAL and LCE work best in classes where instructors have high expectations for student learning (e.g., critical thinking, writing, self-directed research) and/or students are very apprehensive about doing well (e.g., science and math courses).

Instructors should have clear plans for integrating teaching teams into their courses before the semester starts, and certainly before they start to recruit preceptors. One focus might be providing help with course content through discussion and review sessions, while another might emphasize help with critical competencies development. Some instructors might have a special

need for assistance with technology, both behind the scenes (e.g., web site development) and for embedding it in assignments (e.g., making charts and graphs). Instructors may either organize and supervise the GTAs and preceptors themselves, or delegate these tasks to GTAs and experienced preceptors. Instructors may restrict their recruiting efforts to students who have previously taken their courses and earned grades of “A,” or accept students concurrently enrolled in their courses. TTP does not formally promote any of the above approaches or their variations in the belief that whatever works in instructors’ classrooms is the right approach for them to use. In the following sections, we combine general guidance for a number of critical topics regarding use of teaching teams with the practical experience of individual instructors at the University of Arizona to emphasize just how flexibly teaching teams can be operated.

A. What Knowledge and Skills are Required to Be a Preceptor? About 80% of the responses to this question from interviews with participating faculty can be summarized as follows: any enthusiastic and self-motivated student with an interest in the subject matter and a desire to help fellow classmates qualifies. GPA requirements, if stated at all, were soft (e.g., “reasonable”, “above 2.0”, “academically sound”, “above average”). These instructors understand that just being able to give correct answers is not necessarily the most helpful thing that students can do for each another. Positive attitudes, people and computer skills, and leadership potential are at least as important as grades. Several instructors said that they usually accept all applicants, most of whom are better-than-average students, but definitely not an academic elite. One instructor has had excellent experience with students with learning disabilities and “reborn” students who had dropped out of school or were on academic probation because of poor attitudes and habits. Such students relate immediately to the needs and frustrations of their classmates with college life, and their own grades are at stake in mastering the material.

Other characteristics that instructors use to describe their recruiting criteria include integrity, initiative, reliability, punctuality, enthusiasm, work ethic, and attitudes towards the subject matter. Some instructors are especially interested in building diversity into their teaching teams (e.g., non-traditional students, students with different majors). Others make special efforts to recruit students pursuing careers in specific disciplines such as theater arts and education or teaching-related fields. Instructors especially welcome applications from former students who were either successful as preceptors or were natural leaders in the classroom with a good grasp of the material. They look for students who earned above average grades in their courses or similar ones, and who have the personality, communication skills, and work ethic to allow them to interact positively with their peers.

B. Recruiting Preceptors. The first phase of recruitment occurs at the close of the previous semester or between semesters when many instructors send personal invitations to preceptors and students who are familiar with the course content and have already demonstrated their maturity and effectiveness as role models. One instructor also passes out flyers and posts email announcements to various departments to reach students who have had some experience in the subject matter or who already received “As” in similar courses.

The second phase of recruiting occurs in the first few weeks of classes when instructors invite students who are co-enrolled in their courses to become preceptors. This effort involves in-class announcements and presentations that may be made by the instructor, former students, and TTP’s undergraduate coordinators. Recruiting is usually very effective when students speak to students about the program, especially former students describing their experiences in the class and explaining their motivation to return to it as preceptors. In-class recruiting is intended to motivate students to volunteer as preceptors, of course, but equally important, it should also encourage the rest of the class to participate in the teaching team’s activities planned for the class. The instructor’s role in recruiting includes linking peer assistance to specific course projects and activities, predicting its effect on student learning outcomes, and reviewing other benefits to students’ academic and professional growth.

Most instructors use information sheets to screen preceptor applications with final selection based on interviews. Some instructors use a preceptor contract that specifies duties and responsibilities and includes a provision for terminating the preceptorship. A sample information sheet and preceptor contract is on TTP’s web site (Teaching Teams, 2004). One instructor uses a novel technique to select preceptors: the class is divided into working groups early in the semester and each group elects one of its members to be their preceptor for the rest of the semester. Another instructor schedules an organizational meeting for preceptor candidates and drops those who do not attend. Most instructors agree that it is very difficult to make sound judgments so early in the semester, but they also note that the process is very self-selective, that is, the applicant pool is dominated by very motivated students, often with a history of helping others, which substantially lowers the risk of accepting students who only want a better grade for themselves.

The recruiting window usually stays open until Census Day (three weeks into the semester), after which candidates must pay a $250 late fee to enroll in TTP’s training courses. However, some instructors close the recruiting window earlier in order to get their teaching teams running as soon as possible. One instructor routinely recruits all preceptors and assigns them to permanent groups during the first class of the semester.

The number of preceptors depends on the type of activities that instructors wish to implement. The Teaching Teams Program has noticed a shift away from teaching teams with very large numbers of preceptors with vaguely defined roles to smaller numbers of preceptors with more specific assignments. The Teaching Teams Program encourages instructors who are new to the program to start modestly and build up the size of their teaching teams as experience and the scope of their activities increase.

C. Appropriate Roles for Preceptors on Teaching Teams. The Teaching Teams Program’s preceptors are most often

concurrently enrolled in the courses in which they serve on teaching teams. Consequently, their ability to be content experts is limited to their “just-in-time” command of the course material. This is not a serious limitation because co-enrolled peer assistants are naturally more sympathetic to the frustrations and problems of fellow classmates, and their status as peer learners makes them more approachable. Preceptors may often be the first or only persons that students in severe academic distress approach for help. Consequently, an extremely important service is rendered when preceptors respond to such contacts with classmates by conducting them to the instructor or a GTA for additional counseling. Preceptors may even catalyze curriculum development as they “educate” their instructors about student life, attitudes, and cross-disciplinary connections.

The Teaching Teams Program builds on these strengths by promoting roles other than content experts for preceptors, including group discussion facilitators, writing consultants, technology experts, and assistants for hands-on research experiments. The spectrum of possible preceptor roles is illustrated in Figure 9. These examples illustrate the flexibility TTP offers faculty to introduce group activities, research projects, peer interactions, and frequent feedback into passive lecture formats, independent of discipline and class size. Many of these roles require training, practice, and supervision that must be provided within the teaching team itself and in TTP’s training workshop courses.

The specific activities of preceptors depend wholly on how participating instructors integrate them into their courses. The activities most frequently mentioned during interviews with instructors include serving as facilitators for in-class group activities and discussions, conducting review sessions for midterm and final exams, leading out-of-class weekly study sessions, providing feedback about the class, and conducting peer reviews of student writing for structural and grammatical deficiencies. Preceptors also provide welcome assistance with clerical tasks such as typing up lecture notes, keeping records of group work, collecting and distributing work, and alphabetizing papers. Most instructors new to TTP require their preceptors to hold office hours, but with very few exceptions their office hours are poorly attended. Many instructors who have used teaching teams many times have abandoned preceptor office hours in favor of more effective out-of-class interactions, such as weekly study sessions and exam reviews.

Some instructors create special job descriptions for their preceptors (e.g., Peer Reader, Student Advocate, Teaching Partner, Discussion Facilitator, English and Composition Consultant, Drama and Performance Consultant) that are tailored to preceptors’ different personalities and the instructor’s needs for group work. Other instructors create semester-long programs of activities for their preceptors, as illustrated in the following eight examples:

Preceptors frequently plan and conduct special projects for their classes. One popular activity is to write proposals for Student/Faculty Interaction Grants (SFI Grants, 2004) to support out-of-class functions such as “movie nights,” which usually includes watching a movie that has some connection to the course, discussing it afterwards, and, of course, having food provided. Preceptors also make in-class presentations designed to help their classmates with course work. One team created a “Helpful Hints” PowerPoint presentation that was also posted on the class web site. Other groups of preceptors made in-class “how to” presentations on topics such as using the SABIO system, conducting on-line research, preparing annotated bibliographies, managing time and stress, and preparing for tests (e.g., the ULC’s Eight Day Study Plan [Workshops, 2004]).

Preceptors often assist instructors with tasks that involve technology, where in many cases they may actually be the experts. For example, they help with PowerPoint presentations and class web sites, serve as assistants in computer labs, facilitate chat rooms, create and maintain listservs for the preceptors and/or the class, provide responses to students’ questions by email, and manage on-line activities that students must complete each week.

Conducting exam review sessions may be the most demanding role for preceptors because the stakes are high for attendees, hence the preceptors must be in command of the material. Several instructors help their preceptors prepare structured agendas for these sessions to keep discussion focused on key student learning objectives. They also provide advice about facilitating review sessions where students’ demands to “just give us the answers” may overwhelm a preceptor’s ability to control the audience. Other interesting roles for preceptors include:

D. Risks Associated with PAL. Empowering undergraduates in the teaching process raises two issues: preceptors disseminating false information to classmates, and preceptors receiving privileged information from instructors. The best way to prevent the spreading of misinformation by preceptors–and GTAs for that matter!–is to ensure that they are always adequately prepared to explain the course material and procedures correctly to classmates and that appropriate constraints and backup support be applied to critical peer interactions such exam reviews. The instructor and GTAs share primary responsibility for preceptor readiness through their own participation at team meetings and in other interactions with preceptors. Isolated incidents inevitably occur, but they are rarely mentioned in TTP’s interviews with participating faculty. One instructor declared that organizational breakdowns, confusion over roles, and misunderstandings are more a reflection of the instructor’s management and leadership abilities than those of the GTAs and preceptors. Therefore, at every opportunity TTP emphasizes that teaching teams must adhere to the following rules and guidelines to avoid having preceptors perceived by classmates as content experts with access to privileged information:

Once a class understands and respects these constraints, it is possible to build an effective peer support system that engages all participants in learner-centered activities. In fact, these guidelines work so well that the majority of TTP’s participating instructors actually grant their preceptors considerable autonomy in their interactions with peers. This freedom seems appropriate for returning preceptors who are already known to the instructor and have a track record in the course, but many instructors treat their first-time preceptors similarly. This experience contrasts sharply with frequently encountered reservations from instructors who are reluctant to adopt the “just-in-time” teaching team model because it is too risky (e.g., dissemination of false information). The Teaching Teams Program’s participating instructors have clearly minimized this risk by keeping preceptor roles flexible to accommodate individual interests, special skills, and initiative rather than impose roles (e.g., tutors) in which they would be underprepared or uncomfortable. Six different instructors’ attitudes towards preceptor autonomy are summarized below:

Very few instructors deliberately limit autonomy in teaching team activities. One believed that self-organization and too much autonomy was bad, that the team needs to function instead within a predefined structure with faculty presence. Another’s approach was to keep preceptors “on a leash” to make sure students get the right information.

A number of instructors noted that the degree of autonomy that they granted to their preceptors increased during the semester as their experience and sense of responsibility increased. By giving preceptors enough freedom to assume as much responsibility as they can handle, instructors put to effective use preceptors’ natural talents as facilitators, communicators, and listeners when showing classmates how to learn and how to teach each other. The Teaching Teams Program is therefore a very low-risk implementation of PAL!

The Promise. Graduate teaching assistants at the University have extensive contact with and influence on undergraduates. In Tier 1 and Tier 2 general education courses where enrollments are typically high, they assist the instructors-of-record who must be ranked faculty. These traditional associations of faculty and GTAs are themselves “teaching teams” that TTP augments with preceptors. In Foundations courses in modern languages, English composition, and mathematics, GTAs themselves are usually the instructors-of-record. The impact on student learning would therefore be enormous if GTAs were recruited and trained to practice LCE. Lower-division students would benefit by having more effective learning environments and support when it is most important to their academic growth, and GTAs would benefit from the experience they acquire as future members of the professoriate. In such a world, the “A” in GTA would mean “Apprentice” rather than “Assistant.”

The Reality. Instructors report that preceptor/GTA interactions range from excellent to minimal. On the positive side, GTAs

can take over most of the organizational and supervisory tasks associated with teaching teams, and they can contribute to curriculum development projects with faculty. Graduate teaching assistants also receive valuable feedback from preceptors about their teaching style that is often less threatening than that from supervising faculty. In general, however, GTA participation on teaching teams has been disappointingly low and ineffective because of indifference or outright opposition to accepting new opportunities to mentor and lead (Wood et. al., 2001). Many GTAs feel threatened by the perceived loss of their traditional authority that teamwork entails. Some GTAs do not interact well with undergraduates and may even be intimidated by them, some over-structure the team’s operation, others chose not to interact with preceptors at all. “Turf struggles” and “role confusion” between GTAs and preceptors therefore develop if not anticipated and neutralized.

One instructor’s solution is to recruit preceptors only when no GTA is assigned to the course. However, the majority of instructors who commented on this issue during interviews stressed the need to spend more time getting GTAs and preceptors to work together. One instructor makes sure that GTAs have their own tasks and that the preceptors never overstep these boundaries. Another instructor recruits GTAs personally so they know in advance about TTP, the role of preceptors, and their own roles. As a consequence, GTAs in this instructor’s course are appreciative of the help provided by preceptors. Another strategy to build positive interactions is to let preceptors shadow GTAs during their office hours to observe how to deal with students’ questions, thus creating mentoring relationships instead of competition. In one department, GTAs have won awards for innovative approaches to instruction by integrating preceptors on teaching teams. The unmistakable lesson learned from faculty experience with preceptor/GTA interactions is that instructors must take firm charge of their teaching teams, including defining and assigning roles for all members, recruiting specifically to fill them, and when necessary acting as referees to maintain order.

F. Teaching Team Monitoring and Supervision. Simply calling a group of faculty and students a teaching team is no guarantee that they will actually work together harmoniously. Successful teamwork is an acquired skill based on mutual respect, acceptance of boundary conditions, iteration of experience, and frequent interactions. The quality of the teaching team experience starts and stops with the instructor. If there is an organizational breakdown or misunderstanding, that is most likely a reflection on the instructor’s leadership ability, not the fault of the GTAs or preceptors. Consequently, instructors are urged to organize team building functions and be present at major teaching team functions. They must establish and enforce attendance and participation policies for both preceptors and GTAs regarding office hours, coming to class, and attending workshops and weekly team meetings. Immediately after recruiting preceptors, instructors should inform them in writing (e.g., a preceptor contract) about the criteria they will use to determine their contribution (51%) to preceptors’ final grades in their UNVR courses.

Regular Team Meetings. Team meetings are essential throughout the semester, although finding common meeting times is a big frustration. Most instructors hold one-hour weekly meetings to review recent class experience and to plan future activities (see Figure 12); a few manage instead with short briefings after every class for feedback and follow-up. These meetings are obvious opportunities for instructors to ask their preceptors what they are doing in their UNVR workshop courses and to look for applications of this training to their courses.

Preceptor Visibility. Many instructors note that students do not take full advantage of preceptors, often waiting until it is too late for any intervention to be effective (e.g., frantic email appeals for help after midnight for an exam later that morning). The effectiveness of a teaching team depends critically on students knowing who their preceptors are, when and how to contact them, where they might be found, and what they have to offer. Instructors enhance their preceptors’ visibility and accessibility in their classes with such strategies as posting preceptors’ pictures and biographical information on the class web site, introducing preceptors to the class early in the semester, letting preceptors serve as assistants in laboratory settings, and letting preceptors lead or assist with in-class activities, as illustrated in Figure 13. Whenever possible, instructors should provide some type of office space for peer interactions. If none is available within the instructor’s department, TTP can provide space in Bear Down Gym (see Section VII).

Liaison with the Teaching Teams Program. TTP’s undergraduate coordinators establish and maintain contact with participating faculty during the semester to inform them of important upcoming events sponsored by TTP, answer questions about the program, and ask questions about how their teaching teams are structured and functioning. The coordinator’s familiarity with many different teaching teams often provides instructors with ideas and perspective for their efforts.

A. Time Commitment. Busy faculty often decline to adopt teaching teams because of the additional time commitment. However, TTP’s interviews with participating faculty indicate that the extra time is not that onerous and that there are compelling compensating factors. For example, when instructors realize that many questions from students can be answered by preceptors, they have more time to deal with other aspects of teaching.

Almost half of the instructors (47%) said that they typically spend about 2 hours or less per week in direct interactions with preceptors outside class (e.g., team meetings, responding to email and telephone queries).One instructor claimed that this investment in time would otherwise have gone into curriculum maintenance and development anyway. Another instructor stated that preceptors actually reduced the amount of time spent on routine aspects of the course, thereby allowing the instructor to redirect attention to materials and curriculum development.

About 42% of the instructors said that they typically spend between 2-5 hours per week in direct interactions with preceptors. This time was split between attending meetings, preparing materials, responding to listservs, and observing preceptors during their activities. One instructor did not consider 5 hours per week “extra time” because the course was designed to engage preceptors extensively anyway. Only 11% of those interviewed spend more than 5 hours per week managing their teaching teams outside class.

However, many instructors did note that additional time is required at the beginning of the semester to recruit and organize their teaching teams, provide some initial training, and get preceptors started early on class projects. In addition, instructors emphasized that substantial time is necessary to develop learner-centered courses that engage preceptors in multiple ways and require students to exercise a broad range of critical competencies. TTP’s Turning Information Into Knowledge grants program supports innovative peer-assisted critical competencies development projects. Maximum grant awards are $3,000. See TIIK Grants (2004) for details and downloadable application forms.

B. Impact on Teaching. Instructors interviewed by TTP had only positive comments regarding the impact of PAL on their teaching. Their observations are organized below under four themes.

Satisfaction. The most frequently mentioned consequences of using teaching teams were getting to know many undergraduates well and seeing students get better connected to the course. Instructors described their classes with such phrases as less threatening, more fun, more friendly, and more enjoyable (e.g., “It is always a pleasure to interact with intelligent and interesting students.”). Several instructors were especially pleased with the interactive discussions, the increased quality of students’ presentations and written work, and the reduction in workload attributed to the efforts of returning preceptors.

Curriculum Changes. Many courses with teaching teams are clearly evolving towards LCE as instructors say they are cutting back on lecturing to introduce group activities, in-class presentations and discussions, and hands-on projects. Instructors clearly acknowledged the primary role of preceptors in making these changes possible. Many instructors said that they will keep their expectations high by challenging students to think critically and solve problems; several said they will make their courses more rigorous because preceptors help raise performance levels (e.g., more ambitious homework assignments). One suggested that instructors should frequently look for trends and other behavior in students’ grades during the semester and, especially, to provide positive feedback to preceptors and the rest of the class when their graded work exceeds expectations.

Teaching Skills and Attitudes. Instructors who use teaching teams are definitely acquiring the experience and insight that sustain learner-centered environments. The evidence is best expressed in the words of the instructors themselves:

Building Academic Community. Participating instructors acquire new perspective on teaching by interacting with other faculty at TTP’s workshops. One instructor was “fascinated by problems from different disciplines”; another “continues to learn” by seeing how other faculty in different departments use preceptors for different tasks.

C. Preceptor Feedback. One instructor stated that the most important feature of TTP was providing a communication route from the class to the instructor. Many others echoed this benefit because they appreciated having preceptors to bounce new ideas off, create new activities with, and receive advice from. They noted that preceptors offered constructive advice about their courses and teaching styles that never would have emerged from written evaluations at the end of the semester. For example, preceptor feedback was responsible for prompting one instructor to change lecture style, for convincing another to reduce the workload in the course, and for giving others ideas for curriculum innovation.

Preceptors also provide anonymous feedback to their supervising instructors at the end of the semester with evaluation forms distributed in their UNVR workshop training courses. Their comments are organized under the six categories identified below. They reveal that preceptors are excellent judges of what does and does not work on their teaching teams.

Preceptors’ Advice to Their Instructor. The two most frequent suggestions were to be more clear about what instructors expect their preceptors to do and to get more involved with them during the semester. Specific suggestions include using a contract so preceptors have a concrete description of expectations, conducting team building activities with them, and demonstrating that you appreciate what they do. Preceptors were particularly frustrated with a few instructors who changed expectations for them midway through the semester or who didn’t even know their names at the end of the semester.

Teaching Team Meetings. Preceptors strongly advocated predictably scheduled weekly meetings with well-defined agendas that started early in the semester. One thought that using meetings to complain about bad students was a waste of time. By far the most frequent suggestion was to have food at teaching team meetings!

Teaching Team Members. Preceptors enthusiastically advocated recruiting team members who have already taken the class. They were about equally divided, however, on whether their particular teams would have functioned better with more or fewer preceptors. Some thought that the number of students in preceptor-led groups should be reduced. No magic number emerged, but groups larger than 10 were almost always considered too large.

Preceptor Preparedness. Preceptors themselves worry about giving out false information and not being adequately prepared to lead activities. Specific suggestions to their instructors include explaining in-class activities better in advance, giving them time to do course work early, making sure they understand the goals of each assignment, being given an outline of the key topics they should be discussing with students, and using a listserv to keep them informed and involved. Some felt a need for more suggestions for study session strategies and formats and for feedback on the effectiveness of their efforts (e.g., an analysis of test scores following a preceptor-led exam review session).

Teaching Team Activities. Preceptors were quite insistent about having their instructors create more useful roles for them. Recommendations include giving them more to do as groups in class so it is not all lecture, getting them more involved in discussion sessions, and providing more in-class and hands-on activities. Preceptors also wished that they had more personal interactions with the instructor and/or GTAs. Some wished that their instructors would ask them for more feedback about the lectures and assigned work, or meet with each preceptor individually to make sure everyone is participating and pulling their own weight. Several suggestions were made to relieve the boredom of unattended office hours, including scheduling two or more preceptors together and having the instructor drop in occasionally. One preceptor stated that they should not be made to grade papers, a dubious practice that TTP strongly discourages. Another preceptor sadly summarized the teaching team experience as “The material is not hard, so the students don’t really need us.”

Preceptor Visibility. The most frequent recommendations were to make sure that students in the class know who the preceptors are (and that they know each other!) and to advertise their services more often in class. Another suggestion was to provide more opportunities for preceptors to present in front of the class, such as by making the class announcements.

For Students in the Class. Preceptor feedback on behalf of their classmates includes such admonishments to faculty as giving equal attention and respect to students regardless of gender and not giving tests the day after a holiday. One preceptor urged the instructor to make a special effort to see who was physically awake during lectures.

A. The Preceptors Themselves. According to Figure 4, preceptors’ interactions with their classmates should enhance their

own understanding of the material, one measure of which is the grades they receive in courses in which they serve on teaching teams. TTP determined that preceptors’ ACT/SAT scores and high school GPAs were about “average” for an entering freshman class. Consequently, their college grade distribution should resemble that of the general student body, not academically elite groups such as Honors students. In fact, preceptors did far better academically in the courses in which they served on teaching teams than was expected from their academic profile (see Figure 14). They received more than twice the number of As and less than half the Cs of their peer group, and they were much less likely to do poorly (Ds and Es) or withdraw from the course (Ws). TTP attributes their academic achievement to their motivation to learn, their close interactions with instructional personnel, and articulating what they learn with other students.

Other tangible returns that preceptors value include making new friends, thus reducing the anonymity of large classes, developing leadership and communication skills, improving time management skills, developing confidence in their abilities, and making faculty and departmental contacts. The experience of helping and mentoring fellow students develops a practical sense of what it might be like to be a teacher some day for preceptors who are pre-education majors (5-10% of a typical general education class) and undecided students (15-20% of a typical general education class), some of whom may be considering careers in education. Stover et. al. (2001) provide a more complete overview of the preceptor experience on teaching teams at the University of Arizona.

B. Students in Classes with Teaching Teams. Instructors interviewed by TTP were convinced that teaching teams improved student performance in their classes (e.g., “midterm grades were 10-25% higher;” “midterm grades rose from mostly Cs to mostly Bs”; “performance on public recitations improved”). Many noted that the presence of preceptors encouraged other students in the class to ask questions and contribute to discussions. One instructor specifically noted the benefit of cultural interactions between preceptors and students from diverse backgrounds, including multinational and physically handicapped students. Several others commented on preceptors’ abilities to reduce confusion among students and help develop small learning communities among them.

The most detailed student outcomes data that TTP has collected come from a general education physical science course structured around the use of Einstein’s Protégés preceptors. Students enrolled in this course volunteer at the beginning of the semester to participate in critical competencies improvement groups led by Einstein’s Protégés preceptors. Students are encouraged to join a group to become better students; no other conditions or formalities are required. Conditions of participation include completing ULC’s Self-Awareness Inventory, taking at least three of ULC’s on-line skill development workshops (workshops, 2004), coming to class regularly, turning in all assigned work on time, seeking help when needed, maintaining an academic portfolio, and attending weekly study sessions. As an incentive to persevere, participating students who adhere to these expectations all semester and who have “A” averages at the end of the semester do not have to take the final exam. Students may drop out of their group at any time without explanation, but remain enrolled in the course, without prejudice.

The instructor reviews the critical competencies required to do well in currently assigned course work at each weekly team meeting with the Einstein’s Protégés preceptors. These preceptors then facilitate activities and discussion in their weekly meetings with participating classmates to provide practice and review experience with their efforts to develop their critical competencies. The photo in Figure 15 shows an Einstein’s Protégés study group (one preceptor and eight

participating students) preparing for a midterm exam at a weekly meeting. The preceptor is leading activities and discussion to help participating students find answers to practice exam questions in their own class notes, the textbook, and other resources. The critical competencies being practiced at this table include note taking efficiency, test preparation strategies, critical thinking, time management, and communication skills. The group of students in Figure 15 dramatically outperformed non-participating students in their class by earning six As, two Bs, and one C as final grades. Other study groups in this course achieved similar results. As a consequence, the final grade distribution in Figure 16 for all Einstein’s Protégés participants in this class differed strikingly from that of non-participants. The red bars represent 47 Einstein’s Protégés participants (39% of the class) who remained in good standing at the end of the semester; the blue bars represent 72 other students who remained enrolled in the course at the end of the semester. The vertical axis indicates the percentage of each group that received final letter grades of A, B, C, D, and E (note that the red and blue bars separately add up to 100%). At the beginning of the semester, the grade distribution for the Einstein’s Protégés participants more closely resembled that for the rest of the class, including grades in the D and E range. At the end of the semester, however, their grades peak in the A and B range with no Ds and Es.

This instructors’ model for integrating Einstein’s Protégés preceptors into a course has produced similar grade distributions in three previous semesters. This led the instructor to scan the personal statements in Einstein’s Protégés participants’ academic portfolios for insight into what was motivating them to succeed. The participants’ own explanations are organized below under five recurring themes.

Faculty Resource Manual . Information about the Teaching Teams Program for instructors is available either as web pages (Handbook - Web, 2004) or downloadable in PDF format (Handbook - PDF Format, 2004).

Preceptor Recruitment Presentation. To arrange an in-class presentation about the Teaching Teams Program as part of your preceptor recruiting effort, contact TTP staff at 621-3991 or ttp@u.arizona.edu.

Preceptorship Announcement. This downloadable flier (Flier, 2004) is designed to be distributed early in the semester to students in your class as part of your preceptor recruiting effort.

Preceptor Application. This downloadable application form (Application, 2004) may be used as is or modified to suit your specific needs when recruiting and screening preceptor candidates.

Preceptor Contract. This downloadable contract (Contract, 2004) may be used as is or modified to suit your specific needs for preceptors engaged in your course.

Preceptor Training. Information about the program’s suite of training workshop courses (UNVR 197a, 297a, 397a) is available on the Preceptor Registration and Training page (2004).

Preceptor Registration. Information about the program’s registration process for preceptors is available on the Preceptor Registration and Training page (2004).

Space for Teaching Team Meetings and Activities. Contact Teaching Teams Program staff at 621-3991 or ttp@u.arizona.edu for information about space availability for your teaching team functions.

Turning Information in Knowledge Workshop Series. This series of faculty development workshops is designed to help you help your students become more able and responsible learners, rethink the traditional faculty and student roles, and explore alternative delivery methods. These workshops are sponsored by the Teaching Teams Program, The University Learning Center, The University Libraries, The University Teaching Center, and The Writing Program. See TIIK Workshops (2004) for the current schedule of workshops.

Turning Information in Knowledge Grants Program. The Einstein’s Protégés Program invites instructors to submit curriculum development proposals to support the creation of learning-centered environments in which course design includes the use and development of critical competencies. Maximum grant awards are $3,000. For details about the grants program, including downloadable application forms, see TIIK Grants (2004).

Student/Faculty Interaction Grants Program. This program (SFI Grants, 2004) is operated by the Dean of Students Office to provide funds to faculty for various activities with students outside the classroom, allowing participants to interact in a social setting. Suitable ideas for activities include movie nights, field trips, get-togethers at faculty homes, nights at the theater, ice cream socials, treasure hunts, etc. Grants are awarded on the merit of proposals, with first priority given to those events that impact freshmen and large general education classes. Planning and conducting student/faculty interactions are ideal teaching team activities for preceptors to lead.

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