Professional Development

"Mentoring and Productivity" (post) "focus[ing] on two questions: 1) What do I need? and 2) How can I get my needs met?"

• It dismisses vague-concept "mentoring," preferring to focus on specific (and itemized) professional needs.

• It then offers a six-step "challenge" to help you identify your current professional needs and get them met with the resources available.

• The Teaching Commons site, resources, and personnel can be helpful as you navigate this process.

A. The Basic Dilemma and the Needed Shift

1. "Faculty Development Matters" (post) states that "as faculty improv[e] their teaching, students ... benefit ... learn more and their performance on course work improves."

A. "Our Hallways Are Too Quiet" (post) outlines the problem of "faculty avoid[ing] the campus" and "decreased faculty presence in their campus offices." 

• "We seem to be losing our sense of the commons, and perhaps our empathy for the trials and tribulations of academic life." 

1. Problems: "The notion that no one really needs to work on the campus ... has significant structural consequences for departments."

1. "Social-Emotional Learning Matters for Teachers and Students" (post) includes two useful charts (included below) for instructors concerned about self-care and its relationship to positive, effective teaching and learning:

"2019 Key Issues in Teaching and Learning" (post) presents the results of the 2019 ELI (Educause Learning Initiative) survey of the higher-education community, outlining the the "key issues [that will] serve as the framework, or focal points, for our discussions and programming throughout the coming year."

• Scroll past the visual in the post for links to articles, studies, etc. on each of the 15 key issues.

The Key Issues

1. "Faculty Development & Engagement"