Review of University Teaching in Focus: A Learning-Centred Approach

A review of University Teaching in Focus: A Learning-Centred Approach

Finding Moments of Meaning in Undergraduate Education: How the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Can Help

I argue for the value of high-impact educational practices as tools to minimize the commoditization of higher education. As a vehicle for doing so, I discuss a travel course to Washington, D.C. that I have led. This course is a significant and meaningful learning experience for the students who participate. In reflecting upon the value of this course, I suggest that scholars of teaching and learning have a particular responsibility to resist the increasing commoditization of higher education. Instead, we must think about embedding significant and transformative elements into the curriculum. Scholars of teaching and learning must help to demonstrate, in our research and in our advocacy work, the value of this work for the learning and transformation of our students. We must work, almost as lobbyists and campaigners, to enhance the perceived value of these experiences in the higher education marketplace

\u3cb\u3eReviewer Essay:\u3c/b\u3e Identifying High Quality SoTL Research: A Perspective from a Reviewer

Excerpt: I am pleased to respond to Alan Altany’s invitation to write this short piece on what I look for when reviewing research articles for the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or for SOTL publications more generally. I do not claim that the three points below are comprehensive or all-encompassing, but rather offer them as a guide to some more relevant considerations I entertain as a reviewer

Defending Our Life: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an Academy Under Siege

Excerpt: In academics, these are the times that try professors’ souls. A sampling of recent book-length treatments of higher education suggests that our underachieving colleges (Bok 2006) are declining by degrees (Hersh and Merrow 2005) as our students are cast academically adrift (Arum and Roksa 2011). Faculty, responding rationally to the incentive structures in their jobs, spend so much time on research that they have little time to focus on teaching (Hacker and Dreifus 2010). Much of the responsibility for teaching ultimately falls to a poorly paid army of adjuncts toiling “in the basement of the ivory tower” with a teaching load so heavy that, of necessity, they have little time to devote to individual students, and minimal commitment to the particular institution(s) at which they work (Professor X 2011). Classes and intellectual pursuits matter little to contemporary students, who are interested in higher education not for the learning, but rather for the credentials it can offer them, for the opportunity it affords to live the “college life” and, in many cases, because there is no other logical next step in their lives after high school (Nathan 2005)...

The Citizenship Imperative and the Role of Faculty Development

By teaching the capacity for citizenship across the curriculum, colleges and universities can better serve their role as socially responsive institutions. We argue that citizenship themes can be more central to a wide variety of classes, including some in disciplines not considered traditional homes for civic education. Faculty development centers can play a critical role in helping facuity integrate citizenship into the curriculum and evaluate the learning that occurs in their citizenship-oriented classes. We offer guidelines for how learning communities can best serve these purposes

Biogenesis of a Bacterial Organelle: The Carboxysome Assembly Pathway

SummaryThe carboxysome is a protein-based organelle for carbon fixation in cyanobacteria, keystone organisms in the global carbon cycle. It is composed of thousands of subunits including hexameric and pentameric proteins that form a shell to encapsulate the enzymes ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase and carbonic anhydrase. Here, we describe the stages of carboxysome assembly and the requisite gene products necessary for progression through each. Our results demonstrate that, unlike membrane-bound organelles of eukaryotes, in carboxysomes the interior of the compartment forms first, at a distinct site within the cell. Subsequently, shell proteins encapsulate this procarboxysome, inducing budding and distribution of functional organelles within the cell. We propose that the principles of carboxysome assembly that we have uncovered extend to diverse bacterial microcompartments