Breaking Barriers in Teaching and Learning -Reading to Improve Teaching and Learning

Scholarship on teaching and learning has exploded in volume and influence in recent decades, providing all of us who are dedicated to improving our roles as professors with a dizzying array of books and other resources. Faculty development as a specific area of study and professional growth and centers designed to promote and support better teaching (often called CETLs for Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning or CATLs for Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning) have multiplied on campuses around the globe

Honors Is Pedagogy

In response to the issue of why and how the humanities—and more broadly the liberal arts and sciences—have historically dominated honors education and disregarded preprofessional fields, the author finds that the crux of the problem is not the nature or worth of the disciplines involved or why this or that subject area is de facto included or excluded from honors. Instead, the author argues that honors is not about privileging specific content in any academic domain but about the approaches to teaching and learning that distinguish the honors enterprise. Grounded in creative, participatory, experiential strategies of what we know as active learning, honors is a way of teaching and learning that cuts across subject areas. Honors is pedagogy. As more STEM and preprofessional disciplines implement proven active learning pedagogies that have long been at the center of honors education, fields beyond the humanities and liberal arts will find mutually beneficial common ground with honors

Using the Online Forum for Honors Learning

An online forum in which students share not only what content they have learned but more importantly how, when, and why they have learned provides a safe, open, generative space for learning beyond the limitations of the classroom. Suggestions for its effective use and integration are provided

Sam Schuman Award: A Letter to Sam with Many Thanks

Dear Sam, Letters are almost becoming an extinct form of sharing meaningful ideas or authentic emotions in the wake of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, but I’m old-fashioned, like you an unabashed lover of Shakespeare and the wonder of well-chosen words, and somehow what I want to say about the rare privilege of receiving the 2018 NCHC award in your name demands more than a tweet or other impermanent post. I write this letter to you, my friend, and by association to all our NCHC colleagues who remember you as an incomparable teacher, scholar, and leader as well as beloved friend. This letter is the link to what is in my heart. No password needed, just love

DEDICATION

Anyone in the NCHC who is not familiar with the name “John Zubizarreta” is no doubt new to the organization. Some of us know him well enough to have learned how to spell his name, but most people just call him “John Z.” If you haven’t met him at conferences or workshops, then you surely have seen his regular messages on the listserv. In person or in writing, in formal or casual settings, John is generous with his advice and has the expertise to give it wisely. Professor of English and Director of Honors and Faculty Development at Columbia College in South Carolina, John has been active in honors at the local, regional, and national levels for over two decades. He held the four-year series of NCHC offices from 2008 through 2011, serving as president in 2010. He has been elected to three terms on the Board of Directors, where he currently has a seat through 2016. He has also chaired the Teaching and Learning Committee and is currently a member of the HIP editorial board as well as an NCHC-Recommended Site Visitor

Honors as Incubator for Creating and Sustaining Faculty Professional Growth

Successful honors programs inspire and sustain a vibrant and committed faculty. This essay presents an established honors program which demonstrates, through varied faculty commitments over time, honors as a valuable asset in identifying, recruiting, supporting, and rewarding a strong, creative, loyal faculty that benefits the entire institution. Authors suggest multiple ways for establishing and nurturing the kinds of relationships that enhance both honors and its dedicated faculty. Leveraging honors for professional growth and pedagogical development, these include the design of interdisciplinary courses and special seminars, mentoring of student projects, engaging in study-travel ventures, winning distinguished awards, serving on important committees, earning academic grants, and presenting at conferences. As exemplified in its long and rich history, honors continues to be an incubating space for faculty development and student success

Breaking Barriers in Teaching and Learning

Foreword — Richard Badenhausen Introduction Breaking Barriers with Significant Student Learning Chapter One: Using Student-Generated Questions to Promote Learning — Barbara J. Millis Chapter Two: Innovative Discussion-Based Pedagogy — Leslie G. Kaplan Chapter Three: The Importance of the First-Semester Experience: Learning Communities and Clustered Classes — Susan E. Dinan Chapter Four: Linking Honors Courses: A New Approach to Defining Honors Pedagogy —Dahliani Reynolds, Meg Case, and Becky L. Spritz Breaking Barriers with Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence Chapter Five: Honors Components in Honors Faculty Development — Hanne ten Berge and Rob van der Vaart Chapter Six: Building and Enhancing Honors Programs through Faculty Learning Communities —Milton D. Cox Chapter Seven: The Honors Professional Development Portfolio: Claiming the Value of Honors for Improvement, Tenure, and Promotion — John Zubizarreta Chapter Eight: Teaching for Learning in Honors Courses: Identifying and Implementing Effective Educational Practices — Todd D. Zakrajsek and Janina Tosic Course Designs and Case Studies in Honors Teaching Chapter Nine: Constructing an Honors Composition Course to Support a Research-Based Honors Curriculum —Annmarie Guzy Chapter Ten: Growing Pains in Honors Education: Two Courses Designed to Build Community —Matthew Carey Jordan Chapter Eleven: HON 315: Perspectives on Twentieth-Century American Identity — Ken R. Mulliken Chapter Twelve: Bending Time and Space: Three Approaches for Breaking Barriers in the Honors Classroom — James Ford Afterword — Reading to Improve Teaching and Learning — John Zubizarreta Selected Book Resources / About the Authors / About the NCHC Monograph Serie

Professional Transitions in Honors: Challenges, Opportunities, and Tips

Authors reflect on ways that honors practitioners have experienced various professional transitions and provide insights to help others successfully manage such changes. Honors transitions are inevitable. Many of us in honors, for example, have relocated from other disciplines, moving from the prescribed boundaries of our academic areas to the diverse and challenging demands of honors, quickly learning new leadership skills and approaches to navigating challenges and prospects within and outside our institutions. Some of us have relocated to different institutions; some have negotiated growth from programs to colleges; some have advanced to positions in higher administration; some have witnessed changes in directors or deans; some have needed to adjust to the rapid succession of top administrators and their assorted agendas; some have retired. With creative approaches to change, such shifts to new faces, leadership styles, program ideas, and professional priorities can become opportunities rather than obstacles in our professional development in honors. The authors of this piece represent honors professionals who have experienced various transitions, and we offer our reflections and tips to help others in our field to manage such changes successfully