Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Seamus Freyne, Manhattan College; Micah Hale, University of Arkansas; Stephan Durham, University of Colorado, Denver

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

, try to be consistent across all sections. Meet with thefaculty who will teach the course and come to a general agreement on the syllabus. Choose thesame textbook. Give roughly the same assignments, projects, and exams. As you can guess,your students will complain if they think the workload in your course is too heavy, and studentsin other sections will complain if they detect the workload in your course is too light. You willhear about it, the other faculty will hear about it, and so will the department head.What happens if you meet resistance when trying to reach some consensus on the syllabus? Sayyou want to update the course with some new topics or experiments, but other faculty want toteach the course as it has previously been taught

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

if the material delivered is correct. The professor is a bit aghast at the wholescenario, but then remembers that she has earned a Ph.D. degree. Because of this degree, thenewly acquired faculty colleagues trust that a new professor is responsible, knows the material,and knows how to teach. Of course the new professor soon learns that no one has to be in theclassroom to check on the teaching. If a professor, especially a new one, is not doing well in acourse, the students immediately report problems to the department chair. However, the newprofessor feels OK about the class because she taught a few courses as a graduate teachingassistant. In those circumstances, the course syllabus was set and a graduate student was notindividually

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade II

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

Association forComputing Machinery; and the listserv of the Professional & Organization DevelopmentNetwork in Higher Education, POD@listserv.nd.edu, the professional organization for facultydevelopment experts. More than 25 individuals shared ideas. Occasionally the online contactwas followed up with a phone call.Often, teaching assistants are assigned by the faculty member’s department. Whoever assignsthem may solicit recommendations from the faculty teaching the course. Sometimes theinstructor is given a budget and allowed to hire any qualified student. In this case, it is a goodidea to hire a student who has taken the course in the last year or two, preferably from the sameinstructor. This is because the students in the class can better build