University of Michigan - Flint

2006-2007

This teaching circle is designed to form a supporting environment for faculties who are teaching or interested in teaching diversity courses. We will share, identify, and explore a variety of strategies to address the challenges many of us encounter in classrooms as well as ways to engage students in the learning process. We also hope this teaching circle will serve as a platform for building a community of scholars who are teaching diversity courses on campus.

Broadening our Visions: Examining the authorities of the global energies on the SEHS
Facilitator: Susanne Chandler, SEHS

We are a school of mostly junior and untenured faculty, with few long-term tenured/senior faculty to help mentor/model processes, vision, etc.  In an effort to grow together toward the visioning and broad perspectives needed to lead our unit/s and university in healthy and productive considerings, we have agreed as an entirety to host at the minimum a year-long brown-bag lunch discussion series.  Our focus will be on learning to understand the influences of the larger global events on our particularized areas so as to strengthen our directions.  We have agreed to proceed with this through an agreed upon set of readings, and focused discussions. 

Ethics in Public Life:  Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Study
Facilitator: Susan Gano-Phillips, Psychology Department

This teaching circle will discuss how ethics is conceived of and taught within members’ individual disciplines as well as how interdisciplinary studies of ethics focusing on “real world” challenges might be organized.  The group will consider how classroom discussion might be combined with community engagement projects to highlight important ethical issues.  Ethics will be used as an organizing theme as the teaching circle works to develop a model for an interdisciplinary course.

Topics in Service Learning & Civic Engagement
Facilitators: Jamile Lawand, Foreign Languages Department and Raegan Amy, Center for Civic Engagement

Building on the academic service learning experience of the Teaching Circle members and exploring current trends/topics in service learning and civic engagement (such as information gained from the “Service Learning and Volunteerism” track of this year’s Lilly North Conference), this Teaching Circle will explore new possibilities of providing service learning experiences to our students and what it means to be civically engaged at UM-Flint.  

Early Childhood Leadership: Mentoring and Facilitating Professional Development
Facilitator:  Beverly Schumer, Education Department

As educators in the field of Early Childhood, classroom teachers and director of the Early Childhood Developmental Center and the Early Childhood Department faculty, we share a common aspect of our work: assisting UM-Flint students and other adults in developing their abilities as early childhood educators. We plan to read together about mentoring student teachers and other professionals in the context of classroom practice and teacher preparation programs. We intend to share a focus as colleagues and develop our relationships with one another through reading and discussing texts and their implications for our work.

Understanding Social Activism in Islamic Feminist Literature: A Focus on Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman At Point Zero
Facilitator:  Ernest Emenyonu, Africana Studies Department

Woman writers in predominantly Islamic countries are becoming increasingly irrepressible activists in their commitments to the feminist ideology of women’s liberation.  Nawal El Saadawi, a Physician-turned-versatile Egyptian writer (novelist, playwright etc) is currently described as the “spokesperson of women’s struggles in the Arab world.”  Her novel, Woman at Point Zero says it all!  She will be visiting UM-Flint for one week in March 2007.  The Teaching Circle will study and discuss this novel and excerpts of her writings prior to her visit.

Exploring a Film & Video Studies Minor
Facilitator:  Fred Svoboda, English Department

The nine of us listed above began emailing last spring, meeting once in June, to explore possible directions for a Film and Video Studies (or Media Studies) minor.  UM-Flint already teaches very similar courses to those that make up such a program at Ann Arbor, Michigan State and Central Michigan, so this should not be an onerous task.  We have been discussing what courses would be appropriate for such a minor, whether any new courses should be added, who else we should consult, what administrative structure would be needed, how we would coordinate course offerings/schedules, etc., what would be the strengths of such a minor and its appeal to students, and whether there are particular pitfalls we should avoid. 

Tailoring Science Education for Education Students
Facilitators:  Li-hsuan Yang, Education, and Marian Aanerud, CSESP Department

This is a teaching circle that includes faculty members who are teaching or are interested in teaching science courses to prospective K-12 teachers to discuss challenges and exchange ideas related to our teaching and the science learning experiences of our students. 

Promoting Strong Teaching and Learning Experiences Through Online Courses
Facilitator: Sharman Siebenthal Adams, Education Department

Nationwide online University course offerings have increased.  This trend has also been seen here at UMF.  While the growing demand pushes faculty and administrators to meet students’ increased needs related to online course offerings, many questions still abound with regard to the manner and mechanisms faculty should use in successfully meeting those needs.  The purpose of this teaching circle is to collaborate with members across campus in order to further investigate not only what steps are being taken at UMF but also at other universities.  Members of this teaching circle are interested in pursuing investigation of both the successes and challenges related to online teaching. 

Scientific Writing:  Grading and Teaching
Facilitator:  Jessica Tischler, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.

We would like to explore the differences in scientific writing vs. the standard curriculum.  We hope to develop specific teaching points that can be used to help students write better research papers and literature reviews than what we currently see.  We also hope to develop rubrics that we can use to emphasize these ideas and help grading be quicker and less subjective.  We have several books that will form the basis of our discussions:  The Craft of Scientific Writing by Michael Alley and A Field Guide for Science Writers by D. Blum, M. Knudson, and R. M. Henig (Eds).