2010-2011 Grant Proposals

John Lanci and Magdalena James-Pederson
NEFDC Spring Conference, Worcester
Pedagogy Travel Grant

Project Proposal:

Magda Pederson and John Lanci will be presenting a session at the NEFDC Spring Conference: "Mentoring for Good Teaching and Successful Learning" on May 20, 2011 at Holy Cross College. Our session is entitled, "Experiences of Co-Teaching with Undergraduates," and we will present with three of our students: John Driscoll, Katherine O'Toole, and Greg Passineau. From our abstract:

"The conveners-both faculty and students-will briefly introduce models we are developing to mentor undergraduate TAs, in which gifted students collaborate as co-teachers with their professors, providing an expertise in "reading" their peers that professors often lack and creating learning strategies that faculty might not have envisioned. In small groups, participants will then critique the models presented and share their own experiences of collaboration. With this presentation, we seek to create a broader conversation about new innovations in student/faculty collaboration, perhaps by creating a working group of faculty and students from other colleges in New England."

Benefits:

The presentation will expose three of our best students to faculty developers from all over New England, giving them a sense of the wider academic community as well as giving them valuable experience (and something for their resumes) with respect to publicly presenting their work. We also hope that through this presentation we will set up contacts with other colleges in the region so together we can explore more effective ways of incorporating students into our own experiences of teaching and learning. This will benefit the TA program (from which the three students come) at an important time of transition.

Community Outreach Plans:

Magda and John would be happy to share our experience working with students in any forum suggested. In particular, a round-table discussion or a breakout session for an Academic Development Day devoted to mentoring would be a good way to disseminate our work. In addition, this summer we will both be working with SURE students, and our insights will be helpful for discussions about student/faculty collaboration. John will also continue writing about this topic in his contributions to the ClassNotes Blog.

Budget: $300

Registration of the faculty participants will be $95 each. We expect to spend about $20 on gas and $40 on food at the conference. The registration and expenses for the students will be picked up, we hope, through a separate grant proposal with Dean Almeida's office.