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April, 1998 Volume 3 Number 2 Co-Directors: Harry Dangel, Ed. Psych. & Special Education ; John Murphy, Applied Linguistics & ESL Advisory Committee: Barbara Baumstark, Biology; Nannette Commander, Learning Support; Julian Diaz, Real Estate; Bill Kinyon, Library; Tommie Nelms, Nursing; Carla Relaford, Distance Learning; Patrick Wiseman, College of Law; Bea Yorker, Associate Provost Faculty Enrichment Forums and Faculty Development Announcements
Talk About TeachingThe Center for Teaching and Learning has established an email discussion list which all GSU faculty are invited to join. It is anticipated that discussion will be provoked by our Faculty Enrichment Forums, but discussion is invited on any topic having to do with improving teaching or enhancing learning. To subscribe to the list, send an email to: majordomo@gsulaw.gsu.edu with no subject or signature, and with the following message: subscribe ctl-talkYou will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. If you have any difficulty subscribing, please forward any error messages received to ctl-talk-owner@gsulaw.gsu.edu. (This is a new list; even if you subscribed before, you will need to resubscribe.) How to find the Center for Teaching and LearningThe best way to visit the Center for Teaching and Learning at our web site- http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwctl. We have reorganized the site to help you find news about conferences, meetings and Faculty enrichment Forums, access to teaching resources, information about funding opportunities, and on-line classes. We have been compiling a listing of Georgia State University faculty teaching web sites that you may want to visit to see some of the work of your colleagues (and we invite you to add your web site to the list). The CTL also provides assistance with respect to students’ learning. Read about the Resources for Academic Success described on the next page and visit the resources John Murphy has catalogued. We are moving into a physical location also. The Center for Teaching and Learning is establishing operations in Room 248 of the College of Education building. Resources for Academic Success by John MurphyDuring the summer of 1997, I became interested in learning more about Internet resources that provide advice and support to university learners. I soon realized there is a wealth of information on academic study skills addressing the needs of college and university students. At first, I simply began to bookmark such sites in order to be able to call them to the attention of students enrolled in courses I offer in the Department of Applied Linguistics and English as a Second Language (AL/ESL). The more I explored the sites for myself, however, the more I realized that the advice and support they offer are applicable to a wide range of disciplines and levels of university learning. I was particularly intrigued by sites discussing such practical issues as how to read a difficult book, how to avoid procrastination, how to take essay exams, steps to follow in composing term papers, how to develop the study habits of successful university learners, etc. Large collections of such resources are provided by postsecondary institutions from around the world such as Edinboro University, University of Victoria, Virginia Tech, University of Chicago, Kansas State, the University of Melbourne, and many more. Once one is able to access or create websites, it is easy to take advantage of such resources by making the sites readily available to undergraduate students and other university learners. To do so, all that is needed is to share Internet address information (i.e., URLs). Some strategies open to faculty are to include site titles and requisite URL information on course syllabi, to discuss interesting sites early in a course, to encourage students to explore particular sites, etc. In order to make a wide range of such sites easily accessible within the GSU community, I have created a series of websites all connected through internal links. The cover page is titled, "Resources for Academic Success" and it now appears as a link from GSU’s main homepage <http://www.gsu.edu/>. From the "Resources for Academic Success" Internet site, visitors are able to enter some additional subsites I have titled, (1) A Few Excellent Sites Just To Get Started, (2) Primary Menu of Study Skills Sites, (3) New Sites Recently Added, (4) Subtopic Links to Specific Content Areas, (5) Success In Academic Settings, and (6) This Month's Featured Site. In an effort to acknowledge and give credit to the considerable amount of work others have contributed to the creation of the various study skills sites I find interesting, I include the names of home institutes and/or site creators next to the names of the links my own sites provide. Visiting the various academic resources headings will take users to all over the world. Calling the sites the attentions of students who participate in courses I offer has the effect of interesting them in learning more about Internet. Even more importantly, they gain access to practical advice on how to succeed as university learners. I find students less often feel the need to ask me about how to complete various course tasks. They quickly learn that most of their questions are already addressed in one or more of "Resources for Academic Success" Internet sites. Faculty who do not have the time to set up a comparable site for themselves will find it easy to include the Internet address for the "Resources" website on their own course syllabi, even if they are not "Internet active" themselves. Faculty interested in doing so might also encourage students to explore what’s there for themselves. However faculty or students decide to make use of such Internet resources, I am convinced that the Internet is valuable means for providing information to university learners. Since a rich tapestry of resources related to how to succeed as a university learner already exists on the Internet, it seems important to make such information easily available to faculty and students. The Resources for Academic Success website is one such attempt. For anyone who explores it, I am always looking for new and interesting sites to add. Please let me know (jmmurphy@gsu.edu) if you find the sites to be useful, if you would like anything to be rearranged or fine-tuned, or if you discover new sites you feel would be helpful to incorporate. http://www.gsu.edu/~esljmm/studyskills/Studyweb.htm Is rudeness on the rise in classrooms?"More professors are reporting that they are losing control of their classrooms to students who behave rudely, and in some cases threateningly." Check out the Chronicle for a timely discussion of issues of classroom management in university courses: http://chronicle.com/colloquy/98/rude/rude.htm
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