NewsNovember 25, 2024

Chemistry Professor to Head Center for Teaching and Learning

Dr. Jordan Mader, the new faculty fellow leading the first semesters of UAFS’s Center for Teaching and Learning, has some priorities, and the first one is listening. 

Mader, an associate professor of chemistry in the Physical Sciences department, was named to the post by Provost Dr. Shadow Robinson in October.

The Center for Teaching and Learning is a new program dedicated to enhancing instruction on campus through collaborative professional development and shared resources.

Earlier in the year, Mader shared her priorities with Robinson.

“I told him my first priority is to make a listening tour,” Mader said. “I want to meet with deans and department leadership to see what they think is needed.”

Mader also envisions the creation of a series of professional development sessions for new faculty.

“Many college faculty have no formal training in how to teach,” she said. “First-year faculty could benefit from a learning community.”

Sessions would advance progressively through a new faculty member’s first year.

“We expect people to learn an enormous amount in a day and a half before the semester starts,” she said, comparing the flood of information during University Days to trying to drink from a fire hose. “Instead of learning everything in a new environment, you could learn things progressively as you proceed through your first year.”

As an example, Mader explained that new faculty don’t typically advise students until the spring semester. Instead of learning about advising six months before they do it, new faculty could benefit from learning about advising at the beginning of the spring semester.

Experienced classroom faculty new to teaching online or hybrid classes might benefit from sessions on building regular and substantive interactions (RSI) with students in their classes. RSI is a federal requirement for these courses, and local RSI certification would help demonstrate that this requirement is met, she believes.

Mader would also like the Center for Teaching and Learning to become a repository for useful information.

“We are all busy,” she said. “We may be in class when something is presented on campus, so we just can’t see it.”

Making such presentations available in recorded Zoom sessions might bring them to more people.

In the last few years, Student Success Mini-Conferences on campus have allowed faculty and staff to learn from one another. Still, overlapping sessions cause people to choose one session over another, even if they are interested in both. Again, the CTL could become a repository for local resources.

In the future, Mader thinks there will be value in inviting speakers to campus to present in-demand sessions on teaching, but in the short term, she believes there are plenty of people on campus who can talk about what they have done successfully in their classrooms.

Faculty members might benefit from learning from staff members about what services non-academic offices on campus offer. Understanding what services the Marketing Department or the Couseling Center has might be helpful.

Overall, Mader said, the response to the creation of the center and her appointment to lead it has been positive, but she knows that success ultimately lies in faculty buy-in.

“Students come here, and they want to learn, and they want to be taught well,” she said. “Enhanced instruction on campus will show students that instructors are focused on their learning, retention of material, and application of material in everyday life.”

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