Programs and Groups

The CTL sponsors campus-wide workshops twice a year, in August, just before the beginning of classes and immediately after commencement in May. Workshops and guest speakers for the 2011-2012 academic year include:

August 19, 2011
Dr. Anne Braseby, University of Texas at Austin, "Team-Based Learning 101 and 102"

May 30, 2012
Dr. Chris Anson, University of North Carolina, "Writing Intensive Across the Disciplines"

Previous Workshops
September 2, 2010

Dr. Virginia Lee, Virginia Lee and Associates, Inc., "Teaching and Learning through Experience: Going Deeper"and "Designing Courses for J-Term: Principles and Practices"

Dr. Michael Sweet, University of Texas, "Team-Based Learning: Group Work that Works"

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are inquiry groups (or "communities of practice") of 5-12 faculty and professional staff members who meet bi-monthly to learn about a topic of shared interest related to teaching and learning in a collegial and supportive context. In addition to an annual cohort learning community for new faculty members, past PLC topics have included teaching writing, undergraduate research, the first-generation college student experience, issues of diversity in teaching and learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Professional Learning Communities for 2011-2012: 

• New Faculty PLC
• iPad2 PLC

The CTL sponsors one or more book reading and discussion groups each year. The first participants to register receive a complimentary copy of the book. Group members commit to attending and actively participating in at least three of four one-hour discussion during the semester. The book for Fall Semester 2011 is:

• Fall Semester 2011 - Larry Michaelsen, Arletta Bauman Knight and L. Dee Fink (2004), Team-Based Learning. Stylus.
• Spring Semester 2012 - John Bean. (2011), Engaging Ideas. Jossey-Bass.

Titles from past years

To register for this reading group or to suggest another title, contact the CTL (ctl@otterbein.edu; ext 1035).

The CTL has been charged by the Office of Academic Affairs to provide comprehensive orientation and long-term mentoring for new full-time faculty members.

• Group Mentoring Program
  A group mentoring program provides an extended orientation and helps connect new faculty with more senior colleagues. All new full-time faculty members meet during the year with more senior colleagues to learn about expectations for teaching, scholarship, and service at Otterbein among other things. During spring quarter, individuals request (from the panelists) a mentor to work with during through interim tenure review the following year.
• Individual Consultations
  The CTL director is available for individual consultations with new faculty members from the point of their hire. Consultations can involve developing course syllabi, designing classes, or soliciting anonymous midterm feedback from their students.

  To schedule a consultation, contact Kathryn Plank,  Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, 614-823-1034

• New Faculty Professional Learning Community

  Full-time faculty members in their first three years at Otterbein are strongly encouraged to apply to participate in this special professional opportunity, designed to deepen and develop each participant as an educator. Learning community participants meet off campus for two hours once or twice a month (usually every other Friday late afternoon except for group mentoring days) throughout the academic year to discuss their teaching experiences and their observations about student learning in their courses; to learn more about the college and its culture; and to discuss books chosen by participants and provided by the CTL; as well as to develop collegial relationships and a support network in an informal context.

• Orientation

  An annual orientation for new faculty members is held each year two weeks before the beginning of classes. Orientation provides newcomers with a basic introduction to Otterbein students, culture, and expectations as well as an opportunity to meet others in the cohort, key administrators and professional staff members, and a small panel of junior faculty members. Orientation also includes introductions and initial training in classroom technologies, Blackboard, and the library.

Andrew Mills, CTL Faculty Associate, New Faculty Programming
Department Chair, Religion and Philosophy
2012 New Faculty PLC and Mentoring Program

As the CTL's Faculty Associate for the 2012-13 year, I have been focusing on new faculty programming and orientation. There is a fantastic group of twelve new faculty at Otterbein this year, and it has been a pleasure to spend the Fall semester working with them. They bring a wide range of experience and disciplinary expertise to campus, and they are all dedicated teachers who are highly committed to seeing that their students succeed both in and outside of their classrooms.

We spent two days prior to the beginning of the semester in New Faculty Orientation; it was a whirlwind two days--an avalanche of information and introductions and university acronyms came hurtling at them--but I'm hoping now, after 9 or so weeks of teaching, that they are well settled in to life at Otterbein.

Beyond the orientation, there are two programs that the CTL is leading to help new faculty: the New Faculty Professional Learning Community (PLC) and the New Faculty Mentoring Program. Many of the new folks are participating in both programs.

The New Faculty PLC, which is being co-facilitated by me and the amazing Shelley Payne (HSS), has met roughly every other week since the beginning of the semester. We have discussed student motivation, the student-centered learning paradigm, and classroom assessment techniques, among a host of other issues. These meetings--as those of you who have participated in PLCs yourselves well know--have been, in addition, an opportunity to decompress after a long and hard week and to find support and advice from a community of talented and compassionate colleagues. Many of us in the PLC will be heading to the International Lilly Conference on Teaching and Learning at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio the weekend before Thanksgiving. Lilly Conferences are a wonderful opportunity to hear about the latest advances in pedagogy and most people return from these conferences eager to try out in their classrooms new techniques that they have learned from the many fascinating conference sessions.

The New Faculty Mentoring Program works to pair up the new faculty with mentors from the, well, "not new" faculty at Otterbein. We host a series of panel discussions on teaching, scholarship, service and (the elusive) work-life balance. The sessions on teaching and scholarship happen this semester, and the other two sessions will take place in the Spring. We are grateful for the participation of the many experienced Otterbein faculty who have stepped forward as mentors to our new colleagues.

This is truly an amazing group of new colleagues, and if you haven't had a chance to speak with them, please do make an opportunity to do so. They bring talents as scholars and teachers to Otterbein, and I know that our community is better because of their presence on campus.