Faculty Development

During the past year, we met our milestones for WI courses designed (19), courses piloted (10), and additional sections implemented (8).

The most important change during the past year in faculty development was the addition of a second faculty development opportunity for faculty who are new to teaching a writing intensive course section but who are not developing a new WI course.

During year 4, we will pilot five new WI courses, but three of those (Math 101 & 105 and Biology 101) began development during the 2010 summer session. With only one additional WI course required (though we anticipate that several others will ultimately be developed), the bulk of our institutes from this point onward will be for new faculty taking on an already developed WI course.

The term faculty “institute” may be a misnomer at this point. They have evolved from the initial 4-day presentation-heavy format with more than twenty participants in 2008, to groups of 4 – 8 meeting for two days in a much more collegial and seminar-style setting.

There are now 43 instructors who have been through the instructional development process in writing, critical thinking, information literacy and have been introduced to our writing technologies.

In addition, as described in the grant for year 3, we have worked with area high school teachers.

“The Handbook for Developing Writing-Intensive Courses” is now in a “sixth edition” with significant revisions from the first version created from the materials used in the initial Faculty Institute in summer 2008.

For example, there had been concern last year that the “minimum requirements” for a WI course seemed unclear to some faculty. The handbook now clearly identifies the seven requirements both in the detailed portion of the handbook that is the “textbook” for Institutes, and on a single page in the appendix.

We have also written a “Handbook for New Faculty Teaching Established Writing-Intensive Courses” that has been used at two seminars for those new instructors. This is the text for those two-day sessions. (Both Handbooks are in the Appendices.)

We are also pleased that the College Writing Committee and the Professional Development Committee recently jointly presented a “Writing Across the Curriculum Roundtable” to the community as a forum for discussion on improving writing at PCCC.