Across the U.S., approximately 20 million college students have returned to their respective campuses. They are greeted by professors who are eager not only to teach, but also to engage, inspire and empower them. Le Moyne faculty members Jeff Chin, Brenda Kirby, Monica Sylvia and Dennis O’Connor are supporting their colleagues across the nation in performing this critical work. They are sharing what they have learned over the course of their careers in higher education, which collectively spans more than 100 years.
Each of the professors contributed to Learning from Each Other: Refining the Practice of Teaching in Higher Education, an anthology of best practices in higher education that Chin co-edited with Michelle Lee Kozimor-King of Elizabethtown College. The book includes 20 original chapters, each written by experts in the field of teaching and learning. It was designed to serve as a resource for new and experienced teachers at community and four-year colleges, as well as research-intensive institutions, and addresses a variety of issues, including teaching nontraditional students, the risks and rewards of co-teaching, and connecting students to community through research.
Both Chin and Kozimor-King are sociologists by training. For years, they have run workshops on education and teaching supported by Alpha Kappa Delta, the international honor society for sociology. Those sessions inspired the creation of Leaning from Each Other. As educators, they saw a need for a book aimed at enhancing student engagement and understanding.
“Our goal in creating the book was to improve the quality of higher education across the board,” said Chin. “In that respect, this project has been a reflection of Le Moyne’s mission to continually elevate and enhance teaching.”
Chin specializes in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition to co-editing the book, he contributed a chapter to it outlining the ways in which faculty members can assess the effectiveness of their teaching. O’Connor, whose teaching is focused on management and leadership, wrote about how best to prepare students to work effectively as part of a “well-functioning, self-managed team.” Knowing how essential teamwork is to organizations across the 21st century economy, O’Connor focused on project management, team meeting management, and self management. Kirby and Sylvia collaborated on a chapter on the effective use of PowerPoint presentations in lectures and how they impact the way students learn and experience courses.
“As students and their parents become more and more focused on looking for the value in their educational experiences, this book may give them a chance to see how focused faculty actually are on making sure that the learning experiences are optimized,” Kirby said. “We hope that teachers from many disciplines will be able to find and try new things that fit with their own teaching styles and preferences.”
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