Call For Proposals
The Teaching Professor Conference
May 18-20, 2007
Westin Peachtree Plaza
Atlanta, Ga.

The Teaching Professor newsletter and Magna Publications invite presentation, panel discussion, and interactive poster session proposals for the fourth annual Teaching Professor Conference. The goal of the conference is to produce substantive work upon which teaching professors can act as change agents for building legitimacy, scholarship, and respect for their roles on campuses and in society.

The Teaching Professor conference offers seven topical areas, presented as multiple concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the various roles and concerns of teaching professors. We invite submissions for 75-minute presentations and panel discussions focusing on the agenda of “Educate. Engage. Inspire.” Your submission may fall within one of the topical areas listed below; however we welcome compelling ideas that may not be addressed in these topical areas.

Appropriate topics address those aspects of teaching and learning relevant in many contexts: grading, academic integrity, writing assignments for large courses, classroom management techniques, ways of involving undergraduates in research projects, dealing with students who aren’t motivated or won’t come to class prepared, problem-based learning approaches, cooperative and collaborative learning activities, and service learning, to name but a few. Also appropriate at The Teaching Professor Conference are topics relating to instructional health and well-being: departmental policies and practices conducive to teaching; innovative teaching awards; ways to keep teaching fresh and invigorated; scholarship on the subject of teaching; and even the thoughtful reflections that have been used to explore and understand an individual aspect of teaching like the development of a particular style, the evolution of a teaching philosophy, or the recognition of the importance of teaching for understanding.

Participants of this event come from a range of academic disciplines and institutions.

We are limited in the number of sessions we can offer so please indicate on your submission form if you are interested in presenting your topic as a poster session if it isn’t accepted as a regular session.

Topical Area 1
SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING
• How to make pedagogical scholarship count at your
institution
• How to start, if you’ve never done any before
• Assessment criteria — how to judge what’s good
• Alternative forms and formats beyond the refereed journal
article

Topical Area 2
LEARNING
• Teacher roles when classrooms shift from teaching to learning
• Overcoming student resistance to learner-centered approaches
• Ways to make student learners more independent,
self-directed, and self-regulated
• More on what faculty need to know about learning

Topical Area 3
THE PEDAGOGIES OF ENGAGEMENT
• The mechanics of successful design and implementation of active learning, problem-based learning, cooperative learning, collaborative learning, and service learning
• Appropriate assessment methods
• Using these methods and covering content — tensions,
temptations, and triumphs

Topical Area 4
TEACHING LARGE CLASSES
• Active-learning strategies that work with more than 75
students
• Ways to make personal connections with and among students
• Creating climates conducive to learning in large classes
• Effective ways to lobby for more and better institutional
support

Topical Area 5
FACULTY GROWTH, RESILIENCE, AND CHANGE
• Effective programs for faculty renewal
• Individual activities that keep teaching fresh
• Faculty professional growth plans
• Faculty as instructional change agents and advocates for
teaching
• Ways to avoid teaching ruts
• Innovative mentoring models that involve mid-career faculty
• Effective advocacy for teaching on the department, college, and institutional level

Topical Area 6
TECHNOLOGY
• Technology as an instructional change agent
• New ideas and approaches that link technology to learning
• Methods that work for the technologically impaired
• Ways to assess technology based learning

Topical Area 7
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH
• Getting started -- lessons learned in the school of hard knocks
• Reasonable and unrealistic expectations for undergraduates
• Helping undergraduates work with each other
• Creative ways to acknowledge and celebrate undergraduate
success

Submit a Proposal

All speakers will be required to submit accompanying handouts in advance of conference and are responsible for duplication of handouts for conference participants.
The deadline for submitting a proposal is October 20, 2006.
Confirmation of accepted proposals will be sent by December 1, 2006.

If you have any questions, email tpconference@magnapubs.com