Brandon Muramatsu

muraPOI: January 26, 2012

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  • How Many Faculty Discussion Posts Each Week? A Simply Delicious Answer: Cheryl Hayak at Faculty Focus provides a useful analogy. I’ve struggled with this in the course I ran last Spring, and this has proved useful for one of the classes I’m working with this Spring.

    The Dinner Party: The Host’s Actions….

    • Welcome EVERYONE personally at the door. (Online forum)
    • Make sure every person feels comfortable in the new environment. (Tone)
    • Don’t ignore anyone. (Reply to each student throughout the course)
    • Disagreements are phrased professionally.
    • No one should be silent, including the host! (Be present in forums)
    • Serve them something delicious. (Content!)
    • Invite them back! (To weekly forums, to the next assignment even if they’ve faltered on the previous one, to the university if they’ve finished your course)
    • Proportionate time with every guest. (Don’t reply to the same students every time)
    • Spend extra time with needy guests. (Struggling students)
    • Don’t talk all at once, spread the conversation throughout the party. (Post on various days, keeping the volume consistent)
    • Start up a new conversation when one is stale! (Add a relevant link to a current event to discuss)
    • Hosts are visible, immediately attend to guests’ needs, personable, and proactively plan for a great evening!

    (Faculty Focus, January 18, 2012)

  • The Ideal Professor vs. The Typical Professor: Maryellen Weimer at Faculty Focus reports on some interesting research. I’ve highlighted a few statistics that I found interesting. In my course from last Spring, we tried to do daily goals and to be ourselves. We probably could have done better asking for feedback–we did get some and adjusted the course appropriately, but one can probably never ask for too much feedback.

    Teaching Characteristic Ideal Typical
    Course and daily goals appear on the syllabus 83 52
    ·Uses humor often/occasionally
    ·Uses humor occasionally only    		 97 75
    Solicits anonymous, written, informal feedback on teaching/course 68 17
    ·Solicits student feedback two or more times per term
    ·Never solicits student feedback    		 72 30

    (Faculty Focus, January 16, 2012)

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