A Message from Dr. Letson re: Master Syllabus Methodology

Dear All,

In order to foster consistency and quality in our CAPS program and to be in compliance with the increasing need for transparency and accountability as required by Middle States, we have elected to utilize a master syllabus methodology to manage course development and delivery.

The benefits of this methodology are:

1. The master syllabus contains provisions needed to meet accreditation requirements.

2. The master syllabus focuses on those elements that are common to all offerings of the same course, aiding in the consistency of meeting course, program and college-wide learning objectives. This respects the academic freedom for adjunct faculty who wish to expand upon the basic framework, while leaving the required course assessments consistent.

3. The master syllabus is linked to the institution’s core curriculum content and evaluation process. Mandated elements are specifically addressed in master syllabus learning outcomes, and are part of the program learning outcomes assessment matrix as established by the full-time program faculty.

4. The master syllabus is managed electronically making it available to faculty, 24-7.

To be certain that you are using the most current version of the master syllabi, please make sure that visit the instructor lounge before teaching any courses for the upcoming 2010 calendar.
If you need assistance accessing the syllabi, please contact Lenore Goldberg at goldbergl@centenarycollege.edu.

If you have any questions please contact Anthony Yacullo at yaculloa@centenarycollege.edu.

Best,

Deirdre Letson

"My 'day job' has come alive."

Different motivations draw us into the Centenary College classrooms yet, once there, we share an identical opportunity, and that is to change lives. Our own slice of the College, the Adult Program, has a special identity. Our educational product is rooted in adult learning theory, oriented in a student-centered perspective, problem based, and applicable. If you ever doubt the power of those forces, I invite you to read the piece of student feedback (exerpted below) that came across my desk recently.

Ellen Boltizar (pictured) is a colleague who teaches Management Information Systems and Global Business in Centenary's adult program. Postive feedback about Ellen is routine but the depth and passion of this particular feedback is striking. When a student labels your class "life changing" and thanks you for making their day job "come alive", you have achieved something of which to be proud. Great job, Ellen.

For your consideration are the direct words of a student describing the impact of Ellen's Global Business Course:

"I want to pause in this fast-paced world and sincerely thank you for a very well taught, dynamic, and thought-provoking 'Global Business Environment' class. From the title and day 0, I never thought it would engender such mental creativity and have such intense personal and immediate application. Never.

This class represents a turning point for me though, a life-changing moment of clarity ...Through this class you've focused on culture from the inside out (firm) and the outside in nationalistic/country. With your (rare in academic circles) life-experience, you've made the book-speak tangible and germane.

You've often not just provided a foil for me to see 'big idea' application, you've demonstrated an active listening approach, empathy and provided insight and alternatives to my sometimes rutted thoughts of trying to be strategic in a very transactional wireless world -- in an industry enduring massive inflexive transformations and consolidations.

To be honest, I've come to find over my life -- and never in such a concentrated form as this MBA series -- that one doesn't know what knowledge one has until it's reflected back to them through unselfish service.

Put in real terms, by applying the principles, approaches and considerations taught in your class, my 'day-job' has come alive. Kind of like a high tech 'Night at the Museum 2'.

In a larger context for me, you've woven together -- and I've apparently absorbed -- earlier course teachings in marketing, business, legal, economic and distribution ... now adding cultural and critical research/insights needed to not only gain a personal understanding of the in-country selling/buying environment, but also, as I've been told by my constituents, leadership and colleagues, allowing me during my facilitations to come across and coach in a sincere, knowledgeable, and sensitive way as I discuss local and distant business cultural success and alignment factors.

This is a very rare thing to happen, especially to put this newly acquired knowledge to use so soon, especially considering the ultra-compressed timescale we followed in class. It's the very reason why I committed to go back to school -- specifically to gain new perspectives and tools to broaden my mental horizon -- making me more effective at work.

I'm sincerely and gratefully able to say that I've achieved that end, and I want to take a brief moment to acknowledge you for your very creative, passionate, and enduring approach to Global Business -- not the least being your drive to share it with students.

In short, I care because you care about your work, the profession you tend to, and the ever-evolving business journey. It shows in you, and it sticks with me. I hope to be able to remain in touch with you over time if that would not be a burden -- perhaps in an informal mentor role.

My best to you for the upcoming Summer and in all life brings your way."

Accessing Your Course Materials

For your convenience, below is a brief refresher on accessing course materials for the new curriculum (8-week courses).

For each course, there is a standard syllabus containing the objectives, required textbook, readings, and assignments. Those are fixed features, required by the College's Academic Departments, and should not be changed. In addition, there is a companion instructor manual for most courses. The instructor manual includes further instructions for assignments, suggested classroom activities, and supplemental materials and inputs. While the syllabus is fixed, you have freedom to facilitate your class time in creative and personal ways to move learners towards the objectives.

The steps below will allow you to access your course materials:

1. Log into Blackboard
2. Click the red "Faculty/Staff" Tab atop the page
3. Click the Instructor's Lounge link
4. Enter the credentials (username = appfaculty / password = ThoseWhoCanDo)
5. Click "CAPS Adjuncts"
6. Click "Accelerated Curriculum"
7. Select either "graduate" or "undergraduate program"
8. Click the link for your course
9. Download the syllabus and instructor manual

For those with the aural fortitude to endure three-minutes of my impossibly unpleasant voice, click here for a screencast which walks through those steps.

Finally, with Labor Day approaching, we would like to thank you for your all of your hard work in making the Centenary College Adult Program an exemplar of academic excellence.

Dr. Norm Stafford - Thoughts on Teaching in the MBA Program

Few, if any, of our instructors have taught as many courses in as many subject matter areas as Dr. Norm Stafford (pictured left). Over the course of six years with Centenary College, Dr. Stafford has taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels in both the face-to-face and online formats. His teaching versatility is a byproduct of his impressive educational background (an MBA and two doctorates!) and workplace credentials.

He describes his occupational experience this way: "In 2002 I 'retired' after a long career in the fast paced telecommunications industry. I held a number of executive level Sales and Marketing positions with various well known domestic and international telecommunication companies. My playground was literally the world, and I enjoyed doing business with the many different cultures."

He put the word retired in quotes because he subsequently opened a consulting practice and started teaching with Centenary. As you will garner from the article linked below, teaching, to Dr. Stafford, is an opportunity to give back and help students grow vocationally. As such, Dr. Stafford is a proponent of academic rigor, attention to detail, and having pride in your final work product. So say the students.

Dr. Stafford was kind enough to put together and share his thoughts on teaching in the MBA program. Teaching MBA students, those who will be our future business leaders, is a stewardship and Dr. Stafford's piece demonstrates the weight and joy of that opportunity.

Click here to read "Some Thoughts on Teaching in the MBA Program" by Dr. Norm Stafford.

How do you provide feedback for online submissions?

Providing feedback is straightforward when you have a student's paper in hand -- (1) click pen and (2) begin writing (or scrawling, for us left-handers). For online classes it is not quite this simple to provide in-text feedback but it certainly can, and should, be done. I prefer to use the "comments" feature of Word. I open the student submission and immediately save it as a new file. As I read the paper I can highlight specific portions of text and add a comment bubble on the right hand margin of the page. The text becomes highlighted and a line is drawn from the text to the bubble.

In the bubbles I can provide positive reinforcement ("this is a well-supported assertion"), comment on format ("you need to provide a citation for these facts"), ask questions ("if you had to make the opposing point, how would you do it?"), provide constructive criticism ("this paragraph might have worked better under the prior section"), or provide food for thought ("if you are interested in learning more about eminent domain, I suggest your read the Kelo case").

These are the steps for inserting a comment (the screencast provides a quick demonstration of how to do it, as well):

1. Highlight text on which you wish to comment

2. Click "Insert" on the top tool bar

3. Select "Comment" and a bubble will appear to the right of the text

4. Type your comments in the bubble.

Be sure that students have Word set to "View Markup" so that they can view the comments you provide.

As demonstrated in the screencast, I also like to copy and paste the rubric on the final page of the student's submission. This creates a unified, triple-play of feedback: specific comments in the text of the paper, numerical assessment through the rubric, and general comments at the end. This is just one system. Please feel free to let us know the system that you use.

I know that the screencast is a bit small. If you want to view it in a larger format (Windows Media), click here.

Taking off the "Teacher Mask"

Before writing his acclaimed memoir Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (who passed away last month) was a high school English teacher in Manhattan.

One of his former students recently wrote an essay in tribute to McCourt which included this praise:

"Frank McCourt was a wonderful teacher. He wanted us to take our blinders off, reflect on the world broadly, get off the professional treadmill, and note the things around us. He was able to touch us so effectively, I suspect, because, just as he sought to escape the suffocating provincialism of Limerick, he knew many of us were seeking to escape the parochialism of our own families' lives." (Kenneth R. Weinstein, The Master of Class 205, printed in The Weekly Standard, August 3, 2009).

That observation from a past student neatly folds into McCourt's own self assessment. In a 2007 address to Syracuse University's graduating class, McCourt credited his teaching success on two factors: (1) extirpating his pomposity, and (2) learning about himself. He put it this way:

"I had to take off the teacher mask, which so many of us put on at the beginning; the mask that says: 'Well, I'm the teacher and I know it all. You sit there and I'll tell you.'"

I wonder if we, as adjuncts, wear more or fewer "masks" than our full-time counterparts. I think some of our masks are borne not out of pomposity but out of insecurity. It takes a certain confidence to take the risks that student-centered teaching requires, yes? Isn't the theory rooted in heavy reliance on others (the students) for a successful class?

In any event, the article and the commencement address both are worth a read. Even though McCourt taught high school, I think there are ideas that transfer to the college setting.

What research sources do you accept?

It probably would be hypocritical to ruminate on information overload using, as a vehicle, a blog. So let’s just stipulate that our students must weed through and evaluate much information in pursuit of valid facts. We assist that effort by teaching information literacy regarding our disciplines, setting standards for sources we will accept, and providing feedback on research through comments and rubrics.

For example, when I teach a law class, I will mention at the outset that Centenary students have free access to Lexis Nexis, which is the exact database major law firms pay great sums to use in battle. If I want students to rely on legal cases rather than Wikipedia, I have to help them find those cases.

In some of the standard syllabi, you will see that the assignment instructions require students to find and rely upon “peer reviewed journals.” This steers students to filter their searches in order to retrieve journal articles that were reviewed by a panel or a subject matter expert prior to publication. For integrity purposes, the peer review often is done without knowledge of who authored the paper.

The multi-purposed EBSCO database, for instance, makes it easy to decipher a peer reviewed paper. In addition to setting date and topic parameters, you can limit search results to "peer reviewed articles." The screen shot below shows this option. EBSCO also provides a definition of what they consider a peer reviewed article.

Did you know that Google, also, allows you to filter your searches for “scholarly materials”? The next time you are on the Google site, look at the top of the page, click the down arrow next to the word “more”, and select “Scholar” from the menu. It’s an interesting way to tidy up your search results.

The bottom line is that you know your disciplines and the type of information that practitioners rely upon in making decisions. Equipping students with information literacy for a specific field can become an important part of the learning in your class.

What type of sources do you allow and disallow? Post a comment to this entry and let us know your approach.

As a postscript, maybe I should take a quick step back here: In case you did not know, Centenary College instructors and students all have free access to a wide variety of online databases. To access them, log into Blackboard, find the link for Centenary College Library Website, and click “search databases.” If prompted, the password credentials are the same you use to log into Blackboard.

I hope you find this post to be a reliable source. I warn you though, it has not been peer reviewed.