Relocated to a new facility, the Center for Teaching continues its mission of helping Vanderbilt faculty enhance their classroom methods

by Jennifer Johnston
photo by John Russell

As religious studies students file into the Center for Teaching’s gleaming new classroom space, teaching assistants deftly move rolling tables, chairs and room dividers into configurations that allow for a lecture-style session in one part of the room, and small group meeting spots in another.

“See how before class has even started, students are gathering at the round tables to plan a small group presentation? That would never happen in a traditional space,” said Daniel Patte, professor of religious studies.

Patte, still eager to try something new after 37 years on faculty at Vanderbilt, is trying out the flexible space that is the centerpiece of the Center for Teaching’s new location at 1114 19th Ave. S.

In addition to the adaptable teaching area, the center’s new headquarters on the top floor of the former Bill Wilkerson building provide multiple gathering places where faculty and graduate students can make connections with colleagues across the university and see the latest innovations in instructional technologies and design, according to center director Allison Pingree. 

Expanded office areas allow more room for individual and small group consultation sessions and access to the latest technologies while using the space. The center provided about 300 consultations last year.

In the flexible classroom, Vanderbilt instructors such as Patte can try out different configurations, breaking out of traditional styles of teaching and discovering innovations they can later incorporate into their curriculum, Pingree said.

“Traditional classroom space, with rows of fixed chairs and tables facing forward, reflects a pedagogical approach that is more hierarchical than collaborative,” said Pingree, who for the past 10 years has presided over the center’s university-wide mission to enhance teaching on campus. A flexible space creates a more dynamic environment where students are more easily engaged in learning, she said.

One such innovation is the way the room dividers double as marker boards and, since they are magnetic, can be used like bulletin boards to allow images or words brought from small group sessions to be displayed, manipulated or merged when the larger group reconvenes. Patte plans to mirror this technique in his classroom in Garland Hall.

Engaging the students is a key element of Patte’s course, “Pauline Interpretation of Christianity: Romans,” which draws both graduate and undergraduate students. More than 30 are enrolled this fall. Patte heard Pingree give a presentation on the new space last spring and immediately approached her about trying it out.

“Every time I teach this course it’s different, because the students are different,” he said. “I present different interpretations of the material, but the students also have their own interpretations, and that is a topic of the class. We go through a process of discovering why they’ve made their choices, and they have to defend their choices. They learn that what is different is essential.

“The possibility of moving back and forth between plenary session and group discussions offered by this marvelous teaching setting is ideal for these pedagogical goals,” Patte said.
 
In addition to settling into new space, the center this semester will hire an educational technology specialist.

“This new position will help us and our clients take advantage of the technology tools we have that can strongly enhance learning,” such as classroom response systems, or “clickers,” tablet PCs and Smartboards, Pingree said.

The Center for Teaching also has initiated a new focus this year to support tenure-track junior faculty. “Junior faculty are the future leaders of the university, and by supporting them we are building and supporting the infrastructure of the university,” Pingree said.

Junior faculty must strike a tough balance between teaching and research, so the center has created a series of programs and services specifically designed for those grappling with the “challenges and opportunities” of the tenure track, Pingree said. “We have the resources to help junior faculty with whatever aspect of teaching and learning they’d like to work on.”

Kimberly Bess, assistant professor in human and organizational development, found that the center’s consultation services greatly benefited her transition from doctoral student to faculty member.

Bess had previously taught in the department’s internship program before pursuing an advanced degree. “But coming back and teaching a regular lecture course was a different type of teaching,” she said. “Sometimes you look out and all you see are blank stares and you don’t know if you’re connecting. I wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t.”

This is where the center steps in with confidential consulting services, assisting with many facets of teaching a course – from developing the syllabus to meeting privately with students to find out how they are responding to the way the material is presented.

“It was a great reality check for me,” Bess said. She learned how students reacted to her way of giving quizzes and grading for daily participation. And she adopted the use of clickers to give quizzes and to conduct quick polling to see whether students are catching on to a concept.

“I can see immediately if they understand,” she said, adding that she was trained in the use of the clicker system at the Center for Teaching. “It’s just another way to engage with students. I teach two sections of HOD 1200, and I have 54 students in both sections. That’s a lot of students, but I already know who’s not doing well and I can work with them.”

Several faculty members teach HOD 1200, or “Understanding Organizations,” and Bess said the Center for Teaching has been helping that team of teachers “develop a set of enduring understandings that the students will leave the course with, and a set of core course knowledge and skill objectives that students will meet.”

“Each of us has a unique way of approaching the material and teaching the course,” she said. “We spent a lot of time as a group surfacing our collective understandings of what the course should accomplish. CFT facilitation helped us take the next step.”

The result of the process was a document outlining course objectives that could be communicated to students and guide curriculum development.  “We also see this document as a tool for new faculty in the future who will teach this course,” she said.

“I can’t say enough about what they offer,” Bess said of the center. “They’ve helped me to figure out how I could best connect with my students to give them the best learning experience possible.”

Posted 12/01/08