Feedback from Faculty and Staff

At the Fall 2010 Faculty and Staff meeting on Thursday, August 19th, the Teaching and Learning Center passed out a short survey asking people to think about what kinds of questions they would ask students to address a thorny issue in their work, recommend some workshops or presentation that could be done through the TLC, and, for faculty, explain what kinds of assessment tools they use in their classrooms.

Here are the results of the survey:  Fall 2010 TLC Survey

Faculty/Staff Inquiry Groups (FIGs) Fall 2010

This fall we will continue to support Faculty/Staff Inquiry Groups through the Teaching and Learning Center. Through this project, teams of faculty and/or staff members will develop a critical question into a thorny issue around student experience and success at BCC. Teams will participate in orientations, receive coaching, and conduct research in their work. Selected teams will receive a small stipend for their work.

Goals:

  • Create a culture of collaboration;
  • Strengthen teaching through inquiry and research;
  • Improve staff and faculty understanding of student learning;
  • Document the findings to plan future workshops, projects, and plans.

For more information, click this link:  Fall 2010 FIGs

For the application, click here:  FIG Online Application

What makes a strong inquiry question?

Why does inquiry require a question?

Often, when we are working to fulfill some requirement or to achieve some goal, we do not stop to go deeper into the issues before us. We must give quick answers and solutions based on anecdotal data or on our hunches and intuitions. This is a normal way of approaching issues.

Inquiry allows us the room to wonder, to question, and to ask our students what they think. It opens a space for critical and creative thinking, for building our receptivity to ideas that may not match our own, and it allows us to change our minds. So, rather than come up with a solution after a long meeting, a strong inquiry question guides our discussions, our research, and our listening, so that eventually our thinking leads to thoughtful decisions, policies, and practices.

A good critical question:

  • Should be something each team member feels interested in or about (at least to some degree);
  • Should NOT be easily answered. While you may have a hunch, it will hopefully shed light on an issue or idea that has been unclear to you before;
  • Should be something that forces your team to look beyond the surface;
  • Should lead your team to interact with students (interviews, focus groups, surveys) and their work (tests, papers, freewrites, projects, presentations, etc.);
  • Should be thorny or possibly controversial.