Friday @ the Center
January 15, 2010
SPU Grants to Support Research
Don't forget that applications for SPU grants to support research and scholarship during the 2010-2011 academic year are due on Feb. 1, 2010. Three SPU-funded grants are available each year: The Faculty Research Grant (FRG), Senior Faculty Grant (SFG), and SERVE Grant in Vocation and Theology. The first two programs support direct research expenses, student assistants, a summer stipend, or release time to pursue a scholarly project. Priority in FRGs is given to pre-tenured faculty; SFGs are limited to tenured faculty. The Faculty SERVE Vocation Grant supports research and curriculum that center on theological exploration of vocation in a wide variety of disciplines. Complete descriptions of each program and NEW interactive application forms are now available on the CSFD website. Final awards will be determined by the Faculty Development Committee by March 1.
2009-2010 Learning Living Grant Awarded
Congratulations to seniors Kate Steensma and Alice Vander Haak, who were recently awarded this year’s Learning Living Grant of $3000. Sponsored by the Associated Students of Seattle Pacific (ASSP) in collaboration with the Office of Academic Affairs, the grant supports students in a project that applies their academic area of study to a service program benefiting the larger community. Kate, a biology major, and Alice, a nutrition major, have begun the SPU Community Garden Project : an on-campus organic vegetable garden that provides an interactive, educational, and service-oriented opportunity for students and Queen Anne community members to learn about vegetable cultivation and stewardship in an urban environment. A portion of the garden’s produce will be donated to local food banks, and the Community Garden Project will host an April lecture series focusing on topics such as agricultural sustainability, creation care, and nutritional health. Eric Long, Biology, serves as the faculty advisor for the project.
Help Students Learn to Read
Do you suspect that students either a) are not reading the assigned chapters, or b) have read them but have retained nothing? Many college students today (and even graduate students) have poor reading skills. But you can help them learn how to read effectively; assignments that help students learn to read well require that they respond in writing to the reading. While nightmares of towers of papers to be graded may be lurking, there are time-efficient ways to do this. Double-entry journals (summaries in one column, comments and questions in another) are one option. Here’s another, Karl Wirth’s “Reading Reflection” exercise:
After completing the reading assignment, write brief responses
(i.e., at least several sentences) to 2 out of the 3 questions:
1. What is the main point of this reading?
2. What information did you find surprising? Why?
3. What did you find confusing? Why?
Wirth reports that doing the reading reflection correlates with final grades with an r-value of greater than 0.8, and his results were replicated in another study published in the Journal of Chemical Education. Reflective writing accompanying reading helps learning. Such exercises can be simply recorded as being done, or the instructor can skim through them briefly to identify areas of difficulty for the class.
Happy Teaching,
Susan Susan VanZanten |
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