Tim Slater
Timothy F. Slater, Ph.D., is a Professor at the University of Wyoming where he holds the Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Chair for Science Education. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education (JAESE.org) and a Senior Scientist at the CAPER Center for Astronomy & Physics Education Research. A frequent lecturer on contemporary strategies for innovative college science teaching, Professor Slater is often introduced as the Professors’ Professor because of his decades-spanning work on teaching professors how to teach. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Wyoming, Dr. Slater was a tenured professor in the Astronomy Department at the University of Arizona where he built the first Ph.D. program in discipline-based astronomy education research. Professor Slater earned his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina, his M.S. from Clemson University, and two bachelors’ degrees from Kansas State University. Dr. Slater has been elected for multiple-terms on the Councils and Boards of Directors for the American Astronomical Society, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, National Science Teachers Association, Society of College Science Teacher, and has chaired committees for the American Association of Physics Teachers, American Physical Society, and American Institute of Physics. He is an author on more than 100 refereed articles, eleven books, winner of numerous awards, and is frequently an invited speaker on improving teaching of science through educational research and improving teacher education.
Supervisors: John Safko, John Carptenter, and Joseph M. Ryan
Phone: 5209751373
Address: 604 S 26th St, Laramie, WY 82070 USA
Supervisors: John Safko, John Carptenter, and Joseph M. Ryan
Phone: 5209751373
Address: 604 S 26th St, Laramie, WY 82070 USA
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As most professors are relatively autonomous in their teaching in that they are rarely supervised by their peers or administrators, professors are not used to getting a tremendous amount of feedback about their teaching. As a result, there is a wide spectrum of faculty viewpoints about teaching improvement. Some professors are overly risk-adverse, and do not want to have their teaching weaknesses revealed and highlighted to themselves, or anyone else. These types of professors often believe that a don’t-ask & don’t-tell policy means that if one doesn’t speak of teaching improvements, then there is nothing to improve upon.
Are students really reading your syllabus? On one hand, it is possible that students are carefully reading your syllabus; however, perhaps your carefully designed program of study or thoughtfully constructed course policies are simply lost in the sea of first-day-of-class information students are receiving from your class and their other four classes on the same day. The result being that it seems as if students are not reading your syllabus when they actually are; but in sipping from the information firehose, your crucial information is understandably lost.
On the other hand, it is possible that your students are not bothering to read your syllabus at all. Perhaps students have learned through experience that syllabus information on average of all their classes is really is not that important and that professors will make emphatic note during class of important dates and policies as they apply over time. The result being that students really do not need to allocate mental energy to ingesting a class syllabus.
Either way, I’ve got a problem. There really are important policies in my syllabus I want students to read. And perhaps more importantly, I have spent a considerable amount of time designing a detailed pathway for success for my students to follow.
Enter the SYLLABUS QUIZ. I assign an open-book quiz on the critical content of my syllabus that students are required to take-and counts toward their overall course grade-ten days after my class starts. The primary and most obvious advantage of using a syllabus quiz is that students have a graded-task that engages them in understanding my course policies and procedures.
Regardless, I keep giving—and grading—homework assignments because I believe it helps my students learn the material more completely, more deeply, and more durable. But, do your students know why they are being assigned homework? If students deeply understand the precise role that homework assignments play in your class, students just might embrace homework more.
As most professors are relatively autonomous in their teaching in that they are rarely supervised by their peers or administrators, professors are not used to getting a tremendous amount of feedback about their teaching. As a result, there is a wide spectrum of faculty viewpoints about teaching improvement. Some professors are overly risk-adverse, and do not want to have their teaching weaknesses revealed and highlighted to themselves, or anyone else. These types of professors often believe that a don’t-ask & don’t-tell policy means that if one doesn’t speak of teaching improvements, then there is nothing to improve upon.
Are students really reading your syllabus? On one hand, it is possible that students are carefully reading your syllabus; however, perhaps your carefully designed program of study or thoughtfully constructed course policies are simply lost in the sea of first-day-of-class information students are receiving from your class and their other four classes on the same day. The result being that it seems as if students are not reading your syllabus when they actually are; but in sipping from the information firehose, your crucial information is understandably lost.
On the other hand, it is possible that your students are not bothering to read your syllabus at all. Perhaps students have learned through experience that syllabus information on average of all their classes is really is not that important and that professors will make emphatic note during class of important dates and policies as they apply over time. The result being that students really do not need to allocate mental energy to ingesting a class syllabus.
Either way, I’ve got a problem. There really are important policies in my syllabus I want students to read. And perhaps more importantly, I have spent a considerable amount of time designing a detailed pathway for success for my students to follow.
Enter the SYLLABUS QUIZ. I assign an open-book quiz on the critical content of my syllabus that students are required to take-and counts toward their overall course grade-ten days after my class starts. The primary and most obvious advantage of using a syllabus quiz is that students have a graded-task that engages them in understanding my course policies and procedures.
Regardless, I keep giving—and grading—homework assignments because I believe it helps my students learn the material more completely, more deeply, and more durable. But, do your students know why they are being assigned homework? If students deeply understand the precise role that homework assignments play in your class, students just might embrace homework more.
F. Slater, 2008, in Amateur Astronomers in Education and Public Outreach, (Michael Gibbs, Editor), published by
the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, CA, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-58381-315-7
Articles are published describing both (i) systematic science education research and (ii) evaluated teaching innovations across the broadly defined Earth & space sciences education, including the disciplines of astronomy, climate education, energy resource science, environmental science, geology, geography, agriculture, meteorology, planetary sciences, and oceanography education.
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