Teaching FSEM at UMW - 2008

The first two-day FSEM Faculty Workshop was held on May 15 & 16, 2008. Building on what has been offered in past years, this two day workshop was structured around the mission and goals of the FSEM Program. Follow the links to the right for video and materials from each session.

Thursday, May 15

Morning Session

9:00 – 10:00 Mission & Purpose of the FSEM Program at UMW

10:15 – 12:00 Who are these first-year students?
• What are students expectations and abilities?
• Overview of oral and written communication skills
• Information seeking behavior
• Preparing for the NetGen

Afternoon Session

1:30 – 2:30 What are effective ways of building community in my FSEM?
• Values of building intellectual community
• Building the right climate
• Goals and requirements of intellectual communities

2:45 – 3:45 How do I make my course exploratory in nature?
• Why take an exploratory approach?
• Appropriate research and information retrieval techniques
• Writing, speaking and listening as tools for exploration

Friday, May 16

Morning Session

9:00 – 10:15 Creating an environment of participatory learning
• The participatory model
• Student feedback to this approach
• Impediments and Concerns

10:30 – 12:00 Argument, Advocacy, and Deliberation in the Classroom
• How to handle argument and deliberation in the classroom
• Break out sessions

Afternoon Session

1:00 – 1:30 Debriefing and Wrap-up on argument

1:30 – 2:00 Using and Evaluating Information and Sources of Information
• Discuss difficulties that students often encounter when using information resources
• Tips and solutions to alleviate problems with assignment clarity, terminology, resource currency, and assignments that fail to help students build research skills

2:15 – 4:00 Putting it all together
• Former FSEM instructors discuss course goals, assignments, and teaching strategies
• Tips for evaluating speaking assignments
• Tips for evaluating writing assignments