Fall 2005

Rethinking Courses

The University Teaching Fellows Program aims to help our most intellectually sound and successful junior faculty members develop into exceptionally fine teachers. The selection committee—comprised of award-winning faculty—seeks to choose junior faculty members who show promise of becoming both eminent researchers and inspiring teachers. In existence since 1992 and funded by the Provost, the UTF Program remains true to its original Lilly Endowment goals to support impressive junior faculty as they refine their teaching expertise while pursuing strong research agendas. The Program centers around ongoing conversations about how faculty communicate their academic disciplines to undergraduates, how various teaching approaches might enhance one's courses, and how research enlivens and inspires teaching. The 2005-06 winners of University Teaching Fellowships will be rethinking these courses:

Alev Erisir, Psychology
I will create Psychopharmacology, a new mid-level survey course on an integrative topic. Thus this course will be a good portal for students with clinical and social psychology interests to explore the biological aspects of behavior and behavioral pathology, while those with neuroscience interests will get a chance to explore translational aspects of basic science. Within these very strengths, of course, lie the challenges of teaching a multidisciplinary course to students with diverse backgrounds. Turning those challenges into advantages, facilitating class interaction, and fostering personal skills useful in science careers will be among the issues on which I will be concentrating.

Ellen Fuller, Studies in Women & Gender; Asian & Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures
My new course, Japan in the World Order, will utilize an interdisciplinary approach to solving the riddle of Japan's relatively minor political standing in the international arena despite its major economic importance and its efforts to reposition itself (post-Cold War). The course goal is to build a matrix-type theory that relies on multiple units of analysis, moving the debate beyond the more facile East-West binaries such as groupism versus individualism. The study of Japanese culture in relationship to social, political, and economic life will serve as the thematic vehicle, and translations of Japanese scholarly analysis will be compared to western approaches.

Nilanga Liyanage, Physics
Many students taking modern physics find concepts such as relativity and quantum mechanics counter-intuitive and closer to science fiction than to reality. However, these concepts are routinely tested, demonstrated and utilized in particle physics experiments today. I will focus on developing a set of application-based modern physics lectures aimed at science majors, with the goal of presenting such advanced, abstract physics concepts in a manner attractive to motivated students. I plan to incorporate these lectures into my current course, Quantum Mechanics (PHYS 355). I also intend to develop a short course, based on the same material, either for the J-term or as a seminar.

Christian McMillen, History
I'll spend my fellowship year rethinking one of my lecture courses—Native America. The course covers a very long period of time—from the last Ice Age to the present-and a massive geographical scale—all of North America. Because of the course's time depth and geographical scope, it presents one principal pedagogical challenge: how do I adequately cover such a vast topic while not sacrificing depth? During my fellowship year I will work on redesigning my course so as to emphasize broad themes that transcend both time and space.

Margarita Nafpaktitis, Slavic Languages and Literatures
My course, America through Russian Eyes, explores ideas of America refracted through another culture's lens, situating those ideas within the dynamic context of contemporary Russian cultural, social, and political life. It introduces students to non-canonical works by canonical Russian authors, incorporates film, music and other forms of popular culture into discussions and assignments, and emphasizes independent research. I plan to reconfigure the course (which I introduced in Fall 2004) to embrace more theoretically rigorous and comparative questions, to make more extensive use of non-literary sources, and to introduce active-learning techniques that can be effective in a larger lecture course.

Hyekyun Rhee, Nursing
My project will target the research course required in nursing education: Basic Research Concepts for Health Disciplines (NUIP 416). The goals of this course are to enable students to read research reports critically, to evaluate research quality, and to determine how research reports apply to nursing practice. The revised course will effectively motivate students by focusing and capitalizing on both the inherent strengths of adult learners and the flexibility of on-line courses. The project will also explore creative, effective approaches to promoting learning relevant to these students' unique situations. These changes will help students take more responsibility for their own learning.

Dorothy A. Schafer, Biology
My project will focus on Cellular Mechanisms (BIOL 426), a course with flexible content that considers central questions in cell biology. This small-enrollment class is ideally suited for discussionbased learning using current research literature. My goals are to enhance learning by taking advantage of the expertise of researchers on Grounds as guest lecturers, to explore additional "central questions" as course topics, and to learn techniques for generating engaging discussion among all students, regardless of their abilities." I will also consider strategies to incorporate the best features of this course into Core 1: Molecular and Cell Biology (BIOL 300), the largerenrollment, basic-cell biology course required of all Biology majors and pre-med students.