Notes and News

This month's Teaching Central is focused on Service Learning. CMU has a strong component of service learning throughout the university and we are capturing a few pieces for you this month.

We have Service-Learning articles by James McDonald (Teacher Education and Professional Development), Lynn Dominguez, (Recreation Parks and Leisure Services) and Thomas Kromer (Teacher Education and Professional Development) as well as our monthly article by Denise Webster whose article Service-Learning as Evidence for Program-level Assessment speaks to the possibility of using Service-Learning in a broader context.

Lilly North 2006 has a specific track this year devoted to Service Learning and Volunteerism. Speakers already identified for this track include Nicholas Holton, Jeffrey Howard, Jim McDonald and Ed Zlotkowski (check the Lilly North website for more information about invited presenters). We have received some interesting and thought-provoking proposals for the conference and are in the process of building the program. I'll be including information about the other tracks in future editions.

The Teaching Tip this month is on creating BlackBoard shells and don't forget to check out FaCIT’s resources on improving student learning and CMU faculty research. We've also set dates for the spring BlackBoard Institute and BlackBoard 7 update.

Also note the new feature Awards, Commendations and Honors. We will have this report when we know about new books published and honors or awards received by CMU faculty. You (CMU’s faculty) are involved in exciting research and publications and we would like to showcase and share your accomplishments with others. Please forward any information for this new feature to me at ekstr1i@cmich.edu.

Until next time,

Ireta