Welcome to ROUNDS!

This weekly e-newsletter goes out to all OU-HCOM and CORE personnel and students.

The ROUNDS archive is here.

NEWS

Class of 2015 arrives on campus

            OU-HCOM today welcomed the 140 members of the Class of 2015, the largest class in the college’s history. According to John Schriner, Ph.D., director of admissions, the class has the highest MCAT scores in college history.

            The demographics of this year’s class includes:

·         22 percent who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups,

·         86 percent hail from Ohio,

·         14 percent are from Appalachian Ohio, and

·         25 percent are a first-generation college student.

            At today’s opening session of orientation, the class was greeted by Dean Jack Brose, D.O., and Robert Juhasz, D.O., who brought greetings from the Osteopathic Medicine profession.

            Today’s session concludes with the annual Orientation Picnic, originally planned to be held at the Dairy Lane/Southside Park at 5 p.m. However, due to weather concerns, the picnic may be moved to the Bricks in Irvine Hall.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Logos, poster templates with new college name now available

            To help with your research poster production and power point presentations, a number of downloadable poster templates and logos now are available with the college’s new name, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-HCOM).
            A guide containing information on creating and printing a research poster is available at PDF. Please allow a two-week lead-time for poster design. Contact Danette Pratt at 593-2296 or pratt@ohiou.edu if you have questions or to set up an appointment.

            To download poster templates, go to

http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/communications/posters2009.htm.

            To download the college logo or seal for uses other than posters, go to

http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/communications/LogoSeal2011.htm.

Check your parking permit for expiration

            Ohio University Parking Services reminds all staff and faculty with DG09 parking permits that they must be renewed by Sept. 1 to avoid an “expired/invalid permit” citation. Permits may be renewed anytime Mondays through Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Parking Services at 100 Factory Street.

            Parking Services recommends permit renewals be completed sooner than later in order to avoid long lines when students return to campus in August.

            When renewing parking permits, bring your current DG09 permit, your university faculty/staff identification and know your vehicle(s) license plate number.

            For information, go to http://www.facilities.ohiou.edu/parking/.

            For information about the university’s new “pay to park” program, or to opt out of the program, go to http://www.facilities.ohiou.edu/parking/documents/P2PTransitionDescriptionandFAQ_002.pdf.

CALENDAR

Class of 2015 Orientation picnic

• Event: TODAY, July 25, 5 p.m., Irvine Bricks

Faculty Development Brown Bag

            Joe Bianco, Ph.D., research assistant professor, presents “Consistent Highest Facilitator Evaluations,” for those who serve as a small group facilitator and/or are curious about this type of teaching assignment.

·         Event: Wednesday, Aug. 1, noon, Grosvenor 113

2011 Convocation/White Coat Ceremony

• Event: Aug. 13, 2 p.m., Templeton-Blackburn Memorial Alumni Auditorium

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Faculty Development Tidbit: Teaching Strategies: Lecturing

            The 200 students in the room are clattering about greeting the friends they haven't seen since last semester, trying to find their favorite pens at the bottoms of backpacks, trying to remember whether they've bought a spiral notebook for this class or whether to use the one they just used for their last class, wondering if their significant others really meant what they said last night.

            You are at the front of the room, about to introduce them to the subject that has held your interest through a decade of graduate school, poverty, travel, intellectual separation from loved ones. You are, in fact, about to introduce them to something you've loved, planned for, grappled with, despised, rejected, and/or re-embraced for years. It is your field, your spouse, your child. They are still wondering about the location of their favorite pens, the movie they saw two nights ago.

            By all means, organize your lecture carefully. Have the thing make sense. Be concise. But, perhaps most important, communicate the passion you have. If you REALLY want to be an inspirational teacher, show your students your passion.

            Richard L. Weaver, who has taught at the University of Michigan and Indiana University, suggests usingthe A.I.D.A. formula for putting passion in your lectures: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

To grasp students' attention:

• Allow a few minutes of adjustment time; don't put your key sentence right at the beginning when students are still looking for their pens.
• Give students a forecast of what the major points will be.
• Review how today's lecture fits into the course.
• Begin with a story, an example, a startling statistic, a personal experience.

To maintain students' interest:

• Share information that is particularly relevant to students. Relate topics of your field to University issues.
• Cover fewer points or topics, but cover them in depth. Superficial treatments of armies of topics is boring.
• Vary the kind of information you give: statistics, historical anecdotes, simple facts, illustrations...
• Vary presentation format: incorporate students' questions; move around; use the blackboard, charts, graphs, maps, pictures, books, magazines; use films, slides, the overhead projector, television.
• Your lecture is a speech. Prepare for it as carefully and thoughtfully as you would a persuasive speech.

To communicate your desire for students to be as committed to their education as you are:

• Show students what you have done in your field, your current and planned future involvement.
• Demonstrate your emotional commitment. You've done everything but bleed for your intellectual interests, and maybe you've even done that--communicate it.
• Eliminate speech hesitancies such as "uh," "er," "you know,"--be intellectually and physically powerful.

To inspire students to be as filled with action as you are:

• Be prompt, efficient, prepared, and alert.
• Maintain eye contact with students.
• Maintain an alert and erect posture.
• Move about with certainty and surety. Eliminate random, casual, or distracting movements.
• Gesture comfortably and naturally. Do not plan your gestures, but plan to gesture.

            Putting these suggestions into action does not guarantee that students will sit wide-eyed and breathless on the edges of their chairs, using all their restraint to raise their hands before asking questions, but it will help communicate your passion. And if your students understand your passion, they may just become impassioned themselves--keeping up with the reading, asking relevant and significant questions, visiting at your office hours to ask how to research a related issue, and maybe learning how to make the love of learning into the most helpful life tool they have.

Adapted from "Effective Lecturing Techniques: Alternatives to Classroom Boredom" by Richard L. Weaver in Teaching College: Collected Readings for the New Instructor. Ed. by Rose Ann Neff and Maryellen Weimer. Madison, WI: Magna Publications, 1990.

Source: http://trc.virginia.edu/Publications/Teaching_Concerns/Spring_1994/TC_Spring_1994_Teaching_Strategies.htm

Find more tips at your OU-COM & CORE faculty development web resources:  www.oucom.ohiou.edu/fd/programs.htm or www.ohiocore.org/cf/index.htm.  If you have a great strategy that seems to always work, please send it to me, and I’ll include it in a future Faculty Development Tidbit. Tidbits courtesy of your Office of Faculty Development with Steve Davis, Ph.D.; Robbin Kirkland, Ph.D.; and Olivia Sheehan, Ph.D.

Please send your news/announcements to rounds@oucom.ohiou.edu each week by Wednesday, 3 p.m. for consideration in the following ROUNDS. If you have questions, suggestions or corrections, please contact Richard Heck, writer/editor, at 593.0896 or heck@oucom.ohiou.edu.