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Positioning the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program for the New Century
The Faculty Teaching Excellence Program at CU-Boulder
The Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP) develops the art and craft of teaching among faculty. FTEP has been "teaching teaching" to professors like Professor Dunn since 1986, because good teaching is rarely innate, but is rather a learned skill.
FTEP is founded on the principles that there is no one right way to teach and that faculty learn best from one another. These processes vary by discipline and vary with faculty members' own styles.
Professor Jim Curry (center) with Jonathan
Peeters (left)
and Tye Pattenburg (right)
Benefits to the Community
The benefits that FTEP provides are many and varied:
A more qualified and productive workforce
with useful thinking skills
An enhanced value of degrees and thus
meaningful job opportunities
A higher caliber faculty and student
body
Better retention of faculty by creating
an interactive environment
Enhanced prestige for CU
The Payback
"If someone were to do a cost-benefit
analysis of this program, the results would
be astonishing. FTEP has invested about
$500 in me – but the skills I’ve learned
will pay off over a lifetime of teaching
at CU!"
– Professor Dunn
The Teaching Professor
Physics Professor
and President's Teaching Scholar John
Taylor, CU's "Mr. Wizard"
FTEP enlists a corps of more than 70 Boulder faculty volunteers to assist with teaching. Social Sciences Professors Jerry Hauser and natural sciences Professor Susan Avery helped Professor Dunn reflect on course content and learning techniques. One of these techniques is “peer cell learning,” in which students learn to teach one another. It has become a successful element of her class structure.
Services Offered
In addition, Professor Dunn has access to both individual services and services of faculty learning communities. Both are voluntary and confidential. They include:
Consultation to Teaching
Provides individual, confidential consultation involving an in-class videotape, observation, and student feedback.
New Faculty Program
Senior teaching scholar faculty mentor, plan for and support assistant professors in developing their teaching and research and in bonding positions with the university to stay at CU for their lifetime in the academy. (80 percent of newly hired assistant professors have enrolled since 1996)
Faculty (Departmental, School and College) Liaisons for Technology in Teaching and Learning
Integrates technology in teaching (42 departmental faculty projects at present)
Summer Institute for New Media Pedagogy, Scholarship and Learning Technologies
Faculty discover how technology can be used as a tool. (96 faculty from 37 departments including 2 faculty from Dillard University have participated since 1998)
Symposia on Teaching and Learning -"Performance in a Nutshell"
Videotaped and analytical review of teaching performance (173 faculty participants over the past 13 years)
Our Needs for the Future
CU-Boulder is looking to fully endow the FTEP. Funding opportunities include:
- Two Endowed Teaching Scholars: $750,000 each
- One Directorship: $3,000,000
- Named
Program: $10,000,000
Funding will help attract, honor and retain the best teaching and research talent to the university. According to Professor Dunn, having endowed teaching scholars on a full-time basis would be invaluable to entry level professors. It would allow for:
- More one-on-one time
- Ongoing consultation, with immediate feedback on the teaching experience
- Fewer scheduling complications
- Less hesitation about using a volunteer mentor’s valuable time
Professor and Nobel Prize winner Carl
Wieman, Physics Department, University
of Colorado
The Mission of Learning
"At CU-Boulder, our primary value is learning - and I mean in its broadest sense. It begins with learning from discovery and the creation of new knowledge through research, analyzing and interpreting research and then teaching to others what is known."
- Former Chancellor Richard Byyny
FTEP's Faculty Associates recognize the importance of each faculty member to this mission.
What the Faculty Say about FTEP
Professor Dunn, I just wanted to make one final comment about your class… as a result of the lesson plans, the way the material was presented, and the dynamic of the class I was able to learn more, understand more, and retain more than in almost any other class in my four years at CU. Thank you and I hope you will be teaching here for a long time to come.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Molander
Elizabeth Dunn is beginning her teaching career at CU-Boulder as an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Affairs and is a recent participant in CU-Boulder’s Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP).
"When I came to CU, I made a promise to myself that I would focus explicitly on teaching skills, not just content. FTEP not only helped me accomplish that, but it has made teaching a rewarding and pleasurable experience for me.
In working with faculty, you begin to realize the similarities in teaching issues across the disciplines…I used the FTEP extensively when I began to change my own methods for teaching and learning… I believe I have given something back by working with other faculty. Thank you, FTEP."
- Professor Susan Avery, Director, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering
"My college’s First Level Review Committee is keenly interested in whether or not a faculty member under review has been working with the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program. If a candidate has had difficulty with teaching, coming up for comprehensive review, the Committee wants to see that they have connected up with FTEP."
- Professor Clayton Lewis, President’s Teaching Scholar, Chair, Computer Science, College of Engineering
"Research in cognitive psychology has told us a great deal about how people learn, and how they can be taught…Our faculty needs to become familiar with this body of knowledge, not in abstract theoretical form, but in terms of its practical implications. FTEP plays a crucial role in this respect."
- Professor Walter Kintsch, Director Cognitive Science Institute, CU-Boulder
"The Faculty Teaching Excellence Program offers a wealth of resources to help faculty understand, assess, and refine our teaching skills…The program's service and support has played a pivotal role in my growth as a teacher and learner."
- Professor Brenda J. Allen, CU-Boulder, Communication Department
The Faculty Teaching Excellence Program will grow stronger with your interest and participation. For more information on how you can help, please contact:
Director: Mary Ann Shea, Ph.D.
Administrative Assistant: Meg Clarke
Faculty Teaching Excellence Program
University of Colorado at Boulder
360 UCB
ATLAS 235
Boulder, CO 80309-0360
Tel: 303-492-4985 Fax: 303-492-7406
E-mail: ftep@Colorado.Edu
www.colorado.edu/ftep/
Or
Myrna Hall, Vice-President for Development
The University of Colorado Foundation
P.O. Box 1140
Boulder, CO 80306
www.colorado.edu/cufoundation
Old Main, University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
February, 2003
Download a PDF version of the Fundraising Brochure (February 2000).
