Building a Teaching and Learning Community at Montana State University

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Project SummaryThis institution-wide reform project comprises three vital initiatives that enable Montana State University-Bozeman to move from a campus with promising "hot spots" of innovation in undergraduate SME&T education, to an institution with truly campus-wide involvement in these efforts. The first initiative creates a Teaching & Learning at MSU (TL - MSU) Start-Up Program to provide professional development and mentoring support to recent hires in SME&T fields. New hires will be given incentives to form a teaching & learning support team with an experienced faculty member and a graduate student to participate in a variety of professional development activities. The second initiative creates a Teaching & Learning Campus Profile for campus-wide formative assessment of present and future reforms. This crucial resource aggregates qualitative and quantitative data to provide an accurate understanding of accomplishments and needs. The third initiative creates a Faculty Teaching & Learning Portfolio (TLP) model to support meaningful evaluation of the significant professional commitment many faculty are making to improve the scholarship of teaching and learning. MSU faculty have stepped forward to meet the challenge presented by calls for fundamental rethinking of the standard teaching and learning paradigm. This project provides a much needed evaluation tool engendering the richness of faculty teaching/learning efforts and redirecting attention to student learning--the ultimate goal and test of reform. Through these three initiatives startup program that brings teams of new faculty, experienced faculty, and graduate students together to improve teaching and learning; a strong assessment component to underpin reform efforts; and a new faculty evaluation model that facilitates rewarding the practice and scholarship of teaching this proposal creates tools for MSU to use and to share with other campuses nationally.