Maine Perspective Front Page
Learning Circles to Meet
Teams of UMaine faculty, staff and students will meet this semester to investigate aspects of teaching on campus.
These groups of five to eight people include individuals from three or more colleges or campus units, and at least one person who is new to the University. The groups are meeting as part of Learning Circles 2000, a project of the Center for Teaching Excellence to encourage discussions about teaching at UMaine.
Eleven Learning Circle proposals were funded by the Center. Proposals were reviewed by Ryan Carnegie, graduate student in Marine Sciences; Virginia Nees-Hatlen, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Sherman Rosser, executive director for University Recruitment; and James Berg, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. Funding for the Learning Circles 2000 program comes from the Adelaide C. and Alan L. Bird Fund for the Improvement of Teaching Quality through the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Learning Circle participants will share their work with the campus community in May 2000.
The project leaders and projects are:
- James Leck, Office of International Programs, "Meeting the challenge of teaching in an intercultural classroom"
- Jean MacRae, Civil and Environmental Engineering, "Identifying techniques to help at-risk students in the classroom"
- Kim McKeage, Business, Public Policy, and Health, "Recruiting and supporting women in non-traditional fields"
- Stephen Whittington, Hudson Museum, "Teaching diversity through objects"
- Carolyn Bennett and Kristin Langellier, Communication and Journalism, "Race matters in teaching and learning"
- Sharon Barker, Women's Resource Center, "Challenges that face women teaching primarily men"
- Estella Williams Chizhik, Education and Human Development, "Infusing multicultural and global issues into undergraduate education courses"
- Carlos Islam and Chris Mares, Intensive English Institute, "Using conferencing technology to impact the learning of English by international students"
- Sandra Caron, Education and Human Development, "Development of a concentration or minor in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual studies"