landon johnson

Blog Comment

Here's how it works for me... every time I manage to turn a light on, it adds a key to my keyring. Over the years I've amassed quite a few keys, and when I have a recalcitrant student I start trying keys till I find the one that fits that student. Getting to know them and their background reduces the subset of keys I have to try before I find the right one.

landon johnson

Blog Comment

Why Are Training Observations Important?

One of the biggest reasons I have found to do faculty observations is simply that the customers - uh, students, see that they are being done. It shows our customers that we are on top of their level of satisfaction and thereby advocating for a quality education.

landon johnson

Blog Comment

Sharing the Faculty Coach Experience

There should be no difficulty in aligning final exams with course material. If your courses have effectively written objectives, the questions sghould almost pop right out of the syllabus!

BTW there is nothing wrong with a final exam being a challenge. As long as it is an expected challenge and based on what the students are told through the syllabus that they are supposed to learn.

We give our students a list of the course objectives in the form of a checklist; students and instructor check off the material as it is uncovered. There are no surprises as to what… >>>

landon johnson

Discussion Comment

Evaluating Faculty Performance: How Subjective Is It?

My definition of faculty performance is the same as my definition for customer satisfaction. If our students are happy they will learn and they will stay, and contrary to popular thought ease of a course is not always commensurate with approval of the instructor by the student.

There are some subjective areas to our analysis of faculty performance but surprisingly enough these factors do ultimately follow the metrics we employ; namely customer satisfaction (through surveys) and attrition rate. We have a mission and values set and our evaluations are tied tightly to them.

landon johnson

Discussion Comment

Faculty Coach Successes and Challenges

I have found it helpful to introduce analogies to instructors who do not have a 'teaching knowledge' of the material. For instance, DeMorgan's theorem states that "A nor'ed with B" is the same as "not A ANDed with Not B". Hard to wrap yourself around, but if you provide a statement of analogy like "If it is NOT raining AND NOT snowing, THEN it is neither raining NOR snowing."

I'm a firm believer that nearly everything technical can be described using terminology and commonplace events that students have seen before in the day-to-day. Tap into this and your students will… >>>