Susan Trimble
Associate Professor
Teaching and Learning
BACKGROUND
Teaching has been the focus of my life from the time I first started  tutoring students in Wisconsin through public school teaching and getting my doctorate ten years ago at Florida State University. At whatever level, the field of teaching has proven to be a marvelous profession because it involves helping students think and act in new ways, offering them more opportunities. The doctorate added the dimensions of research and the challenges of combining teaching and research, both in conducting research in public schools and in applying systematic investigations of my own teaching.
On coming to Georgia Southern in 1996 after ten years of public school teaching, I had just finished my doctorate and was looking forward to a life of teaching and learning in the College of Education. I was hired as an assistant professor, and I felt the cockiness and hesitation of being the “new kid on the block.” Little did I know that the next ten years would bring me a constant stream of learning new ways of teaching and developing better ways of thinking.
Two sustained experiences provided the structure for my growth as a faculty member. The first experience entailed mentors, senior faculty who were willing to share their experiences and provide guidance for a novice in academe. They exposed me to the ins and out of publishing, the work of the university at large, the value of community work, the development of a research agenda, and the alignment of research and course development.
The second experience entailed being associated with a place of faculty learning where I had access to resources and expertise. The Center for Excellence in Teaching provided such a place, particularly at a time when, in the 1990’s, the emergence of web-based platforms was providing new tools for course development and management. I was able to learn about the functions of WebCT and Blackboard that provided online course delivery, web-page design, video streaming, chatting, electronic record keeping, and use of web-based resources. The Center also provided a place for me to design professional presentations and posters, develop my teaching portfolio, philosophy, and my tenure papers; and talk to colleagues from other disciplines in retreat settings.
TEACHING, LEARNING, AND SCHOLARSHIP
Over the past seven years, I have used and examined web-based delivery systems (WebCT/Vista), learning the value of web-based course components. These experiences have been one of the most rewarding learning experiences in that they have prompted me to examine the strengths and weakness of online learning environments and the components of effective learning experiences for college level students. These experiences complemented my research agenda that includes high performing teams of faculty in schools, effective teaching practices for young adolescents and effective learning environments.
Of particular interest to me are the ways that we as instructors can align objective/standards of the course with problem-based learning and group work. Using grant money, I was able to encourage five school practitioners to write one-page scenarios about school problems they face as teacher leaders. These scenarios were sufficiently complex in their description to provide real-life illustrations of multiple layers of problems and conflicting issues. I now use these scenarios as group problem-solving assignments for students in my graduate course on teacher leadership.
The use of group work as an online learning strategy is another personal interest that has the potential to expand students’ ways of thinking and to engage them collaboratively on a specific complex task. Over the past semesters, I have experimented with the use of group work and discovered that three documents are helpful for the students’ success in working together. These documents are:
The collaboration component consists of my posting a list of effective collaboration skills, and the processes of
(1) each group identifying its own description of positive group member contribution before working together,
(2) each group member evaluating others in the group after completion of the assignment, and
(3) the instructor occasionally examining chat logs for the quality of the discussion and member contributions.
Another instructional interest of mine is the use of whole-class chats and group chats to develop students’ skills and understanding of course content. Over the years, I gathered assorted versions of effective chat practices using trial and error, student suggestions, and chat techniques from my colleagues at the College of Education. The result has been a set of chat etiquette, protocols, and techniques for my online course supplements. I have found that establishing a consistent protocol for chat sessions seems to be effective in helping to engage students and help them grasp key concepts. This protocol includes group work, specific questions and readings, and the repetition of key concepts over a series of chat sessions. Using such a protocol enables structured and task-focused chat sessions.
I foresee the CET’s forthcoming Faculty Learning Communities program as being a valuable asset for faculty who are investigating aspects of teaching for their own course development or who have a research interest within the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. These forums provide a vehicle for group learning on topics of interest to faculty. They have the potential for innovative thinking, experimentation across varied disciplines, and sharing of experiences related to improving teaching. I have benefited tremendously from such interactions with faculty learning groups and recommend them highly.
If you are interested in discussing this or a related teaching and learning strategy please feel free to contact me at (912) 681-5596.
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