The purpose of this section is to assist faculty in providing quality educational programs and to facilitate student understanding.  To improve teaching is to improve learning; a systematic approach to course design and planning will enable us to formulate learning goals and align instructional techniques to student learning and assessment.

Cheating  At Montana State University "Cheating" is but one of several examples of Academic Misconduct which are addressed in the booklet Conduct Guidelines and Grievance Procedures for Students. This paper provides a brief description of the processes involved with cheating and plagarism.

Advising  Academic advising has the potential to strongly influence the retention and development of university students.  Through regular interactions with students, advisors can gain meaningful information about students' academic and personal experiences, abilities and needs.  These insights can be used to help students successfully connect to their academic community and develop appropriate academic and career goals, while fostering an appreciation of life-long learning.

Syllabus Creation This little guide is about pinpointing components of the syllabus that have served educators well over the centuries. Rather than send you out on the web (go if you’d like), I have compliled components that have survived the adherence to sectarian methods, traditions, and teachings that were the hallmarks of a typical medieval syllabus and are accepted as vital by most experts in the fieldtoday.

Curriculum Design  Often university instructors think it will be enough if they know the material well, but that is only part of what goes into teaching. You also have to know how to package it so learners with varying degrees of interest and ability will be able to learn it. Teaching is a complex activity that has to be explored, studied, understood, practiced, and perhaps eventually mastered. There are a few principles to bear in mind as you proceed.

Textbook Acquisition  The process of researching textbooks for the purpose of selecting appropriate course materials has come a long way in the last ten years, enabled as we have become by the Internet.  New tools are now available that consolidate and refine the process.  No longer are faculty tied to the formerly traditional methods of word-of-mouth, publisher representative dependent, or colleague based information streams.
 

Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 11/01/06