Master Teacher Initiative

Mission

The primary mission of the Master Teacher Initiative is to enhance the quality of teaching within the College of Business at Colorado State University. More specifically, the Master Teacher Initiative:

1. Creates an environment where faculty across functional areas can share common teaching interests and concerns.

2. Contributes to the creation of a culture where the scholarship of teaching is valued and appreciated.

3. Symbolically signals to faculty the importance of quality teaching within the College’s tripartite mission of teaching, research and service.

4. Assists in the socialization of new faculty by providing an open forum where new and existing faculty can actively interact.

5. Provides tangible evidence of continuous improvement efforts in teaching for accreditation purposes.

Major Components of the Master Teacher Initiative

Master Teacher Workshops:

• Monthly Master Teacher Workshops are one-hour topical discussions by College of Business faculty or University Distinguished Teaching Scholars from a wide array of disciplines.

• Monthly workshops focusing on a variety of teaching issues such as:

  • Foundations of teaching, effective teacher attributers, learning objectives, student learning styles, course preparation, effective lecturing, interactive teaching, cooperative groups, testing and grading, managing classroom problems, case teaching, student evaluation surveys, scholarship of teaching, video feedback from peer mentors.

Master Teacher Tips of the Week:

• Weekly tips are sent each Monday morning to College of Business faculty. Master Teacher Tips of the Week cover a wider array to topics than can be covered in the monthly workshops. In addition, Tips of the Week maintain the Master Teacher Initiative's currency. Typical tip topics include:

  • How to handle cheating; closing routines for class, diversity and teaching, effective teacher attributes, exam design, humor and education, motivating students, understanding students, inspirational materials related to education, and the value of education.

Master Teacher Web Site

• Due to conflicting teaching schedules, interested faculty cannot attend every workshop. In addition, faculty occasionally request that Tips of the Week that they had seen earlier in the semester be resent. As a result, the need arose to develop a Master Teacher Web Site to archive materials.

• The Master Teacher Web Site archives the Master Teacher Workshops (which are now videotaped and the Master Teacher Tips of the Week. In addition, the mission and major components of the Maser Teacher Initiative are also described.

• Potentially, the Master Teacher Web Site could also provide a "chat room" for spontaneous posting and responding to teaching related issues.

Master Teacher Mentorship Program

• The idea behind the mentorship program is to assist on a one-to-one basis all faculty interested in improving their teaching. The Master Teacher Mentorship Program has yet to be implemented; however, interest does exist and informal mentoring may become more formalized in the future.