Effective Teaching and Academic Careers Workshop

CRA will again this year offer workshops on effective teaching and academic career development for people working in computing research. These workshops grew out of a series of highly successful workshops that were organized during the past several years by the CRA Committee on the Status of Women (CRA-W). People can sign up for either workshop, or receive a discount for signing up for both. The workshops are open to both men and women, and are primarily directed at advanced graduate students and junior faculty.

This year’s Effective Teaching Workshop is organized by Tim Finin from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, while the Academic Careers Workshop is organized by Dave Patterson of the University of California, Berkeley. Both are members of the CRA Board of Directors.

The Effective Teaching Workshop and the Academic Careers Workshop will be held in Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday, July 23 and Friday, July 24, 1998, respectively. The location coincides with a major meeting of the AAAI and several collocated meetings of groups interested in artificial intelligence, cognitive science and related topics. While there may be some examples used from the AI field in the CRA workshops, the focus will be on practical issues of interest to people beginning their academic career in computing, no matter what their field of specialty.

Topics at last year’s Effective Teaching Workshop included preparing and delivering lectures, preparing and grading examinations, setting laboratory assignments, getting students to work effectively in group efforts, negotiating teaching assignments, and dealing with problem and gifted students.

Topics at last year’s Academic Career Development Workshop included the tenure process, networking, selecting and managing a research program, obtaining research funding, and time management and family issues.

If you would like to see copies of the presentations given at last year’s workshops, please view our website http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/academic_careers.html or http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/effective.html

For more information on this year’s workshops or to receive registration information as it becomes available, contact kpeaks@cra.org.