Rigorous Teaching

 

Through rigorous teaching, faculty members of UM-Helena strive to sustain a learning environment that challenges students to attain high levels of intellectual and technical skills in an ethical manner.  Rigorous teaching permits faculty members to create learning environments that encourage students to grow in confidence, competence, and control. Rigorous teaching requires a professional commitment to academic discipline and to inspiring students to develop their knowledge and understanding by developing their learning skills.

 

 Students should be able to expect faculty members to:

·          Strive to clearly communicate the course expectations and have them summarized on the syllabus, and to follow the curriculum;

·          Strive to come to class prepared, and to give students useful feedback on their assignments in as timely manner as the situation permits;

·          Strive to be available to students outside of the classroom;

·          Strive to make assignments relevant, meaningful and challenging;

·          Strive to create opportunities for learning in ways geared to students’ diverse talents and abilities;

·          Strive to reduce, if not eliminate, the students’ perceived need to plagiarize and to challenge plagiarism should it occur; and

·          Strive to evaluate their courses and themselves

 

 

Rigorous Learning

 

To make the most of the college experience, students should approach college in terms of a rigor complementary to the faculty’s. Rigorous learning requires fortitude, persistence, preparation, hard work, and zeal.  Since college shifts students from the teacher-centered style of high school learning to a student-centered style of learning, it places a higher level of responsibility for performance onto the students.  Such high performance at a demanding institution can lead to a successful and satisfying career.

 

 Therefore, rigorous students should expect themselves to:

·          Set high expectations along with a strong sense of collegiate purpose;

·          Come to class prepared to work and to submit assignments by the deadlines;

·          Make the most of their time with faculty members in and out of class;

·          Treat fellow students and the classroom with respect, and to participate in the academic process;

·          Manage their time so they can treat college as real work with real value;

·          Participate with complete honesty and integrity; 

·          Understand that collaboration with classmates on assignments, when required or encouraged, is acceptable behavior as long as the products of those assignments are truly the student’s own work; 

·          Accept responsibility for learning and for the grades earned.

 

                                                       SOURCE:  UM-Helena Faculty Handbook 2004