Assistant professor to chair at national conference
Thousands of people eager to learn sit on the edge of their seats as speakers unfold new information and the frightening truth is … they are almost all teachers.
Amy Rupiper Taggart, an assistant professor of English at NDSU, will be attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication Wednesday, March 21 in New York.
According to the CCCC Web site, the conference first started in 1949 and is the world’s largest professional organization for researching and teaching English composition.
The CCCC meets annually, sponsors meetings, helps teaching professionals exchange ideas and works to improve conditions for both learning and teaching college composition.
The CCCC is comprised of sessions and workshops. Sessions are presentations of new and innovative ideas dealing with composition. Workshops are classes that provide detailed examples and practices of different teaching methods.
“Workshops are usually half day or full day presentations and usually cost a nominal fee,” Andrew Mara, assistant professor of English, said. “The teachers of these workshops are not paid for their services, because money is not their primary goal for presenting at the CCCC. The purpose is to educate and help influence.”
Rupiper Taggart, who has presented at the CCCC annually for nearly ten years, has been given the opportunity to chair a workshop titled “Service Learning, Community Literacy and Civic Engagement: Developing, Teaching and Research.” She will also present a portion of the workshop titled “Assessing Your Program or Project, Part II.”
“Chair members oversee all workshops and sessions, with their job consisting of coordinating the events, getting professional speakers to appear, submitting proposals, monitoring the activities and moving the workshops along to fit all the information in to the day long class,” Rupiper Taggart said.
Community based teaching usually has the students work with non-profit community businesses, although some do take internships with profitable companies and use their knowledge to provide a valuable service.
At the same time, students that participate also learn valuable job experience to help with both resumes and everyday life after college.
“There is documented research proving that these methods of teaching have outcomes that can not be achieved by any other learning methods,” Rupiper Taggart said.
Rupiper Taggart did all the work of creating the proposal and outlining the event and many of the presenters for her workshop are part of a special interest group dealing with community based learning.
“Special interest groups consist of professors that are interested in specific subjects and are recognized by the committee that oversees the entire conference every year,” Rupiper Taggart said. “SIGs are allowed to propose ideas for workshops or sessions and only occasionally get the chance to showcase their information.”
According to the CCCC Web site, there was 1,738 proposals submitted in 2006. Rupiper Taggart said the number of proposals grows each year.
The conference, which runs from March 21 – 24, is a constant reminder of the innovative strides teachers are making to better educate their students.
“The workshop will help provide new and experienced teaching professionals with proven methods to help students interact with their community,” Rupiper Taggart said. “This type of teaching allows students the ability to get experience working with their major before graduating and creates social awareness of communities in the participants.”