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Maria College Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Maria College Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching  

Welcome to Spring 2024!
 

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Faculty Matters:

New! From TurnitinGuidance on Evaluating Your Assignment Prompts (and writing new ones) that Discourage Generative AI Use.

From The Center for Teaching Vanderbilt University:

Best Practices for Classroom Management: Dealing with Disruptive Behavior by Kathleen McKinney.

College Completion Most Influenced by Who’s Teaching and How by Jessica Blake

New:

A Student's Perspective on Creating a Classroom Legacy: How College Professors Can Garner Phenomenal Student Reviews by Mia Cestra at ACUE

Featured: 

  • Universal Design & Multilingual Students
  • Chat GPT: Are Chat Bots the end of teaching and learning as we know it?

Learn More:

A Universal Design Approach to Teaching Multilingual Students. From The Times Higher ED

What is ChatGPT? Learn more from Open AI.  

From Beth McMurtrie and The Chronicle TeachingWill ChatGPT Change the Way You Teach?

Inside Higher Ed

From Susan D'Agostino: ChatGPT Advice Academics Can Use Now

Familiar with the ins and outs of FERPA? Learn more from The University at Albany 

Read the Maria College Ferpa Policy Statement.

Mental Health and Wellness

How to support and promote student well-being? In Beyond the Walls of the Wellness Center: Creating a Cross-Institutional Well-Being Strategy, Dr. Alexander R. Miller and Julie Tucker discuss the importance of creating a campus culture in which we might promote students' engagement with their own wellness and how faculty and staff can help alter the narrative of wellness beyond counseling  to include discussions with students about nutrition, sleep, physical activity, and the restorative properties of nature. 

Acknowledging the increase of stressful sociopolitical events and the impact on student well-being, Lindsay Till Hoyt, Ph.D .offers strategies to support student well-being, within the context of civic engagement in Promoting College Students’ Mental Health in the Context of Sociopolitical Stress.

New: Take a look at our neurodiversity, equity and inclusion resource section for faculty. 
Faculty Focus Live podcasts

#40: Student Retention, Interleaving, and Fundamental Concepts: Design Your Course with This in Mind!

#41: Setting the Tone on the First Day of Class with Generative Games, a Kite, and Toast

#31: Authentic Assessment Strategies: Assessing Learning that Empowers Your Students

From the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Ziqian Zhou explores beliefs about critical thinking and shares pedagogical implications for designing modules to promote its development in learners in Critical Thinking: Two Theses from the Ground Up.


From ACUE: Free Webinar Recordings
Online Teaching Toolkit: Managing your Online Presence, Tips for Getting Started.
Recording Effective Microlectures


From the Journal of Teaching & Learning Inquiry Volume 9 2021 and Volume 10 2022:

The Effect of Collaborative Learning on Academic Motivation by Chad N. Loes

Metacognition in Teaching: Using A “Rapid Responses to Learning” Process to Reflect on and Improve Pedagogy by Susan Cox

Laura Varlas identifies the differences in aims of reading in high school and college to propose strategies for assisting students with college-level reading of texts in her article for Educational Leadership, 58(7):

Syllabus-ted: Preparing Students for the Rigors of College Reading by Laura Varlas

FERPA and Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services: Requirements and Best Practices

NEURODIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION Resources for Faculty

Typewriter with sheet of paper scrolled with the word inclusivity

From Faculty Focus: To AI or not AI?
Teaching with Technology: The Evolution of Instruction (2023) by Blakely, Riggins-Thomas, and McCraney.

From Loyola Marymount University: 
Using AI in the Classroom: A Teacher's Lens (webinar) with Brent Warner

  • Teaching ideas at 20.39 minutes in the webinar for in class work with students). Interesting idea about using ChatGPT to rewrite your instructions/guidance for students to address different lexile levels (ML learners.

 

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional Development Opportunities

Professional Development Opportunities through the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE)

Table showing professional development opportunities
March 3-5, 2024 ACE Annual Meeting Washington, DC American Council on Education (ACE)
March 13-15, 2024 2024 Southern Regional Faculty & Instructional Development Consortium University of Southern Mississippi – Gulf Park Campus SRFIDC Conference
March 25-29, 2024 SITE 2024 Las Vegas, NV Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE)
March 26-28, 2024 Annual UPCEA Teaching & Learning Conference Boston, MA University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)
April 9-17, 2024 Conference on General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment Providence, RI Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU)
April 10-13, 2024 EdMedia + Innovate Learning Summit Denver, CO Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
April 11-14, 2024 Annual Meeting: Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21Century Philadelphia, PA American Educational Research Association (AERA)
April 15-17, 2024 Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement through Higher Education The Hotel at Auburn University Conference Center Gulf-South Summit
April 15-16, 2024 Best Practices for Promoting Engaged Student Learning Athens, GA University of Georgia Teaching & Learning Conference
April 18-20, 2024 Future-Ready Brains NY Sheraton Times Square Hotel Learning & The Brain
April 23-25, 2024 EdMedia + Innovate Learning Summit Virtual Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
April 24-26, 2024 Post-secondary Teaching and Learning Virtual The Taylor Institute of Teaching and Learning
May 20-22, 2024 Lilly National Conference: Evidence Based Teaching and Learning Austin, TX Lilly Conferences on College and University Teaching in collaboration with the International Teaching Learning Cooperative
July 21 - 26, 2024 ASHE Annual Conference  Anaheim, CA  Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)
November 18 - 21, 2024 OLC Accelerate Conference Orlando, FL Online Learning Consortium

TEACHING WITH TECHNOLOGY

an open laptop on a desk with two hands typing on the keyboardDrop-in to the Center!  You will find us upstairs in Main Building in the Arts and Sciences wing. In the meantime, we are available for virtual consultations.

Our computers are set up with software for you to trial for presentations and lecture capture. We have instructional guides and headphones with microphones for your use. 

Digital Accessibility: How does your course measure up? 

SUNY Online has developed the Course Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR), a research-based professional development tool for faculty to further online course quality, effectiveness, and efficiency. The rubric lists 50 standards across the following areas of an online course's learner experience:  Overview and Information; Technology and Tools; Design and Layout; Content and Activities; Interaction; and Assessment and Feedback.

Review Blackboard’s Exemplary Online Course Program Rubric to review your online course. The rubric addresses key aspects of an effective online course including design, interaction & collaboration, assessment, and learner support, and will offer strategies to make your course exemplary!

Designing courses with accessibility and digital inclusion in mind is one way to demonstrate our commitment to equity in higher education and ensure we reach all learners, and provide a meaningful learning experience for all. Here's a link to a Digital Accessibility Checklist created by Christina Moore, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Oakland University. (Creative Commons License CC BY-NC). 

If you have questions about accessibility, navigability or Universal Design for Learning, please contact M-CELT via the link below.

Mission-Centered Teaching

What is meant by the Catholic Intellectual Tradition?

In our mission statement we explain that Maria College's commitment to career-relevant, opportunity education is rooted in the context of the Catholic intellectual tradition. This tradition is embraced by Catholic colleges and universities around the world. Boston College has created a document to foster discourse amongst faculty across disciplinary boundaries about what this tradition means for their teaching. Although Boston College is rooted in the Jesuit educational tradition, and Maria in the Sisters of Mercy, the document offers a historic introduction to how education at Catholic colleges engages with "the ultimate search for truth that animates faith", and how this serves as "the catalyst for inquiry": 

The Catholic Intellectual Tradition: A Conversation at Boston College

PODCASTS from Teaching in Higher Ed

 

headphones on yellow background

Using Challenges To Motivate Learners with Michael Wesch

Helping Students to Thrive with Shauntae White

On Improving Our Teaching with Dan Levy

       

SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

NEW to TEACHING?

From the Archives

From The Chronicle

For faculty new to teaching

One Great Tip for First-Time Instructors: Crowdsourced teaching advice from seasoned faculty 

One Way to Kick Off Your First Class

Help Your Students Move Beyond Passive Listening

The Damaging Myth of the Natural Teacher with Beth McMurtrie

Nine Characteristics of a Great Teacher, with Dr. Maria Orlando

Reflections on Teaching Mistakes I've Made, with Professor Chris Palmer, School of Communication at American University.

From the Archives: 

Faculty Focus Podcasts:  

  • Metacognition—The Bridge to Student Success with Ben Blood

  • Overcoming Student Distaste for Collaborative Group Work Online with Wendy Trevor

How to Be a Better Online Teacher by F. Darby, The Chronicle of Higher Education

7 Guidelines for Effective Teaching Online by S. O'Malley, Inside Higher Ed 

How to Adapt Courses for Online Learning: A Practical Guide for Faculty by S. Cruickshank, Johns Hopkins

Tips for Effective Online Discussions:

From Inside Higher Ed and EduCause 

ADVISING CORNER

A student in an advising session with a faculty member

Effective academic advising goes beyond helping students decide what courses they need to fulfill degree objectives. It speaks to the education of the whole person, as Winston, et. al reflected (1984): "Developmental advising relationships focus on identifying and accomplishing life goals, acquiring skills and attitudes that promote intellectual and personal growth, and sharing concerns for each other and for the academic community". The article, Developmental Academic Advising: A 40-Year Context by Thomas J. Grites in the NACADA Journal 33 (1): 5–15, offers an overview of the significance and evolution of this approach.

Encouraging Self-Advocacy: How to Build Environments for Awareness and Self-Disclosure for Learners with Disabilities by Melissa Brevetti, PhD, and Bradley Mays, PhD

“CHECK OUT” OUR M-CELT LENDING LIBRARY

TAP INTO THE ACADEMY

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Faculty Focus

A free newsletter that shares effective teaching strategies for the college classroom.

MAKE AN APPOINTMENT

Questions? M-CELT is here to help. We offer:
  • Teaching consultations to assist you in planning or designing in-person, online or hybrid courses.
  • Information and guidance about using Maria’s learning technology (Blackboard, Panopto, Zoom). Did you know students may also create presentations using Panopto? We can help you create one in your course!
  • Workshops on teaching and assessment topics including using interactive tools such as blogs and wikis; Rubric development; Giving effective feedback; Active learning strategies; Universal Design for Learning; Making your course accessible; Implementing group work; Developing assignments that foster metacognitive and writing skills; Moving a F2F course online, and more.
  • Individual educational technology support sessions to help you feel comfortable integrating technology effectively and in high impact ways.

Please complete the following form to make a request for an appointment with Kim or Wendy. Please be sure to state what you need help with, your name, email and what times you are available during the week.

STAFF AND HOURS

M-CELT is located on the 2nd floor in the Main Building by the Registrar's office.

M-CELT is under the direction of Wendy Trevor, Senior Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, Associate Professor and Director of M-CELT.

Jason Coley who is the Director for the Center of Academic Innovation and Assistant Director, M-CELT.

The area is staffed by our Educational Technology Training Specialist Kim Santspree.

Hours of operation:

Spring 2024

Monday - Thursday 8:30AM - 4:15PM

Friday - 8:30AM - 4:15PM (Virtually)

To contact Kim, please email ksantspree@mariacollege.edu.

Appointments can be made at anytime virtually.