Free webinars to support faculty working in the online space from AAC&U:
3 April 2-3 PM ET Teaching, Learning, and Assessing in Remote Learning Environments
Additional webinar topics, dates, and times: Click To register
Blackboard Collaborate support for you from your Maria Faculty Colleagues:
Blackboard Collaborate "Super Users". Thank you to the following faculty who have agreed serve as support guides for faculty new to using Collaborate Ultra: Anne Devlin, Mark Wahl, Stacy Kilts and Mollyann Lombardi. Please reach out to us if you have any questions about how you might use this tool in your course to further student learning and retention.
In keeping with our focus on inclusive teaching this month, there's a recent article in Inside Higher Ed by Soulaymane Kachani, Catherine Ross and Amanda Irvin which shares research-informed strategies for the face-to-face class space that you will find informative.
Links to The Academic Minute in Professional Development (below), sponsored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. These short podcasts share knowledge and scholarship on a range of topics from professors at institutions around the country. This month we include two below: on the benefit of nontraditional students in the classroom and how project-based learning can benefit students in the workplace.
APA blog 7th edition guidance
In our November meeting we considered the role of post-exam reviews in developing student understanding and metacognitive skills.
Today, in Beckie Supiano's Teaching newsletter for The Chronicle of Higher Education (12 Dec 1019) she shares a process used by Blake Harvard in his work with Advanced Placement psychology students to assist them in developing skills to approach multiple choice exams.
We might consider how his system for doing so might be adopted to serve our post-exam review practice, and promote meaningful individual student engagement with exam performance and importantly, understanding of the material tested. You may access his activity here and perhaps consider how it might be a time-saving way to accomplish what we all agreed was useful, but impacted teaching time. You might even like to consider using this as a post-exam review that's figured into your grading scheme in lieu of extra credit. A win-win for students and faculty!
From conferences in New York to California, and even Europe, 2020 promises to be a year of exceptional learning opportunities for faculty to connect with peers from across the country and globe to further teaching excellence and expand pedagogical approaches. Please select the link to review the range of opportunities on offer beginning in January.
The Teaching Professor Conference May 29-31 Atlanta, Georgia
Drop-in to the Center! We're upstairs in Main Building in Liberal Arts and Management wing. Our hours are listed below.
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. Our instructional technologist is in the Center Monday through Friday to assist you (please see hours below, or schedule an appointment out of hours at your convenience).
Course Design and Development
How does your online course stack up? Is it exemplary? Accomplished? Promising? Incomplete?
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!
Here you have access to The Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (JoSoTL) which is a forum for the dissemination of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in higher education.
Issue Highlights:
In this issue, you may read about how faculty apply politeness theory to address uncivil behaviors in the classroom and research into the relationship between faculty caring student engagement.
Sign up to get Teaching, the free weekly newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A daily news brief about what’s happening in higher education around the country, as well as career advice and information for jobseekers.
A free newsletter that shares effective teaching strategies for the college classroom.
Related to our Community of Teaching Practice discussion on developing metacognitive skills, Dr. Li-Shi Huang has some suggestions about how to foster critical reflection in our learners:
Three Ideas for Implementing Learner Reflection
Have you heard any of the following about learning: Listening to classical music increases reasoning ability? A primary indicator of dyslexia is seeing letters backwards? Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning styles (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic)? Some of us are “left-brained” and some are “right-brained” due to hemispheric dominance, and this helps explain differences in how we learn? We only use 10% of our brain? If so, then you will enjoy reading, and learn how the academics involved in this study sponsored by the Online Learning Consortium (2019) hope to expand faculty understanding of the science of the mind and brain.
Neuromyths and Evidence-based Practice in Higher Education: An International Report
Reflections on becoming more effective teachers to promote learning, engagement and success
Reflections on Teaching: Mistakes I’ve Made, by Professor Chris Palmer, School of Communication at American University.
Here are just a few areas for consultation: Questions about Blackboard capabilities and using interactive tools such as blogs and wikis; Rubric development; Giving effective feedback; Active learning strategies; Universal and Backward Design for online courses; Implementing group work; Developing assignments that foster metacognitive and writing skills; Moving a F2F course online.
Please complete the following form to make a request for an appointment with Wendy or Deedra. Please be sure to state what you need help with, your name, email and what times you are available during the week.
Staff
Wendy Trevor, PhD, Assistant Professor, English, Director, M-CELT, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Deedra Vargo, Instructional Technologist
Hours
Monday 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Tuesday 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Wednesday 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Thursday 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Friday 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Other times by appointment
