Dear Colleagues,
I hope that all of you get some time to recharge during our spring break. I know that many of us are pushing ourselves hard to be present for our students and each other, but hopefully we can all find some time for self-care as well. Once we get back from spring break, I invite you all to attend Core Conversations, Part 2 which will be similar to the format we followed in the fall semester of 2021. Two options will be on Zoom (March 30 from 3:30-5 pm and April 1 from 9:30-11 am) and then in-person with lunch served on March 31 in Coblentz seminar room from 12:30-2 pm. In addition, thank you for the presentations we have had from Jeff Welsh and Drs. Becky Grove and Suzanne Hiller. We look forward to hosting a few more presentations to finish out the spring semester including Dr. Aijuan Dong’s rescheduled presentation on April 1st. Furthermore, I will be working with the HIPs Task Force to survey faculty on specific high-impact practice pedagogy for CTL planning purposes in the 2022-2023 academic year. Finally, I am looking forward to the month of April with Honor Society induction ceremonies, SPIRES, Departmental Honors presentations, and the 3MT competition. As always, please contact me if you have ideas for CTL programming.
Sincerely,
Paige Eager
"When the pandemic arrived, Zoom appeared poised to be the great equalizer, allowing people to tune in from anywhere. And despite the shortcomings of virtual get-togethers, advocates say their affordability, convenience, small carbon footprint, and democratic nature make them worth keeping... After a two-year test of alternatives that are not only safer but address concerns about equity in higher education, this much is clear: There’s little chance of going back to the way things were." Keep reading here.
"The ability to understand and work with people from other cultures is an important skill for students to develop in our globally interconnected and interdependent world. In this episode, Josh McKeown, Jessica Harris, and Minjung Seo join us to discuss how online collaborative learning projects can help students develop intercultural competencies." Click here to listen to episode 227.
"Think of yourself as a learning architect whose job it is to create experiences and activities that are designed to help students achieve your learning objectives. Those learning objectives need to go beyond content and skills mastery. They should, in my view, include three elements that we too often ignore and that are much in evidence at the nursery school Kanter studied..." Read the full article here.
"The students, they find, struggle with “knowing what to write down,” Martini said in an interview. “The guided notes were intended as a means of helping students to recognize what was central. And then, as they evolved for me, additionally it became a tool to help students retain a sense of the big picture.”" Keep reading here.
"The latest Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found 1,550 of the 2,000 undergraduate student respondents will have student loan debt after graduation. But one in five don’t know how much debt they’ll have, and the nearly half who do know the amount do not know what their approximate monthly payment will be." Continue reading about these survey results here.
"As we continue to respond to urgent needs of Afghan evacuees, and as we watch the unfolding situation in Ukraine, we must recognize that the challenge is far greater than just one country’s displaced population.... We each have seen firsthand examples of how supporting refugee students’ education is not only the right thing to, upholding and advancing core values of higher education, but also a smart thing to do, presenting an opportunity for forward-thinking colleges and universities." Continue reading here.
Incorporating Self-Reflection into Assessments
One of the questions many faculty ask themselves is: do students really read and reflect on the feedback I give? Do they look beyond the letter/number to consider the comments or to depend their understanding of certain concepts? Because self-reflection is a key aspect of every student’s learning, it can be helpful to include this as a required in assessments. This can take several forms, including:
- Identifying helpful feedback: At the top of a paper/lab report/etc., students identify a comment they received on a previous assignment and how they tried to incorporate that feedback on this assignment.
- Self-graded work: Students submit corrected translations, problems, etc, using a different color of ink or other method to differentiate their original work from the corrections. Often helpful to also ask students to include a short paragraph explaining what they missed, how the corrections helped them understand it, and any lingering questions they have after doing the corrections.
- Quiz/exam corrections: After getting a graded assignment back, students correct missed questions/problems and explain how and why they went awry.
- Essay revisions: Students submit a new draft that incorporates feedback from you and/or peer reviewers. Often helpful for them to include a short paragraph explaining their revisions and why they improve the paper’s argument, organization, etc. so their focus is on higher-order concerns rather than “correcting grammar”.
- Project rationale: Students include a short reflection along with an assignment explaining the “whys” behind the choices that they made.
- Periodic meta-cognitive exercises: Students submit self-evaluations of their progress in which they reflect on their learning, comment on helpful feedback they have received (from instructors and/or peers), and share their progress and process with their instructor.
Do you incorporate self-reflection in your projects and assessments? What methods have worked best for you?
The Online Learning Consortium states faculty have been told that collaborative problem solving is a 21st century skill students need. However, the term “group work” often produces groans of displeasure from students and faculty alike. Faculty rarely receive training in how to employ group work in online settings, and students claim not to like working in groups, mostly because of past negative experiences working in groups. Since learning theory shows us that learning is social, why isn’t group work more popular? And, does it even work in online environments? Click here to read an informative article on what you can do to help develop your students' collaborative work skills.
Courteous Classroom Technology Tips
IT would like to remind you of a few tips that will help you keep our shared working spaces functioning well throughout the term and beyond
- Please turn off the projector or mounted display at the end of class by using the room's control systems, we can conserve energy and preserve the longevity of these devices. Be aware that blanking or muting the projector is not the same as turning it off.
- Please logout of the instructor station PC when your class ends. Not only is this a security risk, but it is also an inconvenience for the next user who will need to log you out of the PC or any Hood systems (Blackboard, Office 365, Self-Service, etc.).
- Please do not turn off the instructor station PC or Laptop. This may create delays for the next user and deny the computer the ability to receive important security or driver updates from IT. Almost all of the Dell and Apple computing devices used in our classrooms are set to save energy and only wake when the device is needed.
- Please leave the computer set to the “Duplicate Screen” output option. If a PC is not displaying the same information on the instructor station to the projected image, this may be due to the last person in the room enabling “Presentation Mode” in Power Point. To return to "Duplicate Screen", press and hold the “Windows” key + then press the “P” key until the display indicates that it is in Duplicate mode.
- Please do not remove or swap the Power Point wireless remotes or their USB receivers from one space to another. If you accidentally take the remote with you, please return it to its original space as soon as possible. If you believe one of these devices is broken, malfunctioning, or has a low battery, please contact the IT Help Desk.
- Please return the control system to the PC input when you end your class. Please return the input from Doc Cam, HDMI, BluRay DVD or Airplay inputs to PC input since it is the most commonly used input, especially for rooms where there may not be a control system.
- Please do not pull the projector screens far below their limits. The screen should go no farther than the chalk or dry erase marker ledge. Pulling the screens below their limits can tear and damage the internal rollers in these devices. A functioning screen should only require a slight bit of downward force from the center handle to allow it to be retracted back into its case.
- Please do not mash, hit, or bang firmly on the control system if it does not immediately respond to your button input requests. This type of aggressive button pressing can cause damage to the control system and could send errant commands to the connected teaching technologies that cause them to lock up or malfunction.
Do you have a question about technology or teaching? Send an email to CTL@hood.edu, and on every Friday, we'll answer the question most broadly applicable across departments. When you email your question, let us know if you'd like to remain anonymous, use a fun sign-off moniker of your choosing (akin to the Dear Abby column), or list your name. All questions welcomed!
The Center for Teaching & Learning
Email: CTL@hood.edu
Website: www.hood.edu/CTL
Location: Hood College, Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD, USA
Phone: (301) 663-3131
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1139236646512716/
