Happy New Year! I know that for many of us this isn't the start of the new year we hoped for with the Omicron variant still adding so much uncertainty to our lives. I wish you all health and calm. We have many exciting events planned for the spring semester including the virtual Spring Forum on January 24 with engaging workshops from our campus faculty and staff experts on: Supporting all our undergraduate students, and especially those on the Autism Spectrum, Supporting Graduate Students for Success, and Mindfulness as Wellness. If you see our workshop presenters around campus or on Zoom, please extend a special thank you to them for their hard work over the winter break in planning these professional development opportunities for our entire campus. The Center for Teaching and Learning will host Tea and Talks throughout the spring semester from Drs. Becky Grove, Aijuan Dong, and Katie Robiadek. Jeff Welsh will share important information about changes coming to Blackboard in the summer of 2022. Also, don't forget to submit a proposal for an Academic Innovation Grant. The email came out from Julie Chalk in mid-January. As always, reach out to me if you have ideas and suggestions for future CTL programming!
Best wishes,
Paige Eager
"This country’s system of higher education may be the best in the world, but it’s also extremely inequitable, exceedingly expensive and of uneven quality. Far too many students never earn a degree, and far too many graduate with high levels of debt that they can’t repay. After college, too many graduates flail and flounder for years before they eventually fall into a steady job that frequently doesn’t reflect their training. To make matters worse, students of color and those from low-income backgrounds are concentrated in the least resourced institutions—and are the least likely to graduate or to get a degree in a high-demand field." Click here to read about 10 significant issues that higher education needs to address.
"We collectively agree that education matters and that classroom learning has value. But it does not feel as if it has value. It does not feel valuable in the same way as prepandemic education... In planning for the new semester, I’ve asked myself [and my students]: Why are you here? Why does this matter? In an effort to bring back meaning to my students’ and my own classroom experiences, these are the changes I plan to make..." Keep reading here.
"In academia, the term “rigor” is often code for gatekeeping and exclusion. In this episode, Jordynn Jack and Viji Sathy join us to discuss ways of creating challenging courses while providing the support and structure necessary for student success." Listen here to episode 219 of the Tea for Teaching podcast, Rigor.
"We’ve asked nine scholars from across disciplines to select the “best” scholarly book published last year. Our definition of “best” was expansive: It could mean “most excellent,” of course, but also most provocative, most interesting, most creative, most influential, most delightfully insane. Here’s what they told us." Click here to check out this list.
"Higher ed leaders often think about social media in the context of enrollment, from connecting with prospective, underrepresented students to engaging admitted students to reduce summer melt. But social media has also opened the door to new forms of engagement both inside and out of the classroom—especially during COVID-19." Click here to read the 7 ways you can use social media to enhance student learning.
“[M]any professors have found themselves in a similar position: One or several of their students are hurt by something they said or did while teaching. Those students then ask, or demand, that the institution take action, sometimes by inflicting punishment... When a professor does something in the classroom to which students object, what should happen next? Who should decide?” Keep reading this article here.
"Student stress is higher this January than last January... since people are used to the pandemic now, which could lead to lower stress levels. Instead, many students are feeling hopeless, Dennington said, despite the wide availability of COVID-19 vaccines." Continue reading here.
"Most of us in higher education want our students to succeed. We do the best we can teaching our disciplines. But it behooves us to remember that students will need to do something other than classwork after they graduate and we have a key role to play in helping to prepare them." Read here to learn the steps you can take to help your students prepare for life after college.
"What is the role of colleges in fighting racial injustice? How can campus conversations about race become more productive? At a recent Chronicle event, two leading scholars — Harvard Law School’s Randall Kennedy and Georgetown University’s Marcia Chatelain — debated these crucial and unsettled questions." Click here to read this interview.
"Institutions that do entertain critical race theory largely do not do so at the undergraduate level, according to several experts University Business spoke with. It is mainly found in law studies and some graduate courses. But the very thought of it has prompted harsh backlash... Three state universities [are] caught in the crosshairs of critical race theory." Click here to read about the debates surrounding CRT going on at these universities.
After negotiations with Blackboard, our contract was renewed through 2027. Starting this Spring, you can expect to see some expansions and changes to Blackboard's service offerings. Here's a brief overview of what you can expect to see this year:
- The interface will change from a traditional module-based landing page to a more responsive Ultra Based Navigation landing page, which you can learn more about here. This change will occur in early June 2022.
- A new tool, Blackboard Ally, will analyze instructor content and provide recommendations and conversion services for a variety of media formats. Ally will be made available in July 2022.
- Blackboard Collaborate Ultra will continue to be offered as an integrated videoconferencing and collaboration tool with slight changes made. To learn about new features added to Collaborate Ultra that are available now, click here.
- Over the last three years, IT has seen tremendous benefits in Blackboard using the Inline Messaging tool that offers the 24/7 support button, powered by the Impact software integration. IT has decided to expand the capabilities of the Impact platform adding their targeted Campaign learning feature and their deep data LMS analytics tool called Insights. These features will be available in July 2022 and are administrative features used to communicate, educate, and analyze information in Blackboard that are not tools for instructors or students.
- Blackboard 24/7 Email and Chat Support will be discontinued and replaced with 24/7 support through the new AI Chatbot tool from Blackboard. This will provide a more dynamic on-demand support technology tool outside of normal IT Help Desk office hours for users, beginning July 2022.
- Hood's Blackboard cloud storage allotment will be increased from 1 TB to 2 TB starting on July, 1, 2022.
To learn more about the upcoming changes to Blackboard, please click here and attend Jeff Welsh's Tea N' Talk February 4th (details below).
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/
