Welcome to the Fall Semester!
Greetings Colleagues,
I hope you had a chance to relax and recharge over the summer. I know the world is still such an uncertain place, but I hope that each of you had the opportunity to be with friends and family and visit some of your favorite or new places to give you hope as we embark on another academic year.
In my role as Dean of Faculty, I serve as the CTL Director, Co-Chair of the Core Curriculum Advisory Board with Dr. Ann Stewart, Chair of the Core Revision Group, and Chair of the Academic Judicial Council. As I begin my second year in this role, I intend to find ways to leverage and bring synergy to some of the intersecting ‘hats’ I wear on campus.
As many of you know, we are in the midst of a multi-year Core Curriculum revision process at the undergraduate level. Thanks to all of you who have participated in the many conversations, surveys, and focus groups we have held thus far. Please be prepared and hopefully excited to continue these important conversations, especially during the afternoon session of the Fall Forum on August 15, 2022.
In addition, the CTL will focus its professional development opportunities for the coming academic year on three High-Impact Practices (HIPs) that faculty indicated are of the most interest and relevance to their majors and potentially within a revised Core Curriculum. The three highest-ranking HIPs from the faculty survey in spring of 2022 were: internships, capstone experiences, and global learning. Through consultation with the High-Impact Task Force and the Career Center, we hope that this focus will inform our continuing discussions about Core Curriculum revision at Hood.
In addition, the CTL in partnership with Dean Boulton and Dr. Marisel Torres-Crespo will launch the first ever Teaching Assistant (TA) orientation on August 19th. As always, there are many resources on the CTL Blackboard site that will be of support for our new faculty colleagues, adjunct faculty, teaching assistants, and annual contract faculty. Also, I utilized some CTL funds to purchase higher education texts on pedagogy, assessment, and other relevant topics. These books can be found in the Library Learning Commons on the first floor in the coming weeks. Finally, many thanks to the Graduate Assistant for the CTL, Kerri Easterbrook, for organizing this newsletter. This will be the last semester for Kerri serving as a GA. If you know of any graduate student who might be a good candidate to take the baton from her in the spring of 2023, please reach out to me at eager@hood.edu.
"Both our programs and our students would benefit from a system that supports an instructor’s pedagogical development and creates opportunities to talk through teaching successes and failures. ... Peer review is a scholarly act, and, as such, there is no turnkey, one-size-fits-all solution. But in what follows we offer some key practices of peer review and advice on how to use them effectively." Continue reading here
"Fewer than 1 percent of higher ed leaders envision a return to only in-person learning, and they see socioeconomic barriers as one of the greatest obstacles for at-risk students... [In 2022, we] polled 346 higher education leaders across North America–including professors, deans, student success advisors, IT executives–to discuss challenges and opportunities with respect to the future of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic." Click here to view their findings.
"If you are assigning and grading group projects and: (a) not giving your students any explicit guidance or resources for how to work together effectively, and (b) not checking in and intervening when groups show signs of dysfunction, then you are engaging in pedagogical malpractice." Click here to learn techniques to prepare your students for group projects and the reasons for doing so.
"Students generally enter college to advance their employment prospects. In this episode, Jessica Kruger joins us to discuss how explicitly embedding career competencies in the curriculum can engage and motivate students." Click here to listen to episode 246 of the Tea for Teaching Podcast.
"Feedback can be a powerful force in college classrooms, and there are ways to make the experience of providing and receiving it even stronger. That’s especially important as students continue to report dissatisfaction with the feedback they get on assignments and tests — calling it vague, discouraging, and/or late. Technology has the potential to make course feedback better — more effective, more engaging, more timely." Learn tools to improve your feedback here.
"The Asian American Foundation found 42% of Americans could not name a single historical event involving AAPI, and 58% could not name a single AAPI individual important to American life. ... How do they get this information if we don’t bring it to them?" Click here to learn more about higher education's role in stopping hate against Asian American Pacific Islanders.
Greetings from the Online Skywalker! Welcome to a new and exciting semester at Hood College! Relationships are the foundation of a good education, and it is our responsibility to encourage them in our classrooms. Our students are the center of the teaching and learning process and, after the worst of the pandemic, they still need a lot of caring. In this section of the newsletter, I wanted to share with you this playbook that was designed to provide instructors with examples of how to put student care into action. Caring for Students Playbook Six Recommendations for Caring for Students is a guide that will give you ideas to incorporate in your classes and support in the process. Also, you know that I am one email away to help you with any online (synchronous or asynchronous) that you may encounter in your educational/teaching journey. Respectfully, Marisel
IT has been actively improving classroom and campus technology to support teaching and learning over the summer. All of our teaching spaces are now fully digital compliant and have high definition laser-based projection systems powering them. Earlier this summer IT updated of our Blackboard system to the new Ultra Base Navigation theme using a left-hand oriented navigation menu instead of multiple modules used in the former original theme. This change occurred on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 10 AM. To learn more about what Ultra Base Navigation has to offer, click here. For a more in-depth look at the changes with Ultra Base Navigation, click here.
All course sites will continue to use the Original Theme template and will NOT change with this update to the Ultra Course Theme option. Course Menu color choices and decorative themes are however no longer supported in the Ultra Base Navigation Theme. All course sites have been converted to a standard system default color theme that provides greater uniformity across course sites and supports Universal Design and assistive technology standards.
IT is also actively working with Blackboard Support on implementing our new Ally tool inside of Blackboard. IT will be working with the Student Success Center staff to train and prepare them to use the Ally tool. IT will be piloting the Ally tool with some Fall 2022 courses before launching the tool site wide in late September 2022. The CTL, in conjunction with IT, will offer faculty training on using the Ally tool in late September 2022, so look for an announcement to save the date in the future. For more information on what the Ally tool has to offer, please click here.
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
