The Center for Teaching & Learning

Welcome to the FIRST newsletter from the Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL)! Your CTL advisory board knows that we're all facing a very interesting fall semester, so we have devised a number of new ways to support our colleagues during these unsettling times. From weekly faculty polls to monthly development events and innovative classroom strategies via this newsletter, we have planned our fall activities with teaching craft at its core. As of this writing, I hope that some of the kinks have been worked out in your fall courses and that you continue to harness that "growth mindset" we all learned so much about at the P3 Conference a few weeks ago.

With that in mind, each monthly CTL newsletter will be filled with need-to-know, timely updates and tactical information. We will also take some space to foster our wonderful community by featuring all of our newest faculty colleagues. When we run out of those, we will be spotlighting the important work our faculty do in and out of the classroom. Got news? Please email CTL@hood.edu about that book contract, conference presentation or any news our community would enjoy celebrating with you--share early and often!

So read on and prepare to be even more focused, student-centered, and tuned up (to teach)!

We know that many of our colleagues are experiencing stress and anxiety in response to COVID-19, unexpected work changes, increased student demands, personal health concerns and more. In response, the provost's office recently formalized an agreement with Advanced Behavioral Health to offer faculty support sessions. These group sessions will occur monthly with certified clinicians. Interested faculty should email info@abhmaryland.com, and faculty availability will drive the session time/date selected each month.

Chaz Martinsen, MFA, recently became the interim Ceramic Arts program director and is a visiting assistant professor in the dept. of art and archaeology. Professor Martinsen attended San Diego State University and earned a BA in Applied Design with an emphasis in ceramics. He then went on to work as a production slip cast potter in San Diego learning facets of the commercial art world. He earned his MFA from California State University, Chico in Ceramics and Digital Fabrication. His current art practice combines digital fabrication technologies with the ceramic process to produce sculptural and functional objects that focus on a high level craftpersonship and formal design aesthetics. Chaz can be reached at martinsen@hood.edu.

Cherry Liu, Ph.D., is a new assistant professor in the biology department. Professor Liu attended University of Toronto and earned a BSc in Pharmacology and a doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences. She then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School researching protein purification and cell signaling. She has taught anatomy and physiology at Bay State college in the nursing program, and her current research focuses on understanding the role of sugar modified proteins in cell signaling. Drop Cherry a line at liuyc@hood.edu.

Hood College’s mental-health counseling program has received a $2.2 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is a 5-year grant that will allow the program to increase its diversity as well as the diversity of the profession, by strengthening the recruitment and retention efforts and graduation rates of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including underrepresented minorities. Read more HERE!

If a student shares this update with you, here are the steps to take immediately:

1. Ask them to stay home or in their room in isolation.
2. Remind them to call their healthcare provider or Hood College Health Services 301-698-8374 for medical advice.
3. Let them know to expect a call from their local health department for the initiation of contact tracing.
4. Inform the correct dean: undergraduates are referred to Dean White and graduate students are referred to Dean Boulton for medical leave of absence.
5. The appropriate dean will then inform our COVID Case Manager of Students, Sue Kolb, who is tracking all campus positives for support and data-collection purposes.

This past January, The Graduate School competed for and won a national grant, co-sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) & The Jed Foundation, which focuses on exploring and creating a framework for supporting grad-student mental health. All current graduate students are eligible to participate, and we welcome underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. As such, we are holding “listening sessions” for informal input from grad students on mental wellness. Please encourage your graduate students to register for a session today!

What's new this semester in the way of student support? For both graduate and undergraduate students, be sure to review and share the online writing support and tutoring options at the Student Success Center (formerly CAAR). You will also want to peruse and reference the multiple student resources housed on our new webpage under the Online Success Toolkit.

We know that several faculty had some issues with audio in their bimodal classrooms. Jeff Welsh, Hood's premier instructional technologist, has some solutions for YOU! Click here to learn more about solving common classroom audio issues with Zoom.

Learn to lead successful asynchronous discussions using tools outside of the Blackboard discussion area, like Padlet or Flipgrid. Click here for more information on these fresh strategies. Here are brief tutorials using these tools: Padlet or Flipgrid.

Learn how to launch a Zoom class meeting in Blackboard, record and post the lecture video via Panopto. Click here for this step-by-step "Zoom via Blackboard -> record via Panopto."

Save the date for the below CTL tea-n-talks, which will have a unique flavor to match this unique fall semester. All topics were selected based on faculty input from the P3 Conference assessment:

• September 11th from 3-4 PM "Pedagogy in a Zoom World from Basic to Advanced Users." Pick one of the concurrent sessions geared toward your skill level. New dogs for old tricks or new tricks for old dogs--you decide!
• October 16th from 3-4 PM "Classroom Inclusion in Practice." Join Dr. Atiya Smith for an overview of her research on classroom inclusivity.
• November 6th from 3-4 PM "Emergent Topics in Pedagogy." Select a concurrent session that interests you most: Final Assessments Unplugged, Student Mental Health and other lightening rounds that emerge from an unpredictable fall semester.

During the week of November 16-20, join us for our 2nd Annual International Education Week, which will be virtual this year, but still a wonderful tribute to our international students and to the importance of study abroad. Watch the graduate school's social media channels or email gofurther@hood.edu for more information!

Email: ctl@hood.edu
Website: www.hood.edu/CTL
Location: Hood College, Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD, USA