Greetings Hood Community,
This will be the last CTL newsletter for 2021, but we will return to your inbox in January 2022. I want to thank all members of the Hood community and external partners who have graciously hosted programming over the past few months. I also wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to the CTL’s Graduate Assistant, Kerri Easterbrook. She is the reason why the newsletter is often praised for its navigability and interesting links/content. Before we close the fall semester Mary Atwell, Hood’s archivist, will host a Tea and Talk in Library Commons, Room 2028 on November 19 from 3-4:30 pm. Mary will share her experience in supervising undergraduate students as interns in the archives. Please do continue to reach out and support one another during the holiday season as we reflect upon all that we have accomplished as a community in teaching and supporting our students both in and out of the classroom. Remember, there are a number of resources on the CTL Blackboard site including recordings of many past CTL events. I encourage you to contact me at CTL@hood.edu if you have suggestions for future workshops, webinars, and other events.
Best wishes,
Paige Eager
"Teaching someone to teach is hard. Like writing, teaching is a craft, learned not just in a single class, practicum, or workshop. Rather, it’s a recursive process, developed through trial and error — and yes, by “fire” — but also through conversation with others: a mentor, a cohort, your peers." Click the here to learn more about who is teaching the teachers and what resources you can access to improve your teaching.
"Research on the impact of mindset has often centered on the mindset of the student. In this episode, Elizabeth Canning joins us to discuss the impact that faculty mindset has on student achievement." Listen to Episode 212: Faculty Mindset on the Tea for Teaching Podcast here.
"A thread that runs throughout the narratives is that you either have “it” — brilliance, charisma, empathy — or you’re out of luck... Good teachers, in short, are born and not made. Yet plenty of evidence contradicts the idea that being a leading scholar in your field or having a magnetic personality are necessary ingredients for good teaching... Research has long shown that a handful of evidence-based approaches — all of which can be learned and refined — can dramatically improve how well students perform." Keep reading here.
Dr. Robert Kambic is a new Assistant Professor in Biology. He is broadly trained, having worked in neuroscience, biomechanics, and vertebrate paleontology. His research focuses on the learning and execution of movement in humans and animals, particularly for walking and running. He has a strong background in anatomy and physiology, having taught at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School and The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Additionally, he trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is originally from Baltimore, and having traveled for school and training, is excited to be back in Maryland to explore Frederick. He can be reached at kambic@hood.edu.
"College students nationwide are struggling to find internship opportunities even as remote jobs become more commonplace... When the pandemic wiped away many of those opportunities, schools tried differing approaches to replace them, including by contracting with online platforms and creating their own programs. As the pandemic has evolved, so too have their strategies." Continue reading here.
"Young people are still finding their place and learning those coping skills. They are building relationships and figuring out what kinds of connections they need. They're taking the risks and making the mistakes that life requires of all of us as we learn who we are and what we're seeking. It's hard to be young, and this is an especially challenging time for those who don't have the awareness, skills, and resources that their more senior counterparts have garnered. So, how do we support students during this challenging time?" Keep reading here.
"Online students want more social and emotional connections with their peers, their instructors, and their content. But, can we provide these connections in online courses without going the route of group projects, especially in courses with large enrollments? Let’s think about how small groups can work for students." Keep reading here to learn about how to utilize small group check-ins in your virtual classes.
"Disabilities services professionals want to get the word out about how students may be affected by long COVID. A new workbook offers tips for those helping these students navigate college while coping with the virus's lingering effects." Read more here to learn about what you can do to help students with long COVID.
"Many of the white students who flock to Leonard N. Moore’s course on the history of the Black Power movement start the semester at the University of Texas at Austin saying they don’t see race. He makes sure that by the end of the semester, they do... I spoke with Moore about his approach to teaching those courses on a campus." Click here to continue reading this informative interview.
"Historically, inclusive teaching hasn’t always been at the forefront of conversations around what good teaching entails. Addy’s research focus is to advance the conversation so that inclusive teaching is better understood, effectively implemented, and grounded in evidence... In this interview, she discusses her research, which has been published in a new book called What Inclusive Instructors Do." Read the full interview about this book here.
"It's not about changing the bias or stopping the bias. It is about getting in between your internal reaction and your external reaction" says Jennifer Imazeki. In this podcast, she talks about implicit bias in teaching. Click here to listen to episode 383 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
Repondus 4.0: Offline Test Making Tool for Blackboard
Respondus 4.0 lets you create exams and assessments the way you want. With Respondus 4, you can quickly create assessments offline using a Windows interface, then publish directly to the Hood Blackboard system. Respondus 4 supports 15 common question types, including calculated and algorithmic formats. You can insert mathematic and scientific symbols using the Respondus Equation Editor or MathType, use enhanced formatting such as bulleted lists and tables, add images, video, and links to content on other servers. With Respondus 4 you have access to thousands of Respondus-compatible publisher test banks – FREE to instructors who adopt a participating textbook. You can also import questions from MS Word format (with images imported intact), rich text, QTI, and tab/comma delineated files. Below are some resources to learn more about Respondus 4.0:
- Respondus 4 Videos and Guides
- Test Bank Network Overview
- Search for a Test Bank
- Recent Training Webinar Recording
If you would like to use Respondus 4.0, please submit a work order to the IT Help Desk at helpdesk@hood.edu to install this pre-configured software on your Hood PC.
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!
Tips on Using OneDrive for Final Projects and Presentations!
If you’ve got final projects and presentations planned in your classes, here are some tips on how to use OneDrive to make things run more smoothly. Both of these systems have worked well in my classes – they make finals week a bit less stressful for everyone AND they help students learn a workflow that will serve them well in their professional life after college.
Final Presentations: Set up a folder in your OneDrive where students can post their slides and make it easier to transition from one presentation to the next!
- Create a folder in your own OneDrive
- Click the three dots icon and choose “Manage Access”
- Click the “share” button to create a link and be sure it says “anyone with the link can edit” (if it doesn’t, it’s simple to switch – just click “anyone with the link can view” and then check the box that says “allow editing”)
- Copy the link and post it on your Bb site.
- Make sure to tell your students to put their name in the filename for their slides or chaos will ensue on presentation day! ;-)
- When presentation day arrives, all you have to do is log in to the classroom computer, open up the folder, and have each presenter pull up their files. No need to wait for students to login or plug in a flash drive or get their device set up. Easy peasy!
Final Projects with large files (presentations, PDFs, videos, etc): Don’t have them upload these directly to Bb. Large files can sometimes be a challenge on Bb … and no one wants more challenges during finals week!
- Ask students to upload their files to OneDrive (or another cloud service of their choice, like Dropbox, Google Drive, or even YouTube for videos)
- Remind them to set up their files so “anyone with the link can view” to be sure that you can see their work (for YouTube, the videos can be “unlisted” but not “private”)
- All they have to turn in to Bb is a link to their work so that you can see it and evaluate it!
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/
