Welcome back after the brief lock-down we all navigated this week. Hopefully, everyone was able to pivot and ensure continuity of instruction for all your courses. Click here to review (or discover) some instructional tips for an emergent transition to all online instruction, which was presented by Dr. Kristy Calo at our P3 Conference last month.
In this issue of the CTL Newsletter, you will find “just in time” articles and short “how to“ videos that will support you during this unpredictable semester, including unanticipated campus lock-downs. Speaking of which, I hope you’ll swing by one of the concurrent sessions CTL members are offering tomorrow (Sept 11th), which will hone your Zoom skills (see the Tea-N-Talk reminder below). Please send your good news or an idea for a future newsletter article to CTL@hood.edu. Happy viewing!
By Jenni Ross (Art & Archaeology)
You haven’t written a word on that article since April? You haven’t been able to sit down with that book you’re supposed to be reviewing since February? You don’t know what to do next with that project you put on hold when we all went home in March? You are not alone. In no way do I have the answers, but in what follows, I’ll outline some strategies that may be helpful, and hopeful.
1. First, don’t panic. Deadlines in academic publishing have been pushed back and relaxed across the board. Presses were closed for a while. Editors are people, with families and programs of their own to support. Your health, and the health of your family members, comes first.
2. Instead, prioritize. Break down a big project into smaller, manageable pieces—preferably ones that can be completed in one sitting, or several non-consecutive ones (leave yourself a note on where to pick up). Make a plan (write it down—the writing itself helps!), with multiple deadlines. Then celebrate getting each part done, and forgive yourself if you can’t get things fully done.
3. Use the newly-available resources. For scholars in the humanities and social sciences, Hood’s library has a much-expanded set of e-books and journals. For most disciplines, the pandemic has convinced scholars and other professionals to make their data and collections available online. Check with our marvelous library staff to help track down materials for your research.
4. Put yourself out there. Similarly, making your work accessible to other researchers is an important way to make contacts. Use your Hood webpage to post your CV and a more detailed description of your work. Post materials to Academia.edu and Researchgate.net (I understand the misgivings, but it can work! You don’t have to pay for their services). Reach out to scholars in your field, or colleagues at Hood, who might become collaborators. Even simply talking about your research work can improve your mood, your confidence, and your perspective.
I’ve drawn on the above strategies a great deal over the past few months, which have been helpful in putting this time into perspective. The CTL would love to hear what is working for you, too. Have you found a space, or time, or strategy, that allows you to focus on your research? Tell us about it! Simply email CTL@hood.edu.
PHOTO CREDIT: Now that's a tablet! Proto-cuneiform tablet (ca. 3100-2900, Mesopotamia), Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Catherine Breneman, M.S.W., Ph.D., recently joined the Department of Sociology and Social Work as an Assistant Professor of Social Work and the Director of Field Education. Dr. Breneman attended West Virginia University for her M.S.W. and earned her Ph.D. in Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to coming to Hood, she was a faculty member at Towson University. Dr. Breneman is an experienced social worker and has worked with individuals and families across the lifecycle in a variety of settings including mental health, substance use, residential, medical, and military programs. Her practice experience informs her pedagogy and the professional preparation of social workers. Her areas of interest are case management, psychiatric rehabilitation, and mental health recovery. Catherine can be reached at breneman@hood.edu.
William Allen, Ph.D. is the new Sophia M. Libman National Endowment for the Humanities Professor. He will be at Hood for a three-year period teaching out of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department. He will additionally manage the yearly NEH Center for the Humanities Colloquium. Professor Allen attended The University of Memphis earning a doctorate in philosophy. Previously, before coming to Hood, he taught at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He primarily teaches courses within social and political philosophy, ethics and African-American philosophy. His research focuses on racial justice in the context of liberal political philosophy. William can be reached at allenw@hood.edu.
There are still open slots in our faculty support sessions with licensed clinicians at Advanced Behavioral Health. These group sessions will occur monthly thanks to an agreement the college signed with ABH. Interested faculty should email info@abhmaryland.com. Meeting times/dates will be based off the availability of faculty registrants.
If you are coping with parenting young kids in the time of COVID, juggling online school, childcare and work responsibilities, you are not alone! Please join this private Facebook group, Hood Pandemic Parenting, to share resources and ideas, or just to vent: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665453921051592/about. Drs. Shannon Kundey and Lisa Marcus are the group admins. The group’s goal is to create a safe supportive space for Hood employees who are parenting during the pandemic.
Review these innovative strategies for welcoming classroom activities, which were compiled in a recent article in Inside Higher Ed (Sept 2, 2020) by Andrew Joseph Pegoda. There are several ideas for adapting in-person activities to the Blackboard Discussion Board as well. Whether in-person, bimodal or fully online, you will find some good ideas. Read more here. You can also subscribe to their weekly or daily digests here for more great classroom ideas.
Check out the recent article published in Inside Higher Ed (Sept 2, 2020) by Scott Freeman and Elli Theobald
"For colleges to achieve antiracism, equity and inclusion, one of the most effective actions will be for professors to stop talking so much in their classrooms..." Read more here. You can also subscribe to their weekly or daily digests here with or without a field filter.
Just a reminder to purge your Zoom recordings in the cloud AFTER they've been processed by Panopto. Any Zoom recordings unrelated to teaching should be made with the "Record on this Computer" option only. Since we exceeded the storage space Zoom allows, I had to delete all Zoom cloud recordings made before September 7, 2020. If there is a course recording in the Trash folder on your Zoom account that has not been processed into a Panopto Video course folder, please follow the instructions below within the next 30 days to recover and download your videos:
1. Login to your Hood Zoom account at https://www.zoom.us/
2. Locate your Zoom Recordings link.
3. Locate the Trash link on the right side of the screen and you will see the number of videos marked as trash in parenthesis. Select the "Trash" link to continue.
4. Locate any video(s) that you need to recover and select the "Recover" link.
5. A pop-up window will ask if you want to recover the video recording(s). Select "Recover" to continue.
6. Return to your Recordings link and you will see the recovered video(s) there. Please download the video(s) to your personal computer for future access as needed using the "More" option on the right and then select the "Download" link.
7. Once you have verified that all your recording files have downloaded, please delete the file again using the "More" option and then select "Delete". A pop-up window will appear asking you to confirm that you want to move all the files of this recording to the trash. Select "Yes" to continue.
Learn to lead successful asynchronous discussions using Flipgrid, which allows your students to engage with course material using one of their favorite platforms: video recordings on their smart phone. Here is a great blog post on how to get started with Flipgrid for faculty: https://blog.flipgrid.com/gettingstarted. The blog post has a great step-by-step guide for set up, along with a support video.
Learn how to create, launch and share Zoom polls. Login to your Zoom account at www.zoom.us, then follow the steps in this 3-min video on using Zoom polls: https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=UrNAxPIoan4&end=146
Pedagogy in a Zoom World - Concurrent Sessions for Basic to Advanced Users
Pick a session geared toward your skill level. To access, use the Zoom link on the CTL Blackboard site or email CTL@hood.edu for the unique link:
Introductory Level
1) Zoom Discussions w/Welsh
2) Ensuring the Student Experience w/ Torres-Crespo
Intermediate Level
3) Zoom Discussions w/Gricus
4) Polls, Chat, Responses w/Mitchell-Buck
Advanced Level
5) Wielding Breakout Rooms for Larger Courses w/Boulton
~ALL SESSIONS WILL BE RECORDED FOR LATER ACCESS~
The Center for Teaching & Learning
Email: ctl@hood.edu
Website: www.hood.edu/CTL
Location: Hood College, Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD, USA
