The Center for Teaching & Learning

Message From the CTL Director

Faculty Focused:

• Tea for Teaching: Burnout
• Why We Need the Humanities
• Networking for Introverts
  
• CTL Facebook Group
• CTL BlackBoard

Student Centered:

• Incoming Freshmen
• Well-being on Campus
• Experiential Learning Online
• Rigorous Without Homework
  

Equity Emphasized:

• Support for Racial Justice & Equity
• Race on Campus
• Free Expression Online
• A.I. in Admissions
  

Tuned Up:

• Dear Margaret Hood
• Advice from the MacGyver of iTech

Scheduled:

• 10/1 - Workshop: Universal Design (in-person & virtual)
• 10/8 - Workshop: Service Learning (in-person & virtual)
• 10/15 - TNT: Deep Learning in Healthcare (in-person & virtual)
• 10/22 - TNT: The Franciscans in Colonial Mexico (in-person & virtual)
• Save the Date: Fall CTL Events
  

Greeting Hood Community,

As we transition into the beginning of the fall season, I hope this newsletter finds all of you healthy and craving all things pumpkin-flavored. I first want to thank everyone who attended the Fall Forum workshop back in August and the subsequent “Serving the Students of the Pandemic” presentation by Angela Street of EAB. Also, a special thanks to Dr. Katie Robiadek of the Political Science department for helping to bring Dr. Fletcher McClellan to campus in early September to talk about high-impact practices. Recordings of all of these events can be found on the CTL’s Blackboard site.

October will be a very BUSY and EXCITING month for CTL-sponsored and co-sponsored events. Please feel to attend in person or join the events via the “Zoom” button on the CTL Blackboard site. October events include two Tea and Talks by our colleagues, Drs. Xinlian Liu and Jay Harrison. We also have scheduled two faculty development workshops. The first with Accessibility Coordinator, Kate Gmuer, on Universal Design Learning and the second is a co-sponsored event with the Career Center featuring Barbara Jacoby on service-learning. More information about the locations and times of these events are in the newsletter.

As always, reach out to CTL@hood.edu if you have any suggestions for future professional development and pedagogical workshops. Also check out the CTL on Facebook as well as the CTL landing page on the college’s website.

Best wishes,

Paige Eager

Listen to Episode 204 of the Tea for Teaching podcast as Kristin Croyle discusses the "causes and symptoms of burnout" along with "strategies that individuals and campus leaders can use to reduce faculty burnout". Click here to listen.

"The critic and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn offers a simple yet compelling rationale for studying the humanities: you can study accounting, he writes, but when your father dies, your accounting degree won't help you process that experience." Continue reading this article here.

"No matter your personality, you need people in your professional life—for advice, information, opportunities, and more. The best way to find people who will help you is to help them and build relationships early. For extroverts, this may come naturally, but for introverts, it can be a little more difficult." Click here to keep reading.

Thanks to Ashish Chakradhar, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, for this article!

Connect on Facebook to receive the latest updates, share interesting articles, and connect with your peers. This private group is a welcoming and inspiring resource. Click here to join or search "Center for Teaching and Learning @ Hood College" to request to join.

Read about this year's incoming Freshman. The annual Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement surveyed over 40,000 students who "recently completed high school and were entering bachelor’s degree-granting colleges in the fall of 2021." The survey included "pandemic-related questions to capture how Covid altered students’ lives and fueled concerns about their future, health and safety, and ability to socialize... The data provide insight about students’ hopes for their first year of college and the impact Covid has had on their mental health." Click here to learn more about these findings.

"To help convince students to stay, says Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) President Lynn Pasquerella, “it’s more important than ever that colleges and universities position themselves as places of welcome and belonging.”" Read more here.

"One way to set your online programs apart is through well-designed experiential learning components. Use these three tactics to create flexible experiential learning opportunities in your online programs." Read these three tips here.

Thanks to April Boulton, Associate Professor of Biology & Dean of Graduate School for this article!

"Authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa claimed that most colleges were not rigorous or demanding, in part because college students were not reading and writing enough in order to build their critical thinking skills. But is it really how much work students are assigned that makes college rigorous and helps them learn?" Click here to continue reading about how rigor is defined, what actually matters, and the implications for college.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) condemns all forms of systemic racism, bias, and aggression against Black people, indigenous peoples, people of color, and those of marginalized genders, as well as discrimination based on socioeconomic status. We understand that excellence in teaching, by definition, must reflect our shared humanity and promote inclusive practices such as:

• being conscious of biases, racial abuse, micro-aggressions, and those who are minimized or left out;
• understanding and supporting those underrepresented in our Hood community; and
• promoting ways to actively foster equity, diversity and inclusion in our classrooms, research, and publications.

The CTL is determined to raise awareness of all those who have been systematically oppressed and call upon Hood faculty to join us in this commitment to create a more inclusive world. As members of the CTL Advisory Board, we stand united and affirm that Black Lives Matter.

"Inequality is baked into higher education...Institutions with the most financial resources, including flagship universities, enroll few Black students. That’s what Adam Harris is arguing in his new book, The State Must Provide." Harris explains his findings, starting with his own experience at Alabama A&M University. "I had really great professors and classmates who challenged me. But the buildings had structural problems, deferred maintenance, the kind of little things that were very different from the predominantly white campus that was maybe 10 minutes away." Read more of this interview here and do a deeper dive into this topic here.

"A 2019 ACTA survey revealed that over 60 percent of students refrained from expressing opinions on “sensitive political topics in class” in fear that their professors might disagree with them. About 85 percent of students would stop themselves to avoid offending fellow students." keep reading here to learn how to mitigate students' self-censoring online.

"Admissions offices have been rolling out new technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) to engage with or evaluate prospective students. But experts and enrollment professionals point out that AI holds the power to close equity gaps as much as augment them, depending on how these emerging tools are used." Keep reading 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!

Using the Microsoft Authenticator App

With the requirement for Multi-Factor Authentication for all Hood users in our major systems like Blackboard, Self-Service and Office 365, we in IT understand that not all buildings have ideal cellular data service signals in them to receive a text message or a phone call for the final authentication step. The process of transcribing numbers from your phone to the login screen or the disruption of receiving a phone call in a classroom environment are factors that contribute to additional steps and unwanted disruptions. To help solve this issue, and provide additional options for Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA), we would like to recommend the Microsoft Authenticator App. The app allows the user to configure their phone or tablet device as a registered authentication provider that works over WIFI. The app makes responses more reliable, faster, reduces steps and the potential for mistyped code numbers, while also providing other authentication options and improved security for MFA.

If you would like to add the Microsoft Authenticator App to your device, please use one of the links below:

• Apple Device
  
• Android Device
  
• Microsoft Mobile Device
  

For a guide on how to setup the Microsoft Authenticator App on your device, click here.

Join this Tea N' Talk to learn about Jay Harrison's book "The Franciscans in Colonial Mexico," co-edited with Thomas M. Cohen and David Rex. This book analyzes the Franciscans’ engagement with native peoples, creole populations, the viceregal authorities, and the Spanish empire as a whole in order to offer a broad picture of Catholic evangelization in North America while keeping the Franciscans at the center of the story. Published in 2021, during commemoration of the quincentenary of the Spanish—and thus the Franciscan—presence in Mexico, the book brings together the research of junior and senior scholars from Mexico, Spain, and the United States on the long-enduring and far-reaching Franciscan presence in Mexico.

• Paige Eager, Professor of Political Science & Director of the CTL
• Martha Bari, Assistant Professor of Art History
• April Boulton, Associate Professor of Biology & Dean of Graduate School
• Catherine Breneman, Assistant Professor of Social Work
• Ashish Chakradhar, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
• Michelle Gricus, Assistant Professor of Social Work
• Suzanne E. Hiller, Assistant Professor of Education
• Elizabeth Mackessy-Lloyd, Assistant Professor of Nursing
• Heather Mitchell-Buck, Assistant Professor of English; Coordinator of Digital Learning
• Katherine Orloff, Associate Professor of Journalism
• Atiya Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology & Counseling
• Marisel Torres-Crespo, Associate Professor of Education; Coordinator of Online Instruction
• Jill Tysse, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
• Jeff Welsh, Director of Instructional Technology in the IT division
• Kerri Easterbrook, Graduate Assistant for the CTL

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/