The Center for Teaching & Learning

Back in August, it felt unlikely that we would make it to the November issue of the CTL Newsletter and still be on campus (as you're able). As we all hunker down for the final dash to the "fall finish line," I hope you'll enjoy the tips and eye-opening articles below. Be sure to check out our new section, "Equity Emphasized," which features articles that identify problems and discuss ideas for supporting under-served, marginalized faculty and students. Too busy to read all the nuggets in this issue? Simply flag this email, copy/paste the direct URL or save the PDF version to your computer desktop to peruse when the dust settles. Truly, this issue is packed with tips and tricks to round out your fall semester and to improve the rough spots just in time for your spring courses.

Speaking of spring, stay tuned for some exciting opportunities (both live and asynchronous options) that will help you design your spring courses for improved student engagement and (hopefully) reduced faculty stress. In addition, we will have a CTL-led book club this January--vote for your favorite selection here. Please send your good news or an idea for a future newsletter article to CTL@hood.edu. Although most of our Thanksgiving gatherings will look quite different this year, may it still be a time to reflect on all there is to be grateful for, despite the uncertainty of the pandemic. Happy viewing!

Dr. Simone Kolysh is a new Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Work. Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, they are a lesbian agender mother of four and a feminist scholar of race, gender, and sexuality committed to a revolutionary future. Their background in biology, public health, LGBTQ studies and sociology aids their interdisciplinary work and scholar-activism. A culmination of the last 10 years, their book, “Everyday Violence: The Public Harassment of Women and LGBTQ People,” will be available in August 2021 with Rutgers University Press. Learn more about Dr. Kolysh at simonekolysh.com and drop them a note at kolysh@hood.edu.

Nicola A. Meade, PhD, NCC, LGPC is a counselor educator and licensed graduate professional counselor with approximately five years of experience as a counselor and ten years of experience in the field in social services, first with at-risk families and then as a domestic violence advocate. Her areas of clinical specialty are thanatology and sexual assault. Her research is focused on post-traumatic growth, experiences of power and powerlessness by individuals from minoritized groups, and innovative andragogy methods and models. She recently joined the psychology-counseling department as a visiting assistant professor. Dr. Meade has earned degrees from the University of Oregon in International Studies, focusing on human trafficking, Loyola University in Pastoral Counseling, and Old Dominion University in Counseling Education and Supervision. She is the proud parent of a high school senior and hopes to visit Alaska one day, so that she can say that she's visited all 50 states. Nicola can be reached at meade@hood.edu.

Check out the recent article published in Inside Higher Ed by Alexis Abramson: "Every institution has a different set of constituents, resources and needs, but we can offer some general advice to other educators seeking to incorporate more hands-on learning into their virtual and hybrid courses." Read more here.

The above gorgeous graphic is based on Hood faculty input
and was created by CTL GA, Erum Marfani. Thank you, Erum!

Please complete the following survey to choose the book for our January Book-Club Break. The survey can be completed here. The review links for each book are below:

• Roediger, McDaniel and Brown, “Make It Stick” (356 pp)
• Germano & Nicholls, “Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything” (Princeton University Press) (232 pp)
• Kay, “Not Light, But Fire. ” (278 pp) - This book has applicability for all educators, though it is written for a K-12 teaching audience.
  
• Kernahan, “Teaching about Race and Racism in the College Classroom.” (228 pp)
  
• Love, “We Want to Do More than Survive.” (202 pp)
  

Check out this recent article by Charles Middleton published by Higher Ed Jobs: "In this moment of reflection, I remembered the vector. Why does a vector go in the direction of one degree and not in another of the remaining 359 degrees in the circle at the center of which it begins? And why does it sometimes change directions as its magnitude increases; why sometimes not? Why do some of us pursue a career that leads directly to our current positions while others, starting in the same place, wind up in very different circumstances?" Read the full article here.

Check out this paper published by the Clute Institute in 2019: "In many college courses, professors cover a wide variety of topics that may act as triggers for victims of trauma in both traditional and online courses. At the same time, we may also encounter students who suffer trauma during their college experience. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of creating a safe and empowering environment in college classrooms regardless of what subjects we teach. Safe environments and the relationships we build with our students play a vital role in student success by understanding the importance of being trauma-informed." Read more here.

Kate Gmuer, Director of Accessibility Services and Title IX Resource for Students with Disabilities, shares a great new tip! There's a new feature in Google Docs and Microsoft Word that I think will be very helpful for first-year (and all!) students: CITATIONS! Both platforms have new citation generator add-ons that can still be instructional for a student and allow them to focus more on the content of their papers too. 🙂 Here are some directions, but I'd be happy to meet via Zoom to walk any instructor through their usage.

• Here is how to add Citations in Microsoft Word: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-citations-in-a-word-document-ab9322bb-a8d3-47f4-80c8-63c06779f127
• Here is how to add Citations in Google Docs: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9308832?hl=en

~Thanks to Dr. Tucker-Worgs for Compiling the Below Tips~

Talking to students about the election:

• Dr. Shannon Bow O’Brien wrote for RAISE the Vote about supporting students after the election and the key role of political science professors.
• Dr. Athena King wrote for RAISE the Vote explaining how political science instructors can help students process the outcome of the 2020 Election in the classroom.
• James Madison University’s Guide to Facilitating Difficult Election Conversations, prepared by Dr. Carah Ong Whaley, includes talking points for teachers, ground rules for discussion, and questions to provide an open space for conversation and reflection.
• APSA Educate’s Virtual Teaching Workshop collection includes Julie L. Mueller, Eric Loepp, & Jane E. Frisch’s blog “Creating Online Classroom Community in a Divisive Climate,” and Julie L. Mueller’s “Creating a Safe Space for Online Discussions Assignments and Syllabus Ideas.”
• The Campus Election Engagement Project provides a roadmap for students to process the federal, state, and local elections.

Sharing your expertise with the discipline and the public:

• APSA invites contributions to the Election Reflection Series. This series features scholarly reflections, original research notes, and classroom exercises that shed light upon political behavior, public opinion and the 2020 Campaign and Election season. We are especially interested in featuring content that addresses the political behavior and public opinion of individuals from the following groups: underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, women, individuals with disabilities, first-generation Americans, the Indigenous community, and the LGBTQ community. Learn more about the series here.
• The APSA Task Force on Election Assistance mobilized to publish op-eds in local papers to provide clear information about voting and the election. If you are interested in joining efforts after the election, contact Abby Paulson at apaulson@apsanet.org.
• APSA Educate invites the contribution of classroom exercises, active learning assignments, original lectures, or any other teaching resource that helps undergraduate students understand the 2020 Campaign and Election season. Educate is particularly interested in materials that provides insight on media literacy, political behavior, public opinion, political institutions, democratic backsliding, and social movements.

See related events below in SCHEDULED.

by Toby Peterson

College textbook costs continue to increase at a rate three times that of inflation, contributing to the overall rising costs of education. These costs often force students to incur more debt or make choices that undermine their academic success. These choices can include borrowing a classmate’s book, finding lower-cost alternatives, forgoing the purchase altogether, or even dropping the class. Studies have shown that as many as 30% of students will forgo purchasing the required course textbook. And, that percentage is even higher for classes outside of their major. The used book marketplace once helped offset some of these costs, but publishers are now offering more materials online with access codes that expire and cannot be shared from one student to the next.

Publishers have no incentive to reduce costs because typical marketplace forces are nonexistent in the textbook marketplace. The end consumer, the student, has no say in what is valuable, and therefore cannot apply competitive pressure to force publishers to lower their costs.

One solution is to employ open textbooks. Open textbooks are published under an open copyright license and made freely available to everyone. Open textbooks are just one type of open educational resource, or OER. Other types of OER include open courseware, learning modules, streaming videos, open access journals, digital learning objects, and online tutorials. In addition to reducing student costs, OER adoption and creation allows you to customize your curriculum to your interests and your student interests, tailor your materials to student outcomes, support student success and retention, and collaborate with fellow faculty and students.

Open-textbook initiatives are on the rise, so I'd like to introduce you to the Maryland Open Source Textbook Initiative, or M.O.S.T. The library is working with M.O.S.T., and we will soon be building our institutional site on the M.O.S.T. Commons. The platform is designed to support Maryland faculty and staff in adopting, adapting, creating, and sharing OERs. But, we cannot do this alone. We need faculty partners who are either already working with open textbooks, or who are interested in getting started. Please complete this short form if you are interested in partnering with us on this important initiative. Here is the Library guide on open resources.

Inside Higher Ed is attempting to contribute to this [America's current racial] discussion with a series of articles focused on the Black experience in higher education. After months of exploration by our reporters, we have published the first of this new series of articles, which is about barriers Black students face before they enroll in college." Read more here.

Watch the video here, which is directed by Carla LynDale Carter, Lecturer at the University of North Texas in the Department of Media Arts. The video is produced by Dr. Yolanda Flores, famed author and Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas (UNT).

"With COVID-19 exacerbating feelings of isolation, and the current political and social unrest at the forefront of many Black students’ minds, we must develop more effective strategies for coping with trauma and other burgeoning mental health challenges on our college campuses across America." Read the full article here published by Inside Higher Ed.

View the Courageous Conversations video here, which addresses the following topics: Catalyzing Change in Tech, COVID-Caused Tech Equity Hurdles Impacting Women and Underrepresented Populations, How Tech Can Close the Widened Divide in 2020 and Beyond. The video features the following panelists/speakers:

• Suraya Yahaya Founder & CEO Khazana, Inc.
• Mike Hess Founder and CEO Blind Institute of Technology
• Rama Moorthy Founder and CEO Hatha Systems
• Rachel Manning Senior Sales Leader Google Cloud
• Lisa Neal-Graves Candidate Douglas County Commissioner
• Karen Worstell Founder and CEO WRiskGroup
• Maria Lynne Dayton Global Technology Influencer, CXO Transterra Media

Although you likely have concrete plans for those final fall assessments, click here for Ten Exam Alternatives in Ten Minutes. Even if this idea is not something you can deploy this month, consider these options as you plan your spring courses.

I can’t believe it! We are almost at the end of the semester, and you know what? We survived!
I remember when we were participating in the P3 Virtual Conference in August and discussed our ideas on how to start the semester and how to make that first week a successful and engaging one for our students. We were nervous and excited at the same time.
Now, I am here to share with you some ideas on how to wrap up the semester. First of all, your students need to hear from you. Send a few more announcements letting them know that you are available if they need you. A more frequent personal connection at the end of the semester is considered a best practice in an online/hybrid modality. We also need to think about how to ensure we are helping students synthesize what they’ve learned this semester. Here are some strategies you can use to guide your students towards that end of the semester reflective process:

• Five Tips for Wrapping Up a Course
• That’s a Wrap: Or, Planning for Course Endings
• The Course Wrap Up

In the future, when you plan your courses, think about how you will wrap up your semester as much as you think about the beginning days. Make sure that you are creating unforgettable experiences that will stay with your students in years to come.

Interested in the proctoring option through our Respondus software? Please see the upcoming training opportunities that are being offered by Respondus. I also suggest these resources:

• https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Ts2izBlkbo?rel=0&autoplay=1
• Instructor Quick Start Guide for our version of Blackboard
• 10 reasons to use Respondus

Greetings, faculty advisors! As we approach the end of the fall advising period and registration for both spring and J-term, please view the What’s New - Fall 2020 handout, which has now been posted to our Faculty Resources page. It has several updates, including the new 5th-year eligibility option for athletes (emphasis on the 4PLUS programs for students interested in declaring a major) and advisor authorization for our new J-term (listed as winter term).

Calling Non-Responsive Advisees

Hopefully, advisees have received at least several emails from advisors requesting an appointment for advising. To quickly email advisees that have not yet been authorized to register, in self-service under Advising tab, go to “authorize registration,” My Advisees, check boxes next to students not yet authorized, and click “email selected” to send them a message.

When students have not responded to multiple requests for advising, it is time for advisors to call. There can be a reluctance to call students, as some believe “if students wanted to register, they would have acted by now” but we know students may be dealing with all sorts of challenges and could both use a nudge and appreciate the genuine concern. Sometimes there may be notes in Beacon about a student’s situation that advisors may have missed (on self-service homepage under Help click CampusLabs, Beacon to see all notifications on advisees).

To view a student’s phone number, click on “dossier” in self-service, or if in Beacon on an advisee’s Student Report, click on Demographics. If no phones are listed, reach out to me or Registrar’s office and we are happy to lookup in Powercampus—sometimes phones are listed there but not pulled into other systems. On the Dossier, you may see a “room phone” for residential students; these are the old landline phones in the rooms, but students do not typically use these anymore. If you’ve emailed multiple times and called with no response, feel free to reach out to us in the Student Success Center as we are willing to reach out as well.

• November 10, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. EDT: Election 2020: The Presidency, the Senate and the Future of American Democracy, University of California Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies
• November 12, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. EDT: Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) Headlines Webinar with Costas Panagopoulos

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!

Through this faculty development course, learn how to infuse community-based learning into online courses to give students hands-on, real-world experience that will strengthen learning, create connections to the larger community, and improve student retention rates.

Courses in December and January: https://events.compact.org/fusion-fall20. There are faculty scholarship available for this opportunity, so please inquire at CTL@hood.edu.

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