Dear Colleagues,
I hope all of us are finding our groove as we get back into the rhythms of the fall semester. Soon, autumn will be around the corner. My favorite season of the year! I hope that we all have some time to reflect on the beauty of the changing seasons.
Thanks to everyone who attended Assesstivus Day in August. The airing of assessment grievances around the random pole I found in my garage the morning of the event was one of my personal highlights of the day. A big shout out to Nathan Reese, Michelle Gricus, Suzanne Hiller, and Cathy Breneman for sharing their expertise with us! I also want to thank Dean April Boulton and Marisel Torres-Crespo for co-hosting our inaugural Teaching Assistant (TA) orientation. We had 10 participants, including many international students. We will be meeting with this cohort of TAs once a month in order to build community and serve as a sounding board for them.
As always, the CTL will be hosting workshops and events in the fall semester. I will make all events available by Zoom even though we of course would love to see you in-person. Furthermore, the CTL advisory committee will be embarking upon creating a strategic plan for the next academic year (2023-2024). In this endeavor, we will be conducting a needs assessment survey. Please do consider completing that survey when it is released. As always, reach out to me if you have any ideas for CTL programming or collaboration with other institutions.
Sincerely,
Paige Eager
"The reality is that effective class discussions — much like effective lectures — are the result of careful planning. ... Whether you are a new faculty member or a teaching veteran, if you’re looking for advice on how to hold a better class discussion, you’ll find it here in The Chronicle’s guide. You’ll learn how to structure your course and particular class sessions in ways that will get students actively participating — and will enhance their learning." Click here to read this informative guide.
"Clock-stops — normally seen as one-time measures to ease individual faculty members’ circumstances — became an option for which wide swaths of early-career scholars were automatically eligible, questions emerged about whom the policy benefited, and to what degree. Those are questions Vidler and two colleagues explore in a new study about how faculty members’ decisions to stop their tenure clocks differed by gender, race, and institution type. Their findings, the authors write, expose inequities inherent in the clock-stop phenomenon." Keep reading here.
"Where’s the professor? Unfortunately, this is not an unfamiliar question on the first day of class when a young-looking instructor is at the helm. In this episode, Reba Wissner joins us to discuss ways of shifting student perceptions in order to get to the real work of learning." Click here to listen to Episode 251 of the Tea for Teaching podcast.
"As I marinated in my frustration over the weekend, however, I began to think: What if it’s not them? What if I’m doing or not doing something that’s preventing them from connecting with the material? What if it is, in fact, me?... “So,” I asked, “what would it look like for us to do things differently?”" Continue reading here to learn how faculty members’ failings can become opportunities for positive change.
"Regardless of available campus supports, professors are the professionals who have the most frequent contact with students. Recognizing this, some higher ed institutions are working to equip faculty with knowledge and tools to support the first-gen experience in the classroom and beyond." Click here to view an infographic that offers six supports for you to consider.
"Indigenous students are struggling to make ends meet while pursuing their education and supporting their families and communities. To ensure Native American scholars can earn their degrees, institutions need to be more transparent about the true cost of college, expand campus-based tuition and fee waivers, boost emergency aid, and purposefully gather data on their Indigenous students instead of grouping them into the catchall demographic, “other.”" Click here to learn more about the findings from the first-of-its-kind report from the National Native Scholarship Providers.
Greetings from the Online Skywalker! Student Engagement is fundamental for a successful class, no matter if it is an online or face-to-face one. Sometimes colleagues think “that’s too hard,” “I don’t have the resources”, “I only have one and a half hours”, “my topic is not appropriate”, etc. No worries, you don’t have to create a complicated performance to incorporate engaging activities in your courses. On the contrary, the simpler, the better! I have included four simple ideas for you to start: 1.) Send an email/announcement introducing yourself. Make it personal, including a photo or a short video message of yourself. 2.) Create an introductory activity to help the students to connect. Ask students to upload a picture to their Blackboard profile and use the Discussion Board for a “getting to know you” activity. 3.) Provide opportunities for learner interaction through Blackboard discussion forums, group work, or Wikis. 4.) Encourage sharing through positive and responsible use of social media. You can encourage students to share resources related to the course content informally through a Facebook group or Twitter hashtag. If you want to know more about these or other student engagement ideas to incorporate throughout the semester, please remember, I am one email away!
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!
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
