The Center for Teaching & Learning

Message From the CTL Director

Faculty Focused:

• Service-Learning Syllabi Archive
  
• Critical Thinking in Theory and Practice
• How to Cope with Burnout
• Alternate Grading System that's Improving Learning
• Those That Stay the Same End Up Losing
  
• Tea for Teaching Podcast: Active Learning
• CTL BlackBoard
• CTL Facebook Group
  

Student Centered:

• COVID-19 Ending the Stigma of Online Learning
• Pedagogy of Healing: Bearing Witness
• 80% of Students Stronger from Pandemic
  

Equity Emphasized:

• Statement of Support for Racial Justice & Equity
• Standards for Equity in Admissions
• Expanding Scientific Vocabulary in ASL
• Protections for LGBTQ+ Students
• Initiatives to Support Neurodiverse Students
• Students With Disabilities & a Return to "Normal"
  
• Critical Race Theory
  
• Practicing Equitable, Transformative Pedagogy
  

Tuned Up:

• Tips From the Digital Diva: Backchannel
• Dear Margaret Hood

Scheduled:

• 8/27 - Serving Students of Pandemic (virtual)
• 9/10 - High Impact Practices (in-person & virtual)
• 9/17 - TNT: The Franciscans in Colonial Mexico (in-person & virtual)
• Save the Date: Fall CTL Events
  

Greetings Colleagues,

I hope everyone had some time to reflect and recharge over the summer given the past 18 months. I want to express my deep gratitude to Dean April Boulton and the CTL Advisory Committee for all the important and time-consuming programming that helped us continue to deliver a high-quality educational experience students in the midst of a global pandemic. At the same time, I want to acknowledge the emotional labor that went into providing this programming during a time of multiple challenges and crises in our country including the ongoing quest for racial justice, equity, and inclusion.

Our focus for much of the CTL’s upcoming professional development programming will be on JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion). We have an array of external experts, as well as members of our own Hood community, who will host these Friday afternoon workshops. In addition, Tea and Talks have been scheduled on alternate Friday afternoons throughout the semester. These are excellent opportunities to learn from and interact with our colleagues. All programming, with the presenters’ expressed permission, will be recorded and archived on the CTL Blackboard site. Please use this resource and let me know if there are other thematic workshops or resources that you would like to see added. Also, please check out the CTL Facebook group for additional resources. Finally, a hearty welcome on behalf of CTL to our new faculty colleagues and VP for Community and Inclusivity, Tammi Simpson. We look forward to partnering with each of you in the year ahead.

Sincerely,

Paige Eager

Check out Campus Compact's Syllabus Archive, "A collection of syllabi covering a wide range of disciplines and issue areas." Campus Compact accepts submissions of higher education syllabi, which they evaluate on areas such as engagement, reflection, reciprocity, and public dissemination. Learn more about it here.

"I conducted surveys and interviews with educational practitioners who teach critical thinking on college and university campuses as well as researchers who focus on critical thinking in their scholarship. Below, I offer insights about how critical thinking educators and scholars can better support our students’ learning." Learn more here.

"If you’re still struggling after an exceptionally challenging year, you’re not alone....Just as factors beyond longer work hours got us into this, it will take more than lightening the load to get us back out." Click here to read about what other factors may be contributing to burnout and what can be done about them.

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

"To make the experience of grading less onerous, Link has joined the small but growing number of chemistry professors who have adopted an alternative grading system known as specifications—or specs—grading. This system eschews the conventional points-based approach to grading." Continue reading here.

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

"Teaching can’t go back to normal this fall. If it does, higher education has missed a huge opportunity to improve how instructors interact with students."

Continue reading here.

Listen to Episode 198 of the Tea for Teaching podcast as Doug McKee provides an update on his Active Learning Initiative at Cornell, including some initial findings on how this initiative has affected student learning. Click here to listen.

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.

"The sudden shift to online is often characterized as a necessity, not a choice. But the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows declines in enrollment across nearly all categories of institutions in the last two semesters, while predominantly online institutions experienced quite the opposite." Keep reading here.

"Fifty percent of students who participated in the survey chose “mental health” as a source of concern regarding their ability to “complete coursework and get good grades.”... What can we, as faculty and educators, possibly do to help attend to our students’ mental health and ameliorate their anxiety, depression and loneliness?" Click here to continue this article.

"A new Pearson survey of students and parents in four countries underscores the resilience and compassion of young learners." Read more about this study here.

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.

"Commonly held policies in recruitment, demonstrated interest, early decision, legacy admission, standardized testing, Criminal Justice Information (CJI), transfer pathways, and need-based financial aid practices can either increase or limit access to post-secondary education." Keep reading here.

"When a sign doesn’t reflect the concept, deaf students can misunderstand the meaning or process the information incorrectly. Finger spelling or using nonconceptual signs makes lectures more complicated for deaf students." Learn more here.

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

"While the Office for Civil Rights’ notice of interpretation likely won’t bring monumental changes, institutions will still need to consider how their campuses could be more equitable for LGBTQ+ students." Click here to read this article.

Thanks to April Boulton, Professor of Biology & Dean of the Graduate School, for sharing!

“There are a lot of people who would be very effective, learn a lot and be very active in the classroom if we provide them with the kinds of accommodations that they need in order to participate in ways that are appropriate for them” Learn more here.

"While these changes are promising, some people with disabilities are also frustrated. Change didn’t come because of a fundamental shift in the way people think about disability; it came because suddenly, the needs of people who don’t identify as disabled converged with the needs of those who do." Keep reading here.

Two articles share their perspectives on the recent surge of anti-CRT legislation: We Disagree on a Lot of Things — Except the Danger of Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws, written by "a progressive, a moderate, a libertarian and a conservative" and AAUP Condemns Political Attempts to Restrict Critical Race Theory: "“When politicians mandate the academic content that faculty can and cannot teach or the scholarly areas they can or cannot research or study, they prevent colleges and universities from fulfilling their missions,” the AAUP noted in its statement." Click the links to keep reading.

"We see disparate student success rates year in and year out, yet we don't know how to change that, as most of us weren't taught better ways to teach...Despite several hundred studies on the efficacy of engaged, participatory learning practices, most of our teaching continues to rely on hierarchical, talking-head lecture formats" Read the full article here.

"But if you’re anything like me and the students I’ve been teaching recently, there is one thing that you’re probably sad to leave behind on Zoom: the CHAT!...So here are a few options I’ve found that will allow us to keep the backchannel open and help us include as many voices as possible in our conversations." Read more about the backchannel options you can incorporate into your classroom.

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!

Dr. Fletcher McClellan is Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown College. He has presented dozens of papers at professional conferences in such areas as the American presidency, politics and popular culture, and teaching and learning in political science. His recent publications include 2021 articles on the effects of high impact practices on student learning for the Journal of Political Science Education and models of the undergraduate political science curriculum for PS: Political Science & Politics. He is the recipient of the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 Craig L. Brians Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Mentorship, and the Kreider Prize for Teaching Excellence.

Join September's 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. Whitaker 220, 9/17 @ 3PM.

• Paige Eager, Professor of Political Science & Director of the CTL
• April Boulton, Associate Professor of Biology & Dean of Graduate School
• Martha Bari, Assistant Professor of Art History
• 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/