A conversation between Tenisha Baca and Beth Eyres (Glendale Community College), Derek Bruff (Vanderbilt), Jason Todd, and Bart Everson (XULA) on faculty development podcasting. This conversation was recorded live at the POD Network 2019 conference in Pittsburgh.
Tenisha Baca is Residential Faculty for the Communication and World Languages Department at Glendale Community College in Arizona. She has a Master of Arts in Communication Studies and a Master of Education in Higher and Post-Secondary Education. She has been a Faculty Developer for GCC’s Center for Teaching Learning and Engagement for three years, a co-host of the Two Prof’s in a Pod podcast for two years, and a member of the POD Network for two years. She loves all things teaching, learning, and other stuff.
Beth Eyres is Residential Faculty for the English, Reading, and Journalism Department at Glendale Community College in Arizona. She has a Master of Arts in English from Northern Arizona University and a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education and English from Arizona State University. She has been the eCourse Faculty Lead, a part of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and a co-host of the Two Prof’s in a Pod podcast for two years.
Derek Bruff is director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and a principal senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics. As director, he oversees the Center’s programming and offerings for faculty and graduate students, helping them develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching and learning. He is the author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009) and Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching (WVU Press, 2019).
Jay Todd studied writing with Frederick and Steven Barthelme and Mary Robison at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction has appeared in journals such as Southern California Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction Weekly, and 971 Magazine. Since 2007, he has been a member of Department of English at Xavier, where he teaches American Literature, Freshman Composition, Modern English Grammars, and The Graphic Novel and Social Justice. From 2007 to 2010, Dr. Todd served as Xavier's Writing Center Director. From 2010 until 2015, he served as QEP Director, managing Xavier's Read Today, Lead Tomorrow initiative. In 2015, he became the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development's first Associate Director for Programming. As Associate Director for Programming, Dr. Todd assists in providing high-quality, relevant, evidence-based programming in support of CAT+FD's mission to serve faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility. Dr. Todd is a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Popular Culture Association, and the Louisiana Association for College Composition.
Active learning is "anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing" (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p. 2). Research suggests attention wanes after 15-20 minutes of a lecture. Active learning techniques can be used to re-energize and refocus a class.
In an active learning classroom, students must think, create and solve problems rather than passively listen to lecture. Active learning techniques and strategies can be used to develop quick activities that punctuate lectures. They can also be used to completely fill the class time.
During the break between semesters, our classrooms (Library rooms 501 and 502) were redesigned to support an active learning environment. An active learning environment is a flexible space that can be reconfigured quickly for a wide variety of teaching methods. An active learning environment supports student-centered learning and works best when you have furniture that allows students to easily shift from independent work to group work to class discussions and back again—without wasting valuable class time.
Active Learning Room 501 can accommodate a class-sized audience of 36. Active Learning Room 502 can accommodate a class-sized audience of 28.
Our classrooms are primarily used by faculty teaching regularly-scheduled university courses which make extensive regular use of multimedia materials, network communications, and/or active learning. Information about our approval process is available in our approval and assignment of Active Learning Classrooms and Teaching Lab document. Fill out our Classroom Request Form to request one of our classrooms.
Are you interested in incorporating active learning techniques in your classes? Here are a few resources to get you started:
A conversation between Chandani Patel (NYU) and Elizabeth Yost Hammer (XULA) on teaching, learning, and inclusion.
Dr. Chandani [Chahn-dhuh-knee] Patel is Director of Global Diversity Education and Training at NYU, where she works to build a robust diversity education curriculum in collaboration with colleagues in the Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation. Chandani focuses particularly on creating inclusive teaching and learning environments for students, faculty, and staff, and she is committed to advancing a more equitable higher education landscape.
Prior to joining NYU, Chandani was Senior Assistant Director at Columbia University’s Center for Teaching and Learning, where she developed pedagogical workshops and online resources to support instructors in creating inclusive classroom spaces, including a massive open online course (MOOC) titled “Inclusive Teaching: Supporting All Students in the College Classroom.”
Chandani received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago, and she holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and an M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University. Her scholarly work focuses on the Afro-Indian Ocean, with particular attention to the literature of South Asians in Africa, as well as on literary connections between the Indian and Atlantic Ocean worlds. She currently sits on the Academic Council for the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) and serves as the co-chair of the Diversity Committee for the POD Network.
Elizabeth Yost Hammer is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and a Kellogg Professor in Teaching in the Psychology Department. She received her Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Tulane University. She regularly teaches Introductory Psychology, Research Methods, and Freshman Seminar. Her research interests focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and she has contributed chapters to several books intended to enhance teaching preparation including The Handbook of the Teaching of Psychology. She is a co-author of the textbook, Psychology Applied to Modern Life. Dr. Hammer is a past-president of Psi Chi (the International Honor Society in Psychology), and served as Chief Reader for Advanced Placement Psychology. Her work in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching includes organizing pedagogical workshops and faculty development initiatives. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Professional and Organizational Developers Network.
November 4-8, 2019 is National Distance Learning Week (NDLW). In association with NDLW, the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is offering free webinars on a variety of topics related to online teaching and learning. A few other organizations are offering free webinars during NDLW as well.
For more information on the activities and to register for the webinars visit NDLW 2019.
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are a few updates in the October 2019/20.19.10 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Change to immersive navigation bar
When evaluating an assignment submission, the user interface has been updated slightly. The Next Student and Previous Student buttons above the submission and learner information have been replaced by forward and back chevrons that display in the immersive navigation bar. Previously, these buttons were displayed across the entire width of the page. The information on which user you are evaluating (e.g. 1 of 12) displays between the back and forward chevrons.
Evaluating an assignment with the new immersive navigation bar
2) Brightspace Learning Environment – Improvements to consistency
To provide a more consistent experience, there have been changes to update the language, interface controls, and workflows throughout Brightspace Learning Environment.
The language and methods by which instructors make activities hidden or visible to learners across different tools is now consistent. Changes include:
The visibility control now uses a checkbox with the consistent terminology Hide from users in all instances. This change affects the Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades (grade item and grade category) tools.
In Discussions, the Visibility, Availability Dates, and Locking options move from the Properties tab to the Restrictions tab.
The Hide from users checkbox appears under the title field of all activity creation pages in the Content tool.
In Content, on the table of contents, there is now a visibility icon button for use with both content topics and modules. The icon serves as a visibility switch. The visibility status of a topic appears when the topic is not visible, when the table of contents is in bulk edit mode, or when a topic is in edit-in-place mode. The table of contents fly-out no longer provides the ability to switch the visibility of a topic or module.
In Content, the Hide from users and Make Visible to users options are available in the context menus for topics and modules in the table of contents, and in the context menus of topics on the topics’ detail page.
The Instructor view of the list page of several tools now has consistent icons in a consistent order for activity restrictions. Changes include:
All common activity icons appear before tool-specific icons.
There is now only one Special Access icon in Quizzes (previously there were two, one for each type of Special Access). The Special Access icon also now appears in Assignments where it previously did not.
All icons have been updated to the Daylight style (except the Bonus Grade item, which will be done in a future release).
The Exemptions icon now appears on the list pages.
Alt-text appears on all icons on the activity pages. In some cases, the alt-text has been changed to provide consistent text across all icons of the same type.
Across many tools, including Quizzes, Surveys, Grades, and Discussions, the Restrictions tab provides the ability to control the visibility status and availability dates for an activity. Changes include:
Changes to the Restrictions tabs in Quizzes, Survey, Grades, and Discussions to show Hide from Users with a check box control to turn on or turn off the visibility of the item.
Previous sections containing the visibility settings in Surveys, Grades, and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) are renamed to Availability.
Availability dates in Grades (for a grade item and grade category) and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) now appear and can be hidden.
There is now a consistent individual and bulk process workflow to hide or show activities. With this workflow, users can quickly change the visibility status from the list of activities without first having to edit the activity. Changes include:
In Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of an individual item or bulk items from the More Actions button at the top of the page.
In Discussions, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of each topic and forum. Bulk hide or show is not available for Discussions.
The language and methods by which instructors save content on the New Activity page (Content tool) are now consistent. Whether the item is visible or not is determined by the Hide from Users permission check box. Changes include:
Publish and Save as Draft have been combined into a single button called Save.
In addition, there are other consistency updates throughout the Brightspace Learning Environment:
The Completion Method icon in the table of contents in the Content tool is now a menu. If an instructor does not have permission to edit the Completion Method, the icon is displayed and the button menu does not appear.
In the Grade book, on the context menu for a grade item, the Grade All option is now Enter Grades.
In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the Visibility property is now Visibility Status. Status options are now Hidden or Not Hidden.
In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the End Date Restriction and Start Date Restriction properties are now Availability End Date and Availability Start Date.
In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, changes to the Visibility and Date properties are now logged independently.
In Surveys, the display of availability dates on the survey Administrator and User list pages are now consistent with the display currently used in Quizzes.
3) Brightspace Pulse - iOS support
The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on Apple devices with iOS 11 or higher. Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on Apple devices with iOS 10, but will not receive any app updates. For an optimal experience, D2L recommends installing the latest version of Brightspace Pulse on Apple devices with iOS 11 or higher.
4) Intelligent Agents - Email Attachments
You can now add attachments to automated email messages when creating and editing Intelligent Agents. The intelligent agent email template contains an Attachments area that enables you to upload local files, select from available course files, or record audio. Attachment size is based on the email attachment size setting for your organization.
The Attachments area now appears when creating or editing Intelligent Agents emails messages
5) Links - Improved link validation
The Links tool has been updated to improve the link validation process. Pre-existing links are not impacted; however, any new links or updates to pre-existing links must be formatted to follow the new validation rules. (Valid formats include: URLs that begin with http/https, ftp/sftp/ftps, file, mailto, feed, itpc, mms, rtsp, or relative paths beginning with /).
6) Quizzes – Change to immersive navigation bar
When evaluating a quiz submission, the user interface has been updated slightly. The Next Student and Previous Student buttons above the submission and learner information have been replaced by forward and back chevrons that display in the immersive navigation bar. Previously these buttons were displayed across the entire width of the page. The information on which user you are evaluating (e.g. 1 of 12) now displays between the back and forward chevrons.
Evaluating a quiz with the new immersive navigation bar
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Let me be the first to wish you a happy IPD. That's right, it's International Pronouns Day!
It’s become a custom, recently, to let other people know your pronouns by way of introduction. You might see them in an email signature, for example. Sometimes people label them as “gender pronouns” or “preferred pronouns” or simply “pronouns.” Or they might just be sitting there next to the person’s name.
This might seem odd or unnecessary the first time you see it, but in practice it’s actually very helpful. If you’ve ever experienced confusion over what pronoun to use with a new acquaintance, well, it can be embarrassing for all parties involved.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Calling somebody by the wrong pronoun can be downright harmful. It can even be a form of disrespect, harassment and abuse.
For some of us, this has never been an issue. Some of us are more or less unambiguously located in one gender or another — whether we want to be or not — and we rarely give it a second thought. No one ever questions our pronouns, not even ourselves. This has been my personal experience.
But it’s a great big world out there, and a great spectrum of humanity. There are plenty of people for whom gender is more nuanced, or complicated, or subtle. These folks may experience discrimination or persecution in a society that has codified every aspect of life into rigid binary codes.
Hopefully, that is changing, but we all need to do our part to make that change real.
It’s a good thing, then, to let people know your pronouns. It’s a good new norm to establish as we work to build a more just and humane society. It’s in this spirit that I’m opting to add my pronouns to my email signature. It’s a little thing, but in some ways it represents something big: the erosion of certain forms of gender privilege, which run deep.
So: He, him, his. These are my pronouns.
What are yours?
For a good pronoun primer on inclusive teaching, check out this resource from the University of Michigan.
CAT+FD endorses International Pronouns Day, which seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity. Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people. Together, we can transform society to celebrate people’s multiple, intersecting identities. We encourage colleges, schools, workplaces, and local organizations to hold educational and empowering events on International Pronouns Day.
A conversation between CAT+FD's very own Jay Todd and Elizabeth Yost Hammer on teaching, learning, and rubrics.
Jay Todd studied writing with Frederick and Steven Barthelme and Mary Robison at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction has appeared in journals such as Southern California Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction Weekly, and 971 Magazine. Since 2007, he has been a member of Department of English at Xavier, where he teaches American Literature, Freshman Composition, Modern English Grammars, and The Graphic Novel and Social Justice. From 2007 to 2010, Dr. Todd served as Xavier's Writing Center Director. From 2010 until 2015, he served as QEP Director, managing Xavier's Read Today, Lead Tomorrow initiative. In 2015, he became the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development's first Associate Director for Programming. As Associate Director for Programming, Dr. Todd assists in providing high-quality, relevant, evidence-based programming in support of CAT+FD's mission to serve faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility.
Dr. Todd is a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Popular Culture Association, and the Louisiana Association for College Composition.
Elizabeth Yost Hammer is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and a Kellogg Professor in Teaching in the Psychology Department. She received her Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Tulane University. She regularly teaches Introductory Psychology, Research Methods, and Freshman Seminar. Her research interests focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and she has contributed chapters to several books intended to enhance teaching preparation including The Handbook of the Teaching of Psychology. She is a co-author of the textbook, Psychology Applied to Modern Life. Dr. Hammer is a past-president of Psi Chi (the International Honor Society in Psychology), and served as Chief Reader for Advanced Placement Psychology. Her work in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching includes organizing pedagogical workshops and faculty development initiatives. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Professional and Organizational Developers Network.
Thanks to all who attended the recent Service Learning (SL)workshop. Your willingness to take the time out of your busy schedules to learn more about this important endeavor is greatly appreciated. The workshop was entitled Service Learning: A Renewalas we (CAT-FD and CSI [the Center for Student Involvement]) are focused on enhancing SL courses and the SL experience on Xavier’s campus. Along those lines, we have streamlined the process of SL course proposal submission, with proposals now submitted online. The advantage of submitting proposals is an “SL” designation for the respective course on Banner Web. Proposal submission also allows us to anticipate and provide appropriate logistical support for SL courses.
As the Faculty in Residence -SL, I will be working with faculty to ensure that SL courses are pedagogically sound and achieve course learning objectives. I will also focus on whether reflection is integral piece of SL and, with a great deal of help from Ms. Kendra Warren, provide logistical support. The overall goal of proposal submission is not to “accept” or “reject” any given proposal. Rather it is to work with faculty to ensure a sound, effective, and smooth (as possible) SL project.
At the Service Learning: A Renewalworkshop we discussed the importance of developing a SL project with a community partner in mind, as SL consists of collaboration with a community partner; a collaboration from which the community partner clearly benefits. We also focused on the importance of reflection in SL. This reflection can take many forms (e.g., a journal, class discussion, and/or paper assignment), should be a component of the course grade, and occur consistently throughout the semester. In essence SL should be an integral component of the course and course grade. However, that component should not merely consist of attendance at the SL site.
SL can take many forms, ranging from direct SL (e.g., tutoring middle school students) to research-based SL (e.g., writing a guide on available community resources). The form of SL is not necessarily important. Whether SL is consistent with the nature of the course and fosters achievement of learning outcomes is.
I look forward to hearing from and supporting faculty in their SL endeavors. If you have questions, are interested in submitting a SL proposal, or are curious about other upcoming SL activities, please let me know (lschulte@xua.edu).
The #1 Brightspace complaint we hear from students is that faculty don't post their grades online. When students don’t receive meaningful and timely feedback about their coursework, they are unable to make the necessary adjustments to improve their performance.
This week’s "Grade Book and College Readiness" training session focused on 1) why using the Grade Book to provide students with their standing in the course is important and 2) how to setup and enter grades in the Grade Book.
In case you missed this week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, you can review these resources:
Homework that was to be completed before the workshop
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
The #1 Brightspace complaint we hear from students is that faculty don't post their grades online. When students don’t receive meaningful and timely feedback about their coursework, they are unable to make the necessary adjustments to improve their performance.
The Brightspace Grades Tool is useful for providing students with up-to-date information about their current standing in the course. For instructors, it’s useful for assigning and keeping track of student grades. Students can view grade entries and monitor their progress throughout the course.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Tenisha Baca is Residential Faculty for the Communication and World Languages Department at Glendale Community College in Arizona. She has a Master of Arts in Communication Studies and a Master of Education in Higher and Post-Secondary Education. She has been a Faculty Developer for GCC’s Center for Teaching Learning and Engagement for three years, a co-host of the Two Prof’s in a Pod podcast for two years, and a member of the POD Network for two years. She loves all things teaching, learning, and other stuff.
Beth Eyres is Residential Faculty for the English, Reading, and Journalism Department at Glendale Community College in Arizona. She has a Master of Arts in English from Northern Arizona University and a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education and English from Arizona State University. She has been the eCourse Faculty Lead, a part of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and a co-host of the Two Prof’s in a Pod podcast for two years.
Derek Bruff is director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and a principal senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics. As director, he oversees the Center’s programming and offerings for faculty and graduate students, helping them develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching and learning. He is the author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009) and Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching (WVU Press, 2019).
Jay Todd studied writing with Frederick and Steven Barthelme and Mary Robison at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction has appeared in journals such as Southern California Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction Weekly, and 971 Magazine. Since 2007, he has been a member of Department of English at Xavier, where he teaches American Literature, Freshman Composition, Modern English Grammars, and The Graphic Novel and Social Justice. From 2007 to 2010, Dr. Todd served as Xavier's Writing Center Director. From 2010 until 2015, he served as QEP Director, managing Xavier's Read Today, Lead Tomorrow initiative. In 2015, he became the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development's first Associate Director for Programming. As Associate Director for Programming, Dr. Todd assists in providing high-quality, relevant, evidence-based programming in support of CAT+FD's mission to serve faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility. Dr. Todd is a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Popular Culture Association, and the Louisiana Association for College Composition.
Bart Everson is just this guy, you know?
Elizabeth Yost Hammer is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and a Kellogg Professor in Teaching in the Psychology Department. She received her Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Tulane University. She regularly teaches Introductory Psychology, Research Methods, and Freshman Seminar. Her research interests focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and she has contributed chapters to several books intended to enhance teaching preparation including The Handbook of the Teaching of Psychology. She is a co-author of the textbook, Psychology Applied to Modern Life. Dr. Hammer is a past-president of Psi Chi (the International Honor Society in Psychology), and served as Chief Reader for Advanced Placement Psychology. Her work in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching includes organizing pedagogical workshops and faculty development initiatives. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Professional and Organizational Developers Network.
Jay Todd studied writing with Frederick and Steven Barthelme and Mary Robison at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction has appeared in journals such as Southern California Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction Weekly, and 971 Magazine. Since 2007, he has been a member of Department of English at Xavier, where he teaches American Literature, Freshman Composition, Modern English Grammars, and The Graphic Novel and Social Justice. From 2007 to 2010, Dr. Todd served as Xavier's Writing Center Director. From 2010 until 2015, he served as QEP Director, managing Xavier's Read Today, Lead Tomorrow initiative. In 2015, he became the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development's first Associate Director for Programming. As Associate Director for Programming, Dr. Todd assists in providing high-quality, relevant, evidence-based programming in support of CAT+FD's mission to serve faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility.
