As some of you may already know, Dr. Marquez is leaving GGC; his last day in the Center for Teaching Excellence will be Tuesday, March 21st. Roy has been with the CTE for 10 years, and has been instrumental in shaping what it has become today. Roy has requested that we not make a big deal out of his departure, but we would be remiss if we did not take a moment to recognize his efforts, accomplishments, and impact both in the CTE and at GGC over the past decade, and to wish him well in his future endeavors.
– Dr. Miranda (Mei) Zhang and the rest of the CTE staff
The Center for Teaching Excellence, School of Liberal Arts, and Information Technology are partnering to offer a miniseries on artificial intelligence and the implications for teaching and learning.
Episode 1:
Session Title: ChatGPT: What it is and why you should (and should not) be worried about how it will impact your teaching.
Facilitators:
Dr. Daniel Vollaro, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Digital Humanities, Georgia Gwinnett College
Jason Palmer, Instructor of English, Georgia Gwinnett College
Have you heard about ChatGPT and want to know more? Are you worried about how AI chatbots may enable students to cheat on your assignments? Or are you interested in how they may facilitate both faculty and student learning, creativity, and productivity? Do you wonder how this tech will change the definition of writing, research, teaching, and learning?
To demonstrate its capabilities, we asked the ChatGPT to write a description for a faculty workshop on ChatGPT. Here’s what it gave us:
ChatGPT is a sophisticated language model trained by OpenAI that is capable of generating human-like responses to text-based prompts, which means that it can simulate a conversation with a person. ChatGPT uses machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of text data, learn from it, and generate coherent and relevant responses to various prompts.
It is essential for faculty members to understand the capabilities of ChatGPT and its potential impact on academic integrity. Students can use ChatGPT to generate essays by analyzing the context of a prompt and producing an essay on any given topic. This feature can be tempting for students looking to complete their assignments quickly, but it also poses a risk to academic integrity if not used appropriately.
In this workshop, we will discuss the potential implications of ChatGPT on academic integrity and how we can encourage students to use it as a tool to enhance their learning experience rather than a shortcut to complete their assignments. We will also explore the various use cases of ChatGPT in higher education, such as its potential to help students with language barriers and its role in developing more personalized learning experiences.
Overall, this workshop aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of ChatGPT, its potential benefits, and the challenges it poses to the academic community. By the end of this workshop, faculty members will have a better understanding of how to use ChatGPT as a tool to enhance the learning experience of students and promote academic integrity.
This demonstration shows how this AI is both powerful and problematic. Our session will be different from the one the chatbot describes–more wide-ranging and reflective. Please join us to learn more and participate in a rich discussion on the inevitable impact of AI on higher education.
You must make a choice: #TeachWithAI or #TeachAgainstAI. You can’t ignore AI. I do both in my classes at Georgia State University Perimeter College. Some of my lessons include #AI, and some of my lessons are fairly AI-proof. In either case, you must learn about AI, play with AI, and make changes to the way in which you #teach.
You must make a choice: #TeachWithAI or #TeachAgainstAI. You can’t ignore AI. I do both in my classes at Georgia State University Perimeter College. Some of my lessons include #AI, and some of my lessons are fairly AI-proof. In either case, you must learn about AI, play with AI, and make changes to the way in which you #teach.
CTE Initiatives for Supporting Faculty and Coping with Burnout
Have the last few years left you feeling stressed, exhausted, and generally burned out? You’re not alone. This has been an unprecedented time of upheaval and change, and higher education has been forced to adapt through a number of rapid and dramatic changes with far-reaching (and not yet thoroughly understood) consequences. Most educators agree that higher ed will never (and should never) return to what was considered “normal” before the pandemic, and faculty and students alike are now trying to figure out how to define our “new normal” and what teaching and learning can and should look like in a post-pandemic world.
The CTE is sponsoring several initiatives designed to help faculty cope with the stress and turmoil of the past few years and to share strategies and resources for coping with burnout, rebuilding resilience, and re-energizing your teaching.
Join the CTE Book Club: Unraveling Faculty Burnout by Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark
Join the CTE in the Spring 2023 semester for a book club consisting of a series of moderated discussions scheduled to take place over a period of eight weeks (this will allow us to focus on one chapter per week, plus one additional week for a final discussion and wrap-up).
Unraveling Faculty Burnout by Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark
Participants will decide whether the book club will take place virtually (in Teams or Zoom), face-to-face in the CTE, or in some sort of hybrid combination of both formats.
The CTE will provide copies of the book to the first 12 faculty who sign up. All other participants will need to purchase their own copies.
Moderators: Jessica Estep (English) / Michael D. Smith (CTE)
Timeline / Schedule:
Jan 13 – Feb 03: signup period (see the form below)
Jan 17 – Feb 03: books for the first 12 faculty to sign up will be available for pickup in the CTE.
Jan 23 – Feb 03: polling of participants to determine format
Feb 06 – Feb 10: Week 1 (reading time) Feb 13 – Feb 17: Week 2 (discussion of introduction, Chapters 1 and 2) Feb 20 – Feb 24: Week 3 (reading time) Feb 27 – Mar 03: Week 4 (discussion of Chapters 3 and 4) Mar 06 – Mar 10: Spring Break Mar 13 – Mar 17: Week 5 (reading time) Mar 20 – Mar 24: Week 6 (discussion of Chapters 5 and 6) Mar 27 – Mar 31: Week 7 (reading time) Apr 03 – Apr 07: Week 8 (final discussion – takeaways, next steps, and wrap-up)
For more information, contact Michael D. Smith (mdsmith@ggc.edu)
Join the CTE’s Burnout Support Group
The CTE’s Burnout Support Group is intended to provide a safe and welcoming shared space for faculty to connect with colleagues, share experiences, and discuss strategies and practices for coping with burnout. As a part of the CTE’s Teaching and Learning Community (TLC), the support group will be facilitated and maintained by the CTE, but the participants will determine how, how often, and in what format(s) the support group will take place (asynchronous discussion forums and/or synchronous f2f/virtual meetings). Respect for group members’ privacy will be a primary focus.
The Burnout Support Group will discuss the strategies presented by Dr. Pope-Ruark, and will also explore Dr. Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion as an antidote for burnout. In two studies with healthcare professionals, Dr. Neff found that a self-compassion program significantly increased self-compassion and well-being as well as significantly reducing secondary traumatic stress and burnout. Dr. Neff, the author of the book Self-Compassion, believes that a regular self-compassion practice can greatly benefit educators.
“With the burnout issues teachers face, taking care of themselves through work/life balance is important, but it isn’t enough,” says Neff, “Teachers need to give themselves permission to be self-compassionate for the stress they’re under.” She describes the practice as a way of reining in our inner critic, replacing it with a voice of support, understanding and care.
The potential benefits of self-compassion are huge. Neff has found that people who practice self-compassion experience fewer negative emotions and stay emotionally balanced in difficult situations—both of which, according to another study on emotional exhaustion among teachers, help prevent teacher burnout.
A note about the stigma associated with faculty burnout: as Dr. Pope-Ruark points out, there is a certain amount of shame attached to a diagnosis of burnout in higher education; because of this stigma, it is not something that faculty generally talk about. If burnout is discussed in business and higher ed, it is often treated as a badge of honor, perpetuating a culture of stress that ignores the problem rather than trying to find a solution. Burnout was a significant problem among faculty members before the pandemic, however, and has only gotten worse over the past few years. Obviously, this is something that we need to start talking about. The stigma associated with burnout is similar to the stigma associated with seeking therapy for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues, even though almost 40% of workers in a survey from one insurance company reported suffering from some sort of mental health issue before the pandemic began (and as of 2020, that number had increased to 46%). There is a growing recognition that therapy is beneficial for everyone, however, and more and more people (including celebrities) are beginning to talk about mental health. As burnout, anxiety, and depression often go hand in hand, we need to provide more opportunities for frank, open, safe, and non-judgmental conversations about these issues and work together to find effective solutions.
For more information, contact Michael D. Smith (mdsmith@ggc.edu)
Join the CTE’s Teaching and Learning Community
After the turmoil of the past few years, some GGC faculty have expressed a need for a “back to basics” approach – an effort to reform, regroup, and rekindle the spirit of teaching. What are your core beliefs about teaching? Do they look the same as they did three years ago? Or do you feel a need to redefine what teaching and learning means for you, personally, today, to re-discover your guiding principles?
The Teaching and Learning Community (TLC) is intended to provide a space for faculty to have some of these crucial conversations and to do the necessary work of renewing and reforming together as a community. Our goals include:
Providing a virtual space for ongoing community discussion and support
Facilitating (re)connections with colleagues – sharing stories, experiences, and examples (both within and across disciplines)
Renewing faculty energy and motivation / rekindling the spirit of teaching (and learning)
Working collaboratively to redefine teaching after two and a half years of upheaval and to relearn how to teach in whatever the new (ab)normal ends up looking like
Going back to the basics
Identifying proven best practices
Defining our “new normal”
Providing resources and workshops on a variety of topics, including:
The importance of wellness, well-being, self-compassion, and self-care
Dealing with burnout
Teaching through trauma
Best practices for hybrid and online teaching and learning
Best practices for engaging students
The extent of your participation in the TLC is completely up to you, of course – lurk in the background and observe; take part in any of the discussions that seem relevant to you (or start your own!) whenever you have some free time; take advantage of community resources as needed; and / or participate in as many of the self-paced / face-to-face workshops as you like. Whatever your level of participation, YOU can help to shape the nature, scope, and future of the community, explore what teaching and learning look like now, and define what sort of support you and your colleagues need now in order to move forward into the new normal.
Please join the CTE staff for our Winter Institute as we welcome renowned educator, speaker, and author of the book “Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal”, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark. In her book, Dr. Pope-Ruark mines her own burnout experience as well as the experiences of other academic women to understand what about the culture of academia leads to burnout and how we can build burnout resilience over time.
In this workshop, we will:
Explore the definition and characteristics of burnout and how to identify them in yourself and your colleagues
Reflect on the ways focusing on Purpose and Connection can help us build burnout resilience
Define strategies that can be used individually and collectively to address the cultural elements that lead to burnout.
The Winter Institute will take place on Tuesday, January 10th from 1:00 – 3:30 PM. This year, you have the option of joining us in the CTE Conference Room (L-2135) with a small group of colleagues (up to 16) for the livestream or you can join us from home.
Monday, November 7 from 12:00 ‐ 1:30 p.m. in the CTE Conference Room
The goal of the event is to discuss a model for successful international collaboration and describe one current project (an edited volume) in detail. Dovile and Erica have collaborated on many projects since 2011. They won a workshop grant from the International Studies Association (ISA) and produced two co‐edited volumes and two special journal issues. They are currently working on another co‐edited volume (under contract with Routledge) and a special journal issue. The event will outline the steps for establishing successful international collaboration and will discuss the co‐edited volume on memory politics in international relations.
Dr. Erica Resende
Dr. Erica Resende holds a double B.A. in Legal Studies and in International Relations, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is Assistant Professor (tenured) of International Relations and Security Studies at the Brazilian War College in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is also visiting professor at the University of Passau, Germany, at the University of Oklahoma, a Fulbright U.S. Scholar and U.S. State Department alumna.
Her research interests are critical security studies, U.S. foreign policy, identity politics, and memory and trauma studies. Based in Brazil, she has authored over 12 books in both Portuguese and English as well as published in articles in peer‐reviewed journals.
Dr. Dovile Budryte
Dovile Budrytė, Ph.D, is a professor of political science at Georgia Gwinnett College. Her areas of interest include gender studies, trauma and memory in international relations and nationalism. She was a 2004 National Endowment for the Humanities grant recipient, 2000‐01 Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (New York) Fellow, and a 1998‐99 Fellow at the College for Advanced Central European Studies at Europa University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany.
The third annual Georgia Gwinnett College Teaching, Learning, and Research Symposium, co-hosted by the Business, Economic, and Applied Research (BEAR) Center and the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), invites submissions for a hybrid conference to be held January 11-12, 2023. The conference theme is: “Economic Horizons,” and will feature two faculty tracks, SoTL research and non-SoTL empirical research, along with one undergraduate research track. Submissions that align with the theme are particularly encouraged, such as works focusing on inflation, recession, economic inequality, and economic prosperity, however other topics are also welcomed.
By submitting, authors are attesting that their work is unpublished at the time of submission. Submissions will be double-blind reviewed by faculty with subject matter expertise. Authors will present in a concurrent session format, either virtually or in person. Proceedings are abstract only.
Undergraduate students must have a faculty sponsor, who is familiar with the research and supports submission to an academic conference. The faculty sponsor can, but does not have to be, a co-author; however the majority of both the research and the presentation should be done by the student.
The submission deadline is November 11, 2022. A 250-word abstract and contact information for all co-authors are needed. Presenter, coauthors, and attendees are asked to consider serving as a reviewer. Decision notices will be sent out by December 12, 2022. Individuals are limited to a total of 3 submissions, which includes single and co-authored work. All conference presenters and attendees, except student presenters in the undergraduate track, will need to pay the $35 registration fee.
The new GGC Digital Humanities Lab is proud to announce a three-part introductory series of workshops on the Digital Humanities (DH). Presented in partnership with the GGC’s Center for Teaching Excellence, the sessions will provide an entry point into this exciting discipline that is changing the way humanists teach, conduct research, and publish their work. The workshops will introduce faculty to the origins, history, and fundamental principles of DH; survey projects and scholarship that are characteristic of the discipline; and provide a structure for integrating DH into a variety of courses.
Mon, Oct. 03 from 2:00 – 3:15: Introduction to the Digital Humanities – In this session, faculty will learn the origins, evolution, and current status of the digital humanities as a discipline of study. How is the work of a digital humanist different from traditional scholarship? What are the current debates in the field? How is the field defined within academia? We will explore these questions.
Mon, Oct. 24 from 2:00 – 3:15: Digital Humanities Projects | Scholarship – This session surveys three digital humanities projects–two from other institutions and one from GGC–presenting the breadth of current work within the discipline. Faculty will learn about the challenges of DH research and scholarship by focusing on these projects. How did the creators take the project from idea to final product? What technological and institutional challenges did they face? How was the success of the work evaluated?
Mon, Nov. 7 from 2:00 – 3:15: Digital Humanities in the Classroom – In this session, Faculty will learn about several DH projects that were completed in classrooms at GGC. The session will focus on how instructors at GGC can begin to integrate the digital humanities into their classes, with resources and tips for how to get started.
Welcome to the CTE’s 2022 Summer Institute. The last three years have been incredibly challenging for everyone, and especially for educators. We have stepped up to the challenge to keep moving forward and provided our students with both academic and emotional support. However, in doing so, we may also have experienced added stress and fatigue. How can we refill our cups and avoid burnout?
This year’s theme is refresh, renew, and recharge. It is especially difficult to help others and find motivation for our mission as educators unless we first spend some time to reflect on all that has happened. This process provides us with some much needed insight to think about how to grow and progress, refreshing and reinventing ourselves in a world that is filled with constant change and uncertainty. It also emphasizes the need to allocate time to renew and take care of ourselves. Only then are we recharged and ready to fulfill our mission to help others on their learning journey.
We hope that the programming we have prepared based on your feedback can support each and every one of you in that journey to refresh, renew, and recharge. We encourage you to attend as much or as little of the programming as you find helpful and that you reach out to us with any questions or concerns.
See the full schedule (with registration links) on the CTE Summer Institute website
Our fifth annual and first virtual Teaching and Learning Day is on Friday, April 1st, 2022! Help us celebrate the fresh thinking and pedagogies of GGC faculty and staff related to enhancing teaching and learning. The event provides a forum for individuals and groups to share work related to teaching, learning, and technology, including but not limited to:
– course design (face to face and hybrid), – assignment design, – engaged pedagogies (including experiential learning), – assessment strategies, – research on teaching and learning, and – efforts to enhance student success.
The sessions also provide an opportunity to reach a broad audience and initiate conversations with colleagues sharing similar interests.
Access the program by clicking here. The event starts at 12:30 PM. We look forward to seeing you there!
Please join us at 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, February 15, for the monthly VPASA Professional Development session featuring the Center for Teaching Excellence. The event will provide an overview of the Integrative Learning & Experiential Learning tracks to preview workshops offered during Spring 2022. These workshops are designed to engage faculty in innovative ways to create materials and motivate students to explore new ways of learning the materials.
