CTE 2022 Winter Institute

The last two years have been full of challenges, particularly for faculty. Teaching, a very social and interaction-based profession, was forced into an isolating experience for many. Educators had to work through the struggles and find ways to adapt their virtual classrooms to fit the new realities of teaching. In the process of supporting students, keeping up with demands, and managing their own personal challenges, faculty feel exhausted and pouring out of an empty cup – with little to give.

Please join the CTE staff for our Winter Institute as we welcome renowned educator, speaker, and author of the book Small Teaching Online, Flower Darby. She will provide us with a three-part workshop that:

  • reminds us about teaching with resilience and joy – the pandemic required us to teach in new formats, using technology (some familiar, some less so) in new ways to help our students learn. We will reflect on what we’ve learned and explore how these approaches strengthen our practice in all classes, enabling us to create rewarding teaching and learning interactions that welcome and support students, regardless of format.
  • explores practical, small-teaching-style strategies that can be applied in any class.
  • provides an opportunity for small group interactions with colleagues to brainstorm solutions to challenges and feel re-energized about teaching.

The Winter Institute will take place on January 11 from 9 AM – 1 PM. This year, you have the option of joining us in the Heritage Room with a small group of colleagues (40) for the livestream or you can join us from home.

Register on Eventbrite

Watch the recording (contact cente@ggc.edu for the password)

Facilitator:

Flower Darby

Flower Darby celebrates and promotes effective teaching in all class formats to include, welcome, and support all students as they learn and succeed. As faculty and an instructional designer, she’s taught community college and university classes for over 24 years in a range of subjects including English, Technology, Leadership, Dance, and Pilates. A seasoned face-to-face and online educator, Darby loves to apply learning science across the disciplines, and to help others do the same.

Flower speaks, writes, presents and consults on teaching and learning theory and practice both nationally and internationally. She has helped educators all over the world become more effective in their work. She is the author, with James M. Lang, of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes, and she’s a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education.


		CTE Winter Institute image
Flower Darby

Reminder: Deadline for Submissions to GGC’s Teaching, Learning and Research Symposium (January 12-13, 2022)

The second 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, regional conference to be held January 12-13, 2022. The conference theme is: “Aftermath: Higher Education in a pandemic-altered world,” and will feature a SoTL track, a non-SoTL empirical research track, and an undergraduate research track. Submissions that align with the theme are particularly encouraged, but other topics are also welcomed.

The deadline for submissions is November 12, 2021. See our previous blog posts for more information on faculty and undergraduate submissions.

Last Call for Proposals – Meaningful Living and Learning in a Digital World

The Conference on Meaningful Living and Learning in a Digital World 2022 call for proposals has opened for 45-minute presentations or 7-minute simple talks opens on August 5th, 2021, and will close on October 27th, 2021.

Presentations should be related to one of the conference topics, and include provisions for meaningful interaction with the audience.

Accepted presenters will be notified on or before November 1st, 2021.

General Conference Topics (for 45-minute presentations or 7-minute simple talks):

– Reconciling Humanity and Technology in the Classroom
– Humanistic Instructional Design
– Work-Life-Learning Balance
– Health & Wellness in the High-Tech Workplace
– Minimalism and Simplicity
– Coaching and Mentoring Distance Learners
– Sustainable Technology Solutions
– Social Equity and Educational Access
– Learning Science

Types of Presentations:

 45-minute Interactive Presentation: Presenter will provide 15-20 minute presentation followed by discussion or interactive component.

7-minute Simple Talk: Presenter will deliver automatically timed slide-presentation of 21 slides (visual based not bullets), each lasting twenty seconds.

The conference is particularly relevant to online teachers and leaders, instructional designers, psychologists, sociologists and social scientists, communication researchers, nurses and healthcare practitioners/researchers, librarians and media specialists, and education administrators.

Conference Location

The conference will be held at the historic Brice Hotel, located in the heart of Savannah, in the midst of historic parks and restaurants, and within a block of River Street. A tranquil oasis in the heart of the South’s cultural soul, this is an ideal place to relax and revitalize.

Submit your proposal and / or learn more.

USG Teaching & Learning Conference 2022 – Call for Proposals

USG Teaching & Learning Conference: “Community, Connection, and Compassion”

The 2022 USG Teaching & Learning Conference has been re-formatted to allow you to first engage in on-demand and asynchronous material, then elaborate on what you learned via guided group discussions, and finally, an option to connect in person with your colleagues and peers at one of four regional events.

Important Dates:
• Proposal Submission Deadline: Dec. 1, 2021
• Registration opens January 30, 2022
• Virtual Conference: March 18-31, 2022
• Regional Events: April 1, 2022

Conference Strands:
1. Growth Mindset: Supporting Students and Faculty
2. Technology and Teaching Modalities
3. Scholarly Lessons about Teaching (SoTL)
4. Active/Experiential Learning (HIPs)

Session Types:
• Lightning Learning: Short and concise. Pre-recorded.
• Deeper Dive: 15-minutes video presentations.

Regional Events: April 1, 2022:
• University of West Georgia hosts Susan Hrach in Carrollton, Georgia.
• Georgia College hosts Josh Eyler in Milledgeville, Georgia
• Savannah State University hosts Jim Lang in Savannah, Georgia.
• Valdosta State University hosts Jessamyn Neuhaus in Valdosta, Georgia.

To submit a proposal, or for further information, visit the conference website:
https://www.usg.edu/facultydevelopment/teaching_learning_conference

PDF version:

Inside Higher Ed Article: Who Are the Students Struggling With Online Learning?

A new survey sheds light on the current digital divide in higher education — and what faculty can do about it in their classrooms, writes Nicole Barbaro // September 29, 2021

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t often use a lot of tech in my courses.

Of course, I use standard education technology, such as learning management systems, audiovisual tech aids and some basic design software to spice up my content — staples of the 21st-century professor. But I don’t often seek out the latest apps, the newest tech or the most innovative tools, and I worry about equitable access to them for my students.

I am always fashionably late to the ed-tech party. And when I do eventually arrive, I often struggle to get the most out of the latest technologies. Although I know ed tech is useful, it can be difficult to learn to use it.

And I am not alone. Students have also floundered, perhaps just as much as professors, when trying to use of all the new educational technology that became the new normal of online learning during the COVID pandemic. In fact, a new report I led from the College Innovation Network finds 20 percent of students reported they struggled to learn how to use ed tech in their courses this past year, and 33 percent said keeping up with how to use new technology has been hard.

The published report, “The New Digital Divide: How EdTech Self-Efficacy is Shaping the Online Student Learning Experience in Higher Ed,” shares results from nearly 700 students across four different higher education institutions, including a primarily online university, a public university, a private university and a community college. The main message from this report is that students’ confidence in their ability to learn and adapt to new technology in the classroom — or “edtech self-efficacy,” as coined in the report — is an important correlate of nearly all aspects of students’ learning experiences that we asked about in the survey. As one student reported, “The programs for some classes were very difficult to navigate. I would’ve really preferred the chance to learn how to use the program face-to-face. Emailing and then waiting up to 48 hours [for a response] could really put a strain on my homework schedule.”

And although many students found ed tech easy enough to navigate, some noticed their peers struggling throughout the year. “Although using such technology was easy for me, that same ease did not extend to every student,” another student shared.

Continue reading: How faculty should deal with the digital divide (opinion) (insidehighered.com)

Inside Higher Ed Article: Where’s the ‘Video Off’ Button in Face-to-Face Instruction?

Remote teaching has revealed the importance for students of learning new skills and taking creative risks without being watched, argues Maggie Melo // September 29, 2021

This fall semester is invoking a familiar distressing level of uncertainty as colleges and universities navigate the implications of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant. Compounding the troubling upticks in hospitalization and positive COVID-19 testing across the United States are questions about how the academic year will unfold. A recognizable conversation about the possibility of an abrupt transition from face-to-face to remote learning during the semester is re-emerging across social media.

In addition to these concerns, I’m worried about losing a feature of virtual learning: our ability to turn off our Zoom cameras, our power to shut down the gaze. In 2020, I was anxious about teaching a special topics course on makerspaces virtually — a class that is centered on shared tools, hands-on building and in-person collaborations. Fast-forward to 2021, and I am trying to imagine what it would look like to turn video off in a face-to-face classroom.

Remote teaching revealed an important variable that I didn’t think too much about before: the importance of students learning new skills and taking creative risks without being watched. Having a virtual classroom with the ability to turn off our cameras offered a generative, unusual sweet spot for learning. It’s an environment where students were not only together but also alone. It’s an environment where students were supported but also weren’t being observed by their instructor or peers — one where we could take a collective exhale from the performative demands of the classroom with a simple click of the “stop video” button.

Continue reading: Importance of letting students work without being watched (opinion) (insidehighered.com)

Recording Available – Faculty Information Session for Tutor.com, Our New Online Tutoring Partner

If you missed this information session, you may now view the recording.

The Office of Student Success is pleased to introduce our online tutoring partner, Tutor.com. Join us virtually to learn more about this new resource with Client Services Manager, John Colhouer. Topics include:

  • Who is Tutor.com?
  • What is Tutor.com? (Demo)
  • Tutor.com Tutors, Vetting & Methodology
  • Reporting & Data Services
  • How Tutor.com Can Help
  • Accessing the Faculty Dashboard
  • Q&A

If you have any questions about Tutor.com, please reach out to Cassie Thomas @ cthomas30@ggc.edu

Undergraduate Research Call for Submissions: The Georgia Gwinnett College Teaching, Learning and Research Symposium (January 12-13, 2022)

Aftermath: Higher Education in a pandemic-altered world

The second 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, regional conference to be held January 12-13, 2022. The conference theme is: “Aftermath: Higher Education in a pandemic-altered world,” and will feature an undergraduate research track. Submissions that align with the theme are particularly encouraged, but other topics are also welcomed.

Undergraduate students must have a faculty sponsor, who is familiar with the research and supports submission to an academic conference. The faculty sponsor will be responsible for guiding the student(s) through the submission and presentation process, but does not have to be a co-author.

By submitting a work, authors are attesting that their work is unpublished at the time of submission. Submissions will be reviewed by both internal and external faculty with subject matter expertise. Undergraduate authors will present accepted submissions in a concurrent session format, either virtually or in person. The proceedings will be publicly available as abstracts on the CTE website, allowing authors to publish their full paper in a journal of their choosing.

The submission deadline is November 12, 2021. Please use the following link to complete the submission form: https://forms.office.com/r/0fZcJdtpJr. A 250-word abstract and full contact information for all co-authors is needed to complete the submission. Decision notices will be sent out by December 10, 2021. Individuals are limited to a total of 2 submissions, which includes single and co-authored work. All conference undergraduate student presenters will need to register. There is no student registration fee. Any non-student attendees will register at the regular rate of $35.

Questions may be directed to Dr. Reanna Berry at rberry3@ggc.edu.

Program Co-Chairs:

Dr. Reanna Berry – Director of Accounting for the BEAR Center and Assistant Professor of Accounting

Dr. Rolando Marquez – Associate Director for the CTE and Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology

Call for Submissions: The second annual Georgia Gwinnett College Teaching, Learning and Research Symposium (January 12-13, 2022)

Aftermath: Higher Education in a pandemic-altered world

The second 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, regional conference to be held January 12-13, 2022. The conference theme is: “Aftermath: Higher Education in a pandemic-altered world,” and will feature a SoTL track and a non-SoTL empirical research track. Submissions that align with the theme are particularly encouraged, but other topics are also welcomed.

By submitting a work, authors are attesting that their work is unpublished at the time of submission. Submissions will be peer-reviewed by both internal and external faculty with subject matter expertise. Authors will present accepted submissions in a concurrent session format, either virtually or in person. The proceedings will be publicly available as abstracts on the CTE website, allowing authors to publish their full paper in a journal of their choosing.

The submission deadline is November 12, 2021. Please use the following link to complete the submission form: https://forms.office.com/r/HJhJwJsDmQ. A 250-word abstract and full contact information for all co-authors is needed to complete the submission. Corresponding authors are asked to consider serving as a reviewer and may indicate their willingness to serve on the submission form. Decision notices will be sent out by December 10, 2021. Individuals are limited to a total of 3 submissions, which includes single and co-authored work. All conference presenters and attendees will need to register and pay the $35 registration fee

Faculty wanting to volunteer to serve as a reviewer, who are not a corresponding author, may use the following link: https://forms.office.com/r/CQnjYTYWEk

Questions may be directed to Dr. Reanna Berry at rberry3@ggc.edu.

Program Co-Chairs:

Dr. Reanna Berry – Director of Accounting for the BEAR Center and Assistant Professor of Accounting

Dr. Rolando Marquez – Associate Director for the CTE and Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology