Blog

Tuesday, November 3, 2020 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET

The College of Southern Nevada has successfully shifted to nearly 100% of courses being delivered online despite the challenges involved with providing quality online courses, especially during a pandemic.

A key factor in their success was empowering faculty to create educational videos that support Universal Design for Learning principles. Learn how CSN is using video to improve student engagement, enhance the human connection, assess learning, and even involve students in the creation process.

This event is sponsored by TechSmith

Register

Thursday, Oct 29, 2020
12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m. ET

Lenn Millbower President of Offbeat Training LLC

It’s almost Halloween. Let’s conjure up the training tricksters, presentation poltergeists and meeting monsters that spark terror in the hearts of most stalwart trainers, facilitators and team leaders: the creatures of the classroom.

In this timely, humorous presentation, Lenn Millbower, The Mouse Man™, and a 25-year Walt Disney World training veteran, shares his list of the ghastliest ghouls we trainers, facilitators and team leaders must confront and offers his Disney inspired strategies for preventing the mutilation of your message.

More Info / Register Today

Thursday, November 19, 2020
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ET

The shift to online teaching creates many challenges, but also offers new opportunities. In this webinar, Harvard Business School (HBS) Professor Ayelet Israeli will draw on her experiences teaching MBA and Executive Education classes online and provide practical tips and insights into how to overcome the challenges of teaching virtually.

Topics will include:

• Assessing participation and introducing new ways for students to participate
• “Reading the Zoom” – how to “read the room” in an online world
• Lessons from the Virtual Teaching Task Force at HBS
• Adjusting your lesson plan to an online setting

If you are interested but cannot attend, please register as we will provide all registrants with access to the webinar recording.

On-demand webinar from Magna Publications:

Our knowledge of how students learn has grown significantly over the last few decades. In keeping with this trend, the quality and sheer amount of research on instructional strategies has also grown, and active learning has emerged as an instructional method that can improve learning outcomes for all students, including students from marginalized backgrounds and populations.

Active learning is not only something that students do, but also something that teachers can promote through their selection of learning activities.

We are offering a free Magna Online Seminar, Engaging College Students Using Active Learning Techniques, in which you will learn about active learning techniques that have been shown to improve college student learning in the classroom and online as well as three barriers to active learning and techniques for overcoming them.

Hybrid Classrooms: Four case studies

Register for this session

Tuesday, October 27 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

What does it look like to return to the classroom? What do the students experience? In this webinar, we will discuss different modes of hybrid classrooms. A panel of four faculty members who are teaching hybrid courses this fall will share how they are engaging students both in the classroom and online, how they are accommodating the changes in classroom space, and will share ideas for how this has led to unique opportunities not previously explored. Participants will have time to ask questions of the panel. 

Panelists:
Jamie Landau, Valdosta State University
Jason Lee, East Georgia State College
Keith Pacholl, University of West Georgia
Tamara Payne, Fort Valley State University

Back to the Classroom: Moving Forward

Register for this session

Tuesday, November 10 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon

Masks, physical distancing, and the flexibility to alternate between on-campus and synchronous online class sessions have allowed campus-based classes to resume for many of us. However, recent evidence from faculty indicates that some types of flexibility leads to a decline in engagement and academic performance for students who are choosing to shift to online sessions. In this presentation we share lessons learned from our return to campus, and offer recommendations for moving forward.

Facilitators:
Jennifer Knott, Columbus State University
Randy Garver, Columbus State University

Get Your Students to Read: Transform Learning with Perusall

Register for this session

Tuesday, November 18 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Learning is a social experience — it requires interactions and interactivity. The coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving some tasks to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. Through Perusall, Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University, will demonstrate how to move information transfer and sense-making online and make it interactive, promoting social interactions between students. In addition, he will discuss how the platform promotes intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to improve student performance.

Video introduction and pre-webinar assignment

Panelists:
Eric Mazur, Harvard University, Co-founder of Perusall
Lauren Barbeau, Georgia Southern University

This study presents important results from EDUCAUSE’s 2020 research on students’ experience with information technology, which included 16,162 undergraduate students from 71 US institutions.

The study includes key findings from our analysis of students’ responses, concrete next steps your institution can take in response to those findings, and opportunities for connecting with peers who are implementing innovative practices in the areas of student success, technology use and environmental preferences, data privacy, online harassment, and accessibility.

Access the report

Effective teaching is inclusive teaching.

When faculty work to implement evidence-based teaching practices, they are also working to create more inclusive online learning environments that promote equity.
 
Join us for a free, engaging virtual discussion about inclusive online teaching.

Examining and Mitigating Implicit Bias
Thursday, October 22, 4:00 p.m. ET

In this webinar, featured faculty will discuss processes for reflecting on our own implicit biases, as well as strategies for mitigating the impact of implicit bias in our teaching practice.

Featuring: Teresa A. Nance, PhD, Villanova University; Kevin Gannon, PhD, Grand View University; Marlo Goldstein Hode, PhD, University of Missouri-St. Louis; Darvelle Hutchins, California Polytechnic State University; Kevin Kelly, EdD, San Francisco State University

Details & Registration

Are you interested in learning more about open educational resources and how you might employ them in your courses? Here is your chance.

As an extension of GGC’s participation in Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation efforts, the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) will provide registration assistance to a limited number of faculty interested in attending the virtual Open Education Conference Nov. 9-13.

About

The Open Education Conference (#OpenEd20) is an annual program for sharing and learning about open educational resources, open pedagogy and open education initiatives. Designed through a collaborative process that leverages the passion and expertise of the community, #OpenEd20 aims to engage diverse perspectives, facilitate connections that drive effective practice, and inspire participants to strive for a future where education is accessible, affordable, equitable and inclusive for all. Most synchronous programming will take place between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Asynchronous content and recordings will be available.

Theme

“Reimagining Open Education” – The events of 2020 have underscored urgent challenges in education – both new and longstanding – from the rapid pivot online in response to a global pandemic, structural inequities including systemic racism, and barriers to the access and full participation in the exchange of knowledge.

This year’s conference seeks to inspire attendees to reimagine education as more open, equitable and inclusive – and to put those ideas into action. The theme also applies to the conference itself, which is being redesigned as a community-owned event.

Topics

• Open Education 101: The Basics and How to Get Started
• Applications of Open Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Creative, Innovative, and Effective Open Education Practices
• What Isn’t Working: Barriers, Challenges, and How to Overcome Them
• Strategies, Policies, and Best Practices for Sustainable Open Education Efforts
• Applications of Open Education in Social Justice, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism
• Exploring Intersections and Collaborations Across Borders and Contexts
• The Evolution and Study of Open Education as a Field

If you wish to attend, please email Cathy Hakes for registration assistance. Registration covers participation in the five-day, virtual conference, including plenary livestreams, synchronous and asynchronous sessions and networking opportunities. The deadline to reply for ORSP sponsorship is Friday, Oct. 16, and is space is limited.

Harnessing Emotion and Hope: Learning in Turbulent Times And Beyond

January 6 & 7, 2021 

Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) invites proposals for the 19th Annual Faculty Conference on Teaching Excellence. This year’s conference will be a virtual event.

Our theme this year is Harnessing Emotion and Hope: Learning in Turbulent Times and Beyond. In March 2020, the academic world experienced upheaval as faculty suddenly faced the challenges and necessities of remote teaching, followed this summer and fall by the need to design and teach courses in online, hybrid and socially-distanced environments. At the same time, we witnessed (and sometimes joined) meaningful movements all around us against racism and injustice. It has been an incredibly stressful time for many, full of uncertainty, isolation and anxiety. But it has also been a time of creativity, thoughtfulness and innovation as faculty revamped activities, learned new technologies, and updated curricula to be more relevant, effective, and accessible for students. This process invited us all to think deeply about our students (and about ourselves) as whole beings, and to respond to student needs emerging from all the many factors that influence teaching and learning. Stories of learning, generative action, and hope – on the part of students but also on the part of faculty and administrators – grew up around us as we struggled our way through this year. 

It is important to continue reflecting on the work we do to improve learning – both during the relatively normal times prior to COVID-19 and during these most unusual of times – so we can carry these lived experiences and lessons learned into the future. How can we grapple with the emotional landscapes in our classrooms and harness the hope inherent in teaching to guide our students toward higher and better learning? How can we refocus our learning goals, rethink our teaching actions, improve assessment protocols, rebuild classroom community, and invite relevance into our courses in order to offer rich, transformational learning experiences to our students? How can we leverage technology to engage students in deep learning? How do social, political, and public health realities propel us to create more equitable and inclusive classrooms where all voices are heard and all students can succeed? 

We invite you to submit proposals to share your ideas, insights, research, and strategies so that we can all learn together, harness our collaborative efforts — in short, harness hope — and move them forward together to create a brighter educational landscape for all learners.

Please consider submitting a proposal for a breakout session, poster session, or lightning talk. All proposals will be blind-reviewed. Please note that presenters must register for the conference. 

Proposal submissions are due on October 23rd, 2020. 

Find out more and/or submit your proposal

There’s no argument that Covid-19 has upended higher education. As institutions progressed from emergency remote teaching in the spring to implementing blended, hyflex, fully online or some variation this fall, it is time to reflect and learn.

Attend this webinar to hear from campus leaders across the country who were on the front lines of supporting faculty and students through the emergency transition to online learning, and their strategies for improving student engagement and online course effectiveness this fall. They are all experienced distance learning professionals who will discuss the following topics:

• What worked and didn’t work well supporting faculty to shift online in the spring?
• How has their strategy for online courses, student engagement, and faculty training changed based on the pandemic experience?
• How has the role of video and its importance changed?
• What advice would they give other institutions about how to improve online courses and how to best train and support faculty?

There will be time for you to ask questions of our experts as well, so be sure to join us October 13 at 2pm ET.

Register for this webinar