WCU's Commons for Teaching and Learning Excellence

From Spring to Summer and Beyond

My colleague complains that spring has not yet arrived in the mountains. Still, only four weeks remain in our Spring semester. Just about everyone we know is gearing up for those last weeks. Some of us are making our summer plans. Maybe we’re planning all the tasks we’ll complete over the summer.

As we consider how to spend our precious summer hours, maybe we want to consider how to get the most time from those summer times. A few ideas:

·       Do you have questions about your end-of-semester assignments, finals, Gradebook and how it works in Blackboard? Are you planning to give an electronic final? If so, reach out to us now to be sure that the way your courses and assignments are set up will function with as few hiccups as possible for you and your students.

·       Are you planning to have your students submit materials through SafeAssign? Set that due date a little earlier. SafeAssign reports at WCU do not return in 24-48 hours at this time of year. These reports take longer than you may have experienced.

·       Will you teach a summer class? Do you want to copy a course forward? Try a new teaching technique? Reach out now for an appointment with our educational developers or educational technologists.

Summer Opportunities in the CFC

Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning. Great Teaching in a Time of Change
May 15-17. NCCAT. Spaces are limited. Register now. See Below.

Course Design Days 
We’ll have one of these in Cullowhee and one at Biltmore Park. You’ll have the opportunity to work with our team to design an effective, efficient course for you and your students. Watch this space for more information, or give us feedback so that we know a good date for you.

Writer’s Retreat
June 12-14. If you have a manuscript that you want to finish, a project you want to start, sign up for this retreat.   Spend 3 days with a writing coach (limited appointments available) or let us help you keep on track with the gift of time and accountability.  Contact me for more details.

Health Educators’ Academy
In addition to educators in the College of Health and Human Sciences, this opportunity is open to other faculty members on campus. Spend five days with a facilitator who will set you up to succeed in team-based learning.

As always, we stand ready to assist. Together we’ll see Spring arrive. And enjoy summer.

​

Martha Diede, PhD
Director, Coulter Faculty Commons

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Coulter Faculty Commons at 828-227-2930 or email us at LMSsupport@wcu.edu.

Remember to block May 22-24, 2018 for the Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning.  

Register as soon as your schedule is settled because there are a limited number of seats.

Take a Look at Our Summer Offerings and Register Using the Button Below

Academic Integrity
This presentation will suggest some course design and instructional strategies that would enable instructors to design learning activities and assessments to minimize academic dishonesty in their online courses.

Change the Way You Think About Teaching and Learning
As you think about students progressing through your classes, you may find that there are certain points where students get stopped every time.  Some researchers call these “thresholds” – points that students must master before progressing to the next idea or to approach the next concept.  Working around and through these thresholds can be advantageous for both students and instructors.  Find new ways to help your students succeed!

Competency Based Education and Western Carolina
No matter what our opinions are of competency-based education, it is gaining more traction in policy, funding, and accreditation circles. In this cooperative session planned by your faculty peers in the Health Educators Academy and members of a WCU exploratory task-force on competency-based education, we will present a primer on the most current concepts, models, and policies driving the conversation and an exploration of the possibilities and challenges ahead for Western if we consider other models for credit and funding.

Improving Your Online Course (IYOC) - 3 Parts - All Three Required for Certification
The “Improving Your Online Course” workshop explores the QM Rubric and provides a framework to improve the quality of online courses. Participants use the QM Rubric to review their own online courses and develop a course improvement plan.

The content is based on the 21 “essential” Specific Review Standards of the Quality Matters Rubric. Participants come away with a plan for course improvement. Enrolling in the workshop with a pre-developed online course is required.

Making Learning Stick
This session will discuss how sticky learning techniques can be implemented using both no-tech and low-tech methods to foster stronger student learning practices.

Mindful Teaching Moments
Interspersed with the other sessions, these focused sessions will offer opportunities to focus one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a relaxation/focusing technique. Come early; stay late; when you aren't conversing and planning, take the opportunity and accept the encouragement to be mindful.

Quality Teaching at Scale
WCU is growing.  Thus far our growth has exhibited itself in ways that echo the call of the President of the UNC system that education in North Carolina has to meet or exceed current standards of quality while expanding the reach of educational value to a larger pool of students.  How might that be possible without losing our mooring as educators?  How do we scale our effect without overtaxing our resources?  In this session, we’ll examine some models, practices, and efforts that have been successful at keeping or increasing quality while reaching a wider and more diverse audience.

Teaching the New Generation of Students
Every group of students has essential human similarities to the students of the past, but the technology and cultural influences that shape each generation have an impact on the way they observe, learn, attend to tasks, and communicate.  If you are interested in fully connecting with your students and helping them to succeed, you’ll find this session to be interesting and valuable.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
This session provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone - not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

Associated Event:  Grants Workshop
Running concurrently with the Summer Institute, a workshop for grant writing, hosted by the Graduate School, is also one of your possible choices.  Use the link below to register for either a one-day beginner's workshop on grants writing or a two-day intermediate workshop.

Seeing What Works in the Classroom: CFC Adds Research-Based Classroom Observation Method

Jeanine Irons, our new faculty developer, has done extensive work with Integrated Course Design, based in part upon the foundational work offered by L. Dee Fink. Fink’s philosophies about teaching and learning are used in similar centers across the country and have been instrumental in our center’s work for many years. Jeanine is bringing some new approaches to Fink that we feel will help many of our faculty.

Q. What was your first experience learning with Dee Fink?

A. I met this body of work during my doctoral coursework at The University of Alabama. Dr. David Hardy, who is now my dissertation committee chair, introduced me to Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences, and it resonated with what I know, believe, and do as an educator.

Q. How did your interest grow?

A. I used ICD in my teaching and I saw what a difference it made in how students learned. It also made a difference for me, because having a semester course plan allowed me to focus my energies on teaching the course and interacting with the students. It didn’t matter if we deviated a bit from the objectives that I had in mind for the day, so long as we were working toward “The Big Dream,” which is a component of ICD. I took a class from Dr. Fink a few years ago, and that experience combined with what I already knew influenced me to study the use of ICD principles for my dissertation.

Q. How is your research interest in Fink shaped the way you observe classes or talk with faculty here at Western Carolina University?

A. ICD works well with the Quality Matters standards that we use here at Western. It incorporates formative assessment, reflection, and backward course design, among other things, so I have found it to be an invaluable way to plan and teach courses. For these reasons, I never miss an opportunity to “Finkerize” someone if I can! When I observe in classes, I often use an ICD class observation tool that I created, because Fink’s ICD is just good teaching. My research bears this out - Even if instructors are not consciously using Fink’s ICD, the components will be evident in a well-designed course.

Jeanine’s services are available to all faculty members. She can be reached at jirons@wcu.edu or extension 2762.

CFC Developing Online Faculty Support

We often receive requests related to how we can support online faculty. Clearly, online programs are vital and growing here at Western, and it’s important that we support you as best we can.

To that end, we have been reviewing what we have done historically as a Center, a review of what regional accrediting bodies are looking for in online programs and faculty preparation (as part of SARA, C-RAC, and SACSCOC standards), and the format that any kind of training, development, or consultation might take.

We are still working through some of these questions, but we have completed a crosswalk of accreditation standards to information “topics”. These “topics” might evolve into a training module, a mini-workshop we offer to academic departments or resources we post to our website. After all, we know that faculty needs vary—we hear from individual faculty seeking confidential help and from departments and Directors seeking strategic assistance, and we ultimately want our development efforts to be pliable, organic, and most importantly—useful.

We will have more information to share in our next newsletter.

Terry W. Pollard
Senior Educational Developer
twpollard@wcu.edu

Additional Upcoming Workshops and Events

April 12 - Learning Communities Faculty Orientation to Microsoft Teams
For information contact Jonathan Wade 

April 19 - CFC Open House - Come and join us for an introduction to all of our offerings and for early afternoon snacks.  1:30-3:00 p.m.

May 22-24 - Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning

June 12-15 - Writing Retreat - Save the Date

July (Date TBD) - Course Redesign Workshop (Biltmore Park)

July (Date TBD) - Health Educators Academy

July 30-31 (Tentative) - Synchronous Streaming Classroom Pilot

August 6 - Synchronous Streaming Faculty Orientation

August (Date TBD) - Course Redesign Workshop (Cullowhee)

August 9-10 - New Faculty Orientation Cullowhee

August 11 - NFO2GO (Online Orientation) activated for approved absences from live NFO

August 20 - First Day of Classes

We Have Automated the Involvement Letters!

Here is how you can get your involvement letters to use in your AFE and TPR documents

It is time for the Coulter Faculty Commons to send out Involvement Letters to the faculty who have participated in CFC events or have come to visit us in the Coulter Faculty Commons for assistance. In an effort to help our faculty gain access to their letters when they need them, we have automated this process. Please go to the following URL and take a look at the instructions, pick the dates that are appropriate, and run your report.

https://go.wcu.edu/cfc-involvement-letter

There are two important points:

1. If you are doing this from home or off campus, you will need to log into the VPN to gain access.
2. You will need to use Firefox or Internet Explorer as your browser to run the report. (Google Chrome will not work.)

If you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement for this process and the letters, please let us know.

If you have any questions or need assistance, do not hesitate to ask.

Sue Grider

Coordinator of Technology
Coulter Faculty Commons
Western Carolina University
172 Hunter Library
Cullowhee, NC 28723
828.227.2258

Blackboard 

Creating a manual for Blackboard at WCU has been a challenge for the LMS Team. The regular updates have made it nearly impossible to keep training materials current. Fortunately, Blackboard does have a well-developed support site that you can search on topics of interest. Below are the URLs for the Instructor site and the Student site. Of course, for faculty, the LMS Team is only a phone call or email away.

Instructor Blackboard Site: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor

Student Blackboard Site: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student

Blackboard Collaborate Help Site

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.

More Resources:

CFC Automated Appointments
Quality customer service is our goal at the Coulter Faculty Commons (CFC).  So, in order to serve our faculty better, we have created a new form to request an appointment with any member of our team.  Please click here to request an appointment.

The Educational Horizon
One part of the charge of the CFC is to remain ready to assist in times of change.  To do so, we are constantly keeping track of new, re-surfacing and emerging issues in teaching and learning.  If you want a regular digest of what we are reading to be sent via email, feel free to subscribe on the page.  We usually post when we've collected about 20 relevant links.

Blackboard Online Help
As the Learning Management System used at WCU, Blackboard enhances the quality of online and face-to-face instruction and is used to monitor, document, and manage online and classroom events and assignments.  The LMS Team at the CFC has put together a handy list of resources for Blackboard, tailored to meet the needs of the WCU Community.

Provost's List of Faculty Resources
The Office of the Provost provides a considerable amount of helpful information on this web page. Information concerning faculty awards and recognition, support and development, to forums, gender equity, and policy and procedures is available on this site.

CFC Resources Online
The CFC works to keep our main web page updated.  We'd love to have you click in for a visit.  

CFC Feedback
We would greatly appreciate any feedback you could give us about how we can improve or add to our services.  We regularly monitor all inputs and try to respond to suggestions as quickly as possible. We thank you for taking the time to provide us with your constructive and formative feedback!