WCU's Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence

January 2017

Happy New Year!

We hope that you are eager and excited about the start of the Spring 2017 term!  We realize that with the start of any term there is always a lot to do and little time to get it done. 

You can rely on the staff at the CFC to help you with all of your pedagogical and technological needs for a smooth and anxiety-free start of the Spring 2017 term.  Please don't hesitate to give us a call or drop by. We're here to help!

Martha Diede, PhD
Director, Coulter Faculty Commons

P.S.: Please excuse our mess - the CFC is currently preparing for some renovations and have temporarily relocated to HL156 and HL166.  If you get a chance, stop by and visit with us!

What IS the CFC and What Do We DO?

Important Information for Faculty:

REMINDER!  WCU's GoToMeeting license has EXPIRED! It's time to transition to one of the WCU supported online collaboration tools, Skype for Business or Blackboard Collaborate. We're here to help make the transition for you as easy as possible. To find out how to get started using these new tools or to check training opportunities,  click here.

NEW! Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is the new online collaborative learning tool integrated into the WCU Blackboard environment, and is the replacement for GoToMeeting. If you are interested in using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra in your courses in the Spring semester, please click here to complete the request form and a member of the LMS team will assist you with getting started.

Alternative Assignments for Snow Days

Don’t let a snow day catch you off guard!  For some "cool" ideas to help keep your students engaged and participating when adverse weather interrupts class, click here!

Blackboard Submission Reminders for Students

The most common Blackboard issue with students is usually related to problems with submitting course work.  For a few tips that you can pass on to help them understand what to do if their work doesn't submit correctly, please click here.

Save the Date for CFC Events:

Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning 2017

Mark your calendar for the New and Improved Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning at WCU.  We are redesigning this seminar to give faculty more of what they want and need to be successful in the classroom.

Day One: May 16, 2017: Applying the Quality Matters Rubric to Your Online Course (This is a day-long workshop where you will learn about some best practices of course design.)
Day Two and Three: May 17 & 18, 2017: Summer Institute Main Sessions

If you want to subscribe to updates or provide input for the content of SITL, click here.

Other Events:

Upcoming Faculty Senate Events

The first Faculty Senate meeting for 2017 will be on January 18, 2017, at 3 pm in the University Center's Multipurpose Room.  This meeting is open to the public, and of course, all faculty are invited to attend senate meetings.

The Faculty Senate is also having a more informal Faculty Caucus to start the semester from 3-5 pm in Illusions in the University Center on Friday, January 27, 2017.

Faculty Scholarship Celebration

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm in the Blue Ridge Conference Center!

The deadline for submission of materials is Thursday, January 12, 2017. We will be utilizing the Faculty Activity Database (FAD) to collate your scholarship materials so please insure that your FAD entries are up to date by 12 January. For staff members who do not have a FAD account or for others who cannot access the FAD, please utilize this link to submit the citation of your scholarly works. In addition, for creative works of art, marketing, posters, and other scholarship that may not be typically accessed through library databases, electronic archives, and inter-library loan, they may be dropped off at Hunter Library’s Circulation Desk.

Please contact Elizabeth Marcus at emarcus@email.wcu.edu or 227-3398 with any questions or concerns about your submission.

More Free Events and Resources:

Blackboard Online Help
As the Learning Management System utilized here 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.

Sample Syllabus and Related Resources
The Coulter Faculty Commons is happy to share a sample syllabus and schedules to assist faculty who are preparing their classes for the Spring 2017 semester.  The updated documents can be found under quick links on the CFC homepage.

Highlighted Learning Videos on WCU Panopto Features Page
We've customized the first entry landing page on the Panopto home page.  We'll be putting up-to-date focused videos in this space and changing them monthly, so make sure to take a look and to suggest more content.

Provost's List of Faculty Resources
There is a considerable amount of helpful information on this web page provided by the Office of the Provost. 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.  We also have a Faculty Resources Blog where we post additional resources and announcements as we get them.

IT Training Opportunities
The Division of  IT continues to provide training opportunities on Microsoft products for faculty and staff.

Educational Technology Weekly
The CFC's Senior Educational Technologist, Jonathan Wade, curates a weekly newsletter highlighting the big stories in the media-sphere about Educational Technology.  Don't forget to subscribe if you want to get weekly updates.

CFC Suggestion Box
We would greatly appreciate any feedback you could give us about how we can improve or add to our services.  We regularly monitor this suggestion box, located on our main web page, 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!