CFC Faculty Update January 2018 - Corrected
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WCU's Commons for Teaching and Learning Excellence
Corrected Version
Welcome Back
We here in the CFC welcome you back to the beginning of Spring semester of 2018. As in every new beginning, we face new challenges and opportunities: This is the Spring semester before the advent of NC Promise, our admissions staff is already feeling the intensified pressure, and WCU is gearing up by planning new dorms, new parking, and new student services. In the CFC we have increased opportunities to serve faculty in traditional and technology-mediated learning environments.
I would like, personally, to invite faculty who are interested in making a difference to join us by applying for one of the Coulter Endowment Grants. We want to magnify your efforts and impact and seek faculty members (including adjuncts and term faculty) to help us in three particular areas of research and development:
· Flexible Learning Spaces, Active Learning, and Technology
· Faculty "Fit" and Student Persistence and Retention
· Transforming the Curriculum by Focusing on Outcomes
If you have not yet had an opportunity to come and see us, we've weathered a window, ceiling, and wiring update that gave us a year of intimacy as a team, and left us with a number of new consultation spaces, a recording room, a technology experiment space, drop-down spaces for adjuncts or any one else who needs a quiet place to work, and my former office which we've transformed into a writing studio/small meeting room where we will host some of our development sessions and where we'll also invite you to join us as we explore the world around us. Stop by to see us. We’ve nearly completed the finishing touches and will have an open house when we’re completely finished.
We are here to support you and to make you successful. Thank you for everything you do.
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.
Save the Date - The Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning
Remember to block May 22-24, 2018 for the Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning.
We are working with internal partners including the Distinguished Professors of Western Carolina, the Graduate School, the Health Educators Academy Graduates, and a number of your peers to assemble the best SiTL ever. Whether you want to update your course, translate it into an online or hybrid format, improve your teaching, or update your technical skills, you will not regret blocking these days on your calendar, now.
Quality Matters Training - IYOC
(Improving Your Online Course) to Be Offered March 2, 2018
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.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize the foundational concepts of Quality Matters.
- Apply the essential Standards of the Quality Matters Rubric to your own online course.
- Describe the alignment of at least one module/unit in your online course.
- Prioritize improvements to your online course.
To register for the March 2 event, please contact Sue Grider.
It isn't too late to register and attend the system-wide conference on the use of digital technology in higher education. This is a terrific opportunity to hear what is happening across the system. Registration and more information can be found here.
Welcome to Our New Educational Developer: Jeanine Irons
Jeanine Irons is new to Western this semester. She is originally from Birmingham, AL, where she began her education career in the k-12 arena. Currently, she is finishing aPh.D. in Higher Education Administration at the University of Alabama. Her hobbies include reading, cooking, and traveling. She has been to 11 countries and 20 states.Jeanine looks forward to meeting new people and learning new things here at Western. The CFC looks forward to Jeanine's work as part of the Educational Development team. Her presence at the CFC adds to the depth of our ability to help our students succeed.
Improving Your SAIs: Looking Ahead
By Terry Pollard
The SAI—"Student Assessment of Instruction" —is integral to how we are evaluated here at Western. It needs little introduction. (If you need one, though, it can be found here).
How can we look back on that SAI just handed to us by our chair or director, while looking ahead to a new term, with an eye toward making changes that produce stronger student ratings at the end of spring?
Let’s look at how you might address weaknesses with a look at each of the five main areas of the standard SAI course form.
For help with research planning and development contact Terry Pollard (twpollard@email.wcu.edu 828-227-7196).
For help with data analysis contact our faculty research support specialist CK (kchen@wcu.edu 828-227-3456).
We can also help with the final write up stage of drafts and revision. If you are looking for more help or even peer review ask us about our faculty writing groups that will start back up in the Spring!
Never Forget a Facebook Page (Ours)
If you are a Facebook user, don't forget to follow our page. In addition to announcing events that we are hosting, we'll also be using our Facebook page as a way to point to resources that we've discovered or which have been suggested to us.
For example, our focus this week is on incorporating primary sources and digital resources into your courses, and, in honor of the MLK holiday and in anticipation of next month, we focused the last two daily updates on primary sources that could highlight the stories of African American men and women in multple subject areas.
If you want to follow our page, follow this link.
If you don't want to follow our page, you still may want to take a look at these two great digital archives as you anticipate Black History Month:
Faculty Writing Groups - A Productive Team
The faculty in this semester’s writing groups made tremendous progress on their personal academic projects, with projects ranging from a paper on a symphony score to articles on sports medicine. One faculty member has even finished a book proposal and will be attending workshops to further her work in the spring.
CFC-hosted writing groups will be offered this term, too at the main campus, HHS, and at Biltmore Park—simply contact Kelsey Woodburn at klwoodburn@email.wcu.edu to express your interest to join. Faculty bring laptops and manuscripts and spend up to 2 hours working independently each week or with a reading of their peers’ work.
For more information, contact Kelsey Woodburn at klwoodburn@email.wcu.edu .
Blackboard Updates
Course Frameworks
Our new faculty who have been introduced to our new framework for courses have been pleased with a design that allows them autonomy and an easy way to develop course by adding their content in the areas provided. The Framework is based off the Quality Matters Rubric and meets the best practices of course design. This, in turn, reduces the administrative overhead of developing a course and provides the greatest opportunity for student success.
If instructors have a course that they would like to copy forward, this can still be accomplished by using the Course Copy request form (https://wcu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8IVpBSbhRfvOoEl).
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Online Blackboard Help
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.
Blackboard Hints - Using the Calendar Effectively
Dating Woes?
With the hectic schedule imposed by heavy teaching, committee work, advising responsibilities, office hours, and other administrative activities, dating for faculty members can be a challenge. Fortunately, the Coulter Faculty Commons has a solution that will help reduce, if not totally eliminate, your dating woes.
The Calendar tool in Blackboard can be a powerful tool for managing the important dates in a course. (Did you think we talking about those other kinds of dates? Sorry, you’ll have to check with Dr. Phil for help with those.) During the course of the semester, faculty members need to make sure that students are aware of numerous when numerous activities are taking place and assignments are due. A common practice is to post a schedule in Blackboard within the course syllabus or as a separate document. As the saying goes, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, so schedule changes are inevitable. Ensuring that changes are reflected everywhere they appear can be time consuming. Luckily, the Calendar tool in Blackboard makes these adjustments easy so that you and your students will always have a current schedule.
Using the Calendar tool (now part of the menu on the new master framework) is easy. When you create a graded item in Blackboard (assignment, test, discussion forum, etc.) simply include a Due Date. That item is automatically added to the Calendar. If you have an ungraded activity (collaborate meeting, alternate classroom space, reminder to bring laptops to class, etc) you can manually add it to the Calendar. Additionally, the Calendar has a drag and drop feature that lets you conveniently reschedule items. An added bonus to your students is that ALL their courses show up on the Calendar display (they’re color coded) so that they can schedule their academic activities accordingly.
For help with the Calendar tool, or any other feature in Blackboard, email lmssupport@wcu.edu or call 828-227-2930.
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.
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.
Highlighted Learning Videos on WCU's 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. To view the videos, please click the link above and log into Panopto.
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. 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.
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!
