by Debie Lohe, Director, Reinert CTTL

Mid-semester is a good time to take to take a few quiet moments to reflect on how your courses are going and to set some intentions for the second half of the term.  At this point, you’ve probably figured out that many of your intentions to be more interesting, more innovative, more attentive to student engagement and learning have, sadly, fallen prey to the Almighty To Do List.

At the Reinert Center, we challenge you to find 5 quiet minutes to reflect on how things are going in your classes and to set some priorities for the remaining weeks of the semester.  Here are a few questions to get you started:

Engagement: When have you been most engaged this semester in your class?  When have your students seemed most engaged?  What did you do to create this environment of engagement?  Are there specific choices you made that yielded this engagement?  If so, what were they?

Learning: If you look back at your course objectives, how many of them have students achieved at this point?  Are they progressing in the ways you expected?  If not, what might you do in the second half of the semester to facilitate deeper learning?

Action: As you reflect on the first half of the semester, what do you want to do more of in your class going forward?  What do you want to do less of?  Identify one specific thing you will do differently in the second half of the semester.

Thanks to St. Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises offer an excellent model for reflection that translates into action.  At this critical moment in the semester, you have many choices yet to make about where your students are headed.  Hopefully, the reflection questions above will spur your thinking and re-energize you for the home stretch.  If dialogue with others can help, please don’t hesitate to come see us.

by Sandy Gambill, CTTL Instructional Designer

Vine
Link: http://vine.co/

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you must download an video app called Vine, but be warned, it’s addictive. Vine, which was recently purchased by Twitter, lets you record and share 6-second video clips. You can pause in recording simply by touching your screen. What can you say in 6 seconds? More than you would expect. Vine Peek is a direct feed of Vine videos from around the world. Some are ridiculous, some are profane, some are profound. They all illustrate a shared human experience.

Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States
Link: http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/changing_course_2012

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the annual survey on online learning conducted by the Sloan Consortium.  Why should you care? 32% of undergrads now take at least one online course.

The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy
Link: http://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Although they’ve only published two issues so far, this beautiful online journal has an all-star editorial advisory board and is well worth keeping an eye on.

by Debra Rudder Lohe, PhD, CTTL Director

On Sunday, I received the news that Dr. Cheryl Cavallo – faculty emerita in the Program for Physical Therapy here at SLU – had lost her long, difficult battle with cancer.  This news is sad for all who had the great pleasure of knowing Cheryl, and for us here in the Center, it is especially so.  Cheryl was a part of the Center even before there was a Center; she was a member of the planning committee that first proposed the creation of a teaching center.  Along with a small handful of other SLU faculty, she worked tirelessly to launch the Center and to ensure that it had a strong foundation for success.  Cheryl served on our Advisory Board until her retirement in 2011.  Given all that she has done for and meant to the Center, we offer this small tribute as a way to keep her light burning.

Cheryl’s humor and humility are well-known to friends and colleagues.  Whip-smart, warmer than sunlight, she was passionately committed to the Jesuit charism of cura personalis; she cared for all of us as “whole persons” and did not separate heart from head like so many academics do.  But then, Cheryl wasn’t first and foremost an academic; she was a practitioner.  In fact, she would want me to tell you that she was a reflective practitioner.  The difference, for Cheryl, made all the difference.

Reflection was a defining feature of who Cheryl was.  In May 2010, we invited her to share her reflections on teaching at our spring Certificate Ceremony.  Although she was sure we’d invited the wrong person (see comment above re: “humility”), Cheryl told the story of how she came to teach, and she focused her comments on the importance of being what she called “a reflective practitioner of the art and science of teaching.”  Reflection, Cheryl explained, was not only a “basic tenet of all Jesuit philosophy,” it was an essential element of good teaching.  To be a reflective practitioner, good teachers must be willing to undertake “an honest appraisal,” of both strengths and weaknesses, and to do this regularly, with “a commitment to address ways to effect positive change.”  Ultimately, Cheryl explained, “Reflective teachers are the ones who have the courage to challenge themselves, to venture outside their comfort zones, and to try innovative teaching techniques which may or may not be successful.”

As we remember Cheryl Cavallo, let us also remember that the word reflection has another, equally relevant meaning here: the ability of one thing to reflect light or heat or image onto another.  Cheryl’s light and warmth and wisdom were her own – but they were also a reflection of what she saw in each of us.  Without her searching and fearless gaze, the light surrounding us all is a bit dimmer today.

Click the podcast below to hear Cheryl’s Reflections on Teaching, from May 2010.

Full Transcript of Cheryl’s Reflections on Teaching, from May 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In keeping with our theme for the 2012-2013 academic year, this is the first in series of conversations with faculty on how they engage all learners in their classroom. In this podcast, Julie Wolter, Associate Professor in the Program in Health Sciences, talks with Sandy Gambill, about an introductory Honors Course she taught last fall for freshmen new to SLU.

EAL Podcast: Julie Wolter Transcription

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

by Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design

On Tuesday, February 26 from 3:30-5 p.m. in the Busch Student Center, Room 256, Saint Louis University faculty, staff, and students are cordially invited to explore and identify existing globally-centered organizations, resources, teaching practices, and learning experiences available at SLU. Participants will have an opportunity to consider how to further integrate international and intercultural teaching into online or blended learning environments especially. The first 20 registered participants during this first conversation will receive Lisa K. Childress’ book, The Twenty-First Century University: Developing Faculty Engagement in Internationalization.

To register for this conversation or future conversations in this three-part series funded by a Bringing Theory to Practice seminar grant from the Association of American Colleges & Universities, please visit the CTTL website.

If you have questions or are interested in contributing to this inaugural conversation and/or future conversations this spring semester, please contact Michaella Thornton at 314-977-1910 or mthornt7@slu.edu.

*Image courtesy of Rogiro via Flickr

• Facilitators: Dr. Karen Myers and Michaella Thornton
• Wednesday, February 13, 2013 from 1-3 pm
• Busch Student Center, Room 253B

“Students with disabilities are in danger of being either excluded from the new media revolution or accommodated as after-thoughts of pedagogies that fail to anticipate their needs,” writes Sean Zdenek, Associate Professor of Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University and author of the popular website, Accessible Rhetoric (2009).

Working towards creating accessible print, web, and multimedia course materials in one’s teaching is a particularly important and inclusive piece of contemporary course design. However, for many faculty members, knowing where to begin and how to use incremental, practical accessibility and Universal Instructional Design best practices in one’s teaching is often initially overwhelming, confusing, or unclear.

Join Dr. Karen Myers, Universal Instructional Design (UID) expert, Associate Professor at Saint Louis University, and Director of the award-winning international disability education project, Allies for Inclusion: The Ability Exhibit, and Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design and frequent regional and national presenter on creating accessible learning objects for this interactive, 2-hour workshop that starts the conversation, and helps participants build a personalized action plan, on how to integrate UID and web accessibility into course materials.

No registration is required; please bring questions, course materials and/or laptops or tablets, as this will be a hands-on, participant-led workshop.

Karen A. Myers, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of the Higher Education Administration graduate program at Saint Louis University and Director of the award-winning international disability education project, Allies for Inclusion: The Ability Exhibit. She has been a college teacher and administrator for over 30 years in both academic affairs and student affairs.

Michaella Thornton is the Assistant Director for Instructional Design in the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning. Michaella leads the instructional design team in the Center, which creates, delivers, and assesses programming that assists faculty members and other instructors in the design, development, and modification of course content to take advantage of emerging learning technologies and global initiatives. In this role, she facilitates workshops and develops resources for instructors on designing accessible courses and teaching with technology.

by Erin Solomon, Divya Subramaniam, and Dipti Subramaniam from the CTTL

It’s the beginning of a new semester, and in honor of the 15th anniversary of the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL), we, the CTTL Graduate Assistants, would like to present 15 tips for anyone who may be teaching for the first time.  While there are countless “tips” one could give a new teacher, we thought we would focus in on some of the most basic and most important things to consider when teaching for the first time.

1. Practice makes perfect. Teaching takes practice. Not all teachers are born with gifted public speaking abilities. If speaking in front of an audience makes you cringe and sweat bullets, try practicing your lectures several times before standing in front of your students. Don’t be afraid to seek help from your colleagues and friends as they will be able to provide feedback on your teaching.

2. Course Planning. Success of a class requires preparation ahead of time. It not only makes teaching easier, but it helps facilitate effective teaching. Consider and identify class schedule, logistics, student body, instructional strategies and learning objectives. For more information, check out:
“Creating a Syllabus.” Instruction at FSU: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Practices. Instructional Development Services. Florida State University. http://learningforlife.fsu.edu/ctl/explore/onlineresources/docs/Chptr3.pdf
“Designing a Syllabus.” Center for Learning and Teaching. Cornell University. http://www.cte.cornell.edu/documents/cte/CTE%20Designing%20Syllabus.pdf

3. Have realistic expectations. Your first time teaching will likely be exhilarating, stressful, time consuming, but also very rewarding.  Your first course is not going to be perfect, and you should keep in mind that being a good teacher takes time.  There are an infinite number of activities, technologies, assignments, and ways to structure a course; don’t feel like you need to do everything.  Much of the time simpler is better; think about what you want your students to learn, then design each class day around that.  If activities/technologies/assignments will assist with that goal, then use them, but do not feel that you have to do everything your first time around.

4. Classroom Management and Civility. Managing a class and maintaining civility can be overwhelming for first time teachers.  One thing that can help is specifically outlining the course structure and your expectations in the syllabus.  Having this information in the syllabus will help guide you during the semester when situations arise (i.e. students turning in late assignments, missing an exam, etc.).

5. Teaching Styles. Pick a teaching style that best fits you (formal/authoritative, facilitator, delegator or personal model). This is important as you start developing materials for your course and your preferred method for delivering the course. For more information, feel free to check out Anthony Grasha’s book, “Teaching with Style”, which is the main source for how we talk about teaching styles.  Here is a link to a full text version of the book: http://www.ius.edu/ilte/pdf/teaching_with_style.pdf.

6. Learning Styles. It is important to be aware of the various learning styles in your classroom. Each individual has a learning style(s) that best suits his/her ability in order to maximize learning. Learning styles are often categorized according to the VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, Kinesthetic…and sometimes multimodal) learning modalities. For more information on learning styles, check out: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp

7. Active Teaching. Doing activities in the classroom not only helps your students learn the material, but helps to keep them engaged and paying attention!  Consider including discussions, demonstrations, or small group work in your classroom.  If you are unsure of how to start doing this, try simply asking them a question about the material (e.g. “How could you use this theory to explain something that occurs in real life?”).

8. Teaching with Technology. Instructional technologies can be very useful tools in the classroom to enhance student learning and engagement.  There is a vast amount of technologies specifically designed for teachers (i.e. i-clickers, course management websites such as Blackboard or WebCT, Tegrity lecture capture software, etc.) but more general technologies can also enhance learning (i.e. YouTube videos, websites, Twitter, wikis, etc.).  If there is a technology that will help your students learning a concept, try using it in the classroom or for an assignment.

9. Get feedback from students throughout the semester. This will allow you to be flexible and tweak your course as you go along.  Sometimes small changes can greatly improve a course or the students learning.  You can simply ask your students periodically how aspects of the class are going, or you can do a more formal evaluation with an anonymous survey or a Small Group Instructional Feedback session (SGIF) offered by the CTTL.  Getting feedback will allow you to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, and help you to improve.

10. Self-Reflection.  As teaching is a challenging profession, self-reflection is vital and necessary. Self- reflection helps you take a minute to step back and take a look what was successful in your classroom and what could be improved for future. As we are well aware that each semester can be hectic and piled high and deep, remember to set aside a few minutes every two weeks or so to reflect on how your class is going.

11. End of Semester Evaluation. While we strongly recommend you to get frequent feedback from students, the end of the semester evaluation can be especially valuable. It is extremely vital that you tell your students to be honest and that you value their feedback as you hope to improve the class. The end of semester evaluation can be put to good use as you can refine your teaching as well as identify what worked well and what needs to be better tailored and improved for your next class.

12. Identify a mentor within your department. Mentoring is vital for professional development. Identify a mentor who best understands your needs and is able to provide advice, support and encouragement to improve and achieve your goals as a faculty member.

13. Teaching Development Resources/Opportunities. While teaching your first class can be a challenge, identifying resources for teaching development and opportunities can help with your classroom experience and growth as a teacher. The CTTL, Writing Center and Disability Services are a few examples of resources that are readily available for all faculty and graduate students.

14.  Recommended Reading. One book that we strongly recommend–and also happens to be on our CUTS reading list–is by author James M. Lang, “On courses: A Week-by-week guide to your first semester of college teaching” (2008). We hope this book will help alleviate the stress and anxiety for first time teachers.

15. Last but certainly not least, remember to be proactive, be flexible, relax, smile, and let your personality shine.

Best of luck to you in all your teaching endeavors!

by Katie Beres, Instructional Liaison, CTTL

As your students file in on the first day of class, what assumptions do you make about them?

At the recent Winter Institute, the keynote speaker, Dr. Nina Ha, helped to bring to light the assumptions we make about others and consequently our students. Through her keynote address, (Re) Discovering the Faculty/Student Body: Engaging Multiple Identities on the University Campus, she introduced two helpful lenses through which to consider our students and ourselves.

From Ronald Jackson II’s work, Scripting the Black Masculine Body, Dr. Ha introduced the concepts of scripting, covering and reverse covering as a framework for how we consider our students and ourselves in the classroom.

Scripting is the action of applying inferences about the identity, personality, and other characteristics of a person based solely on the person’s appearance. This action is done by you to someone else.

Covering describes the action of “playing down” perceived characteristics of our identity to gain or maintain social status or power in the dominant culture. These characteristics are categorized in four areas:

• Appearance (our body, clothing, hair)
• Affiliation (cultural identity)
• Activism (politics of our identity)
• Association (our relationships, lovers, friends)

Alternatively, we may choose to reverse cover and “play up” one or more of these characteristics of ourselves as a means of obtaining status or power.

Reflecting on how you present to your students and them to you provides insight into challenges and opportunities to the learning environment in your class.

As you begin the start of a new semester, ask yourself these questions:

• What scripts do I put upon my students when I first meet them? How do these scripts reflect my values, beliefs, and past experiences?
• What do my students choose to emphasize about themselves or hide and why?
• What do I assume “engagement” in my class looks like?  In what ways might students have to cover – or reverse cover – in order to meet those expectations?
• What scripts do my students read about me?
• What do I choose to keep private or emphasize about myself in the classroom?

The Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL) is pleased to announce the publication of A Guide for Beginning Teachers, an e-book from Drs. James H. Korn, Mary Stephen, and Jason Sikorski.  Both Korn and Stephen both have a rich history with the SLU and with the Center, and it is our pleasure to publish this work on our website.  The Guide is particularly useful for new teachers and provides applied exercises and structured reflection activities to stimulate new ways of thinking about teaching.

Originally, appearing as A Guide for Beginning Teachers of Psychology (Korn and Sikorski, 2010), the addition of Stephen in 2012 and a comprehensive revision have made the work more broadly applicable across all areas of teaching, including the humanities, arts, sciences, and professions.

As you enter this new semester, we hope you’ll have a look at A Guide for Beginning Teachers.  There is much there to stimulate your reflection on the past semester and to prompt future action in the semester to come.  Remind yourself of how it felt to be a new teacher – nervous, excited, energized – with all sorts of new pedagogical possibilities in front of you!

The e-book appears on the CTTL website.  You can access it by clicking on the following link: tinyurl.com/jhkteach.

by Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design

We talk a lot about renewal in the Center, largely because faculty development creates a unique opportunity for all of us to discover what works in higher ed, what we hope to improve or accomplish when working with students, and how to feel re-engaged and re-energized with the teaching and learning process, especially with the start of a New Year and a new semester.

So, it gives me great pleasure to share two events – the Innovative Teaching Fellowship call for applications and a conversation series on how to foster global, online learning – that I hope will continue to support faculty and graduate students in renewing praxis and pedagogy through Center events.

Innovative Teaching Fellowship

This Friday, January 18^th the Center will announce its call for applications for the  Innovative Teaching Fellowship program. The program encourages full-time SLU faculty members who are interested in teaching in the technology-rich, state-of-the-art Learning Studio during the Spring 2014 semester to apply for the fellowship by 5 p.m. on Monday, February 25^th. An essential part of the fellowship involves faculty working with the CTTL’s instructional designers the semester before teaching the course in the Learning Studio to re-develop an existing course or design a new course.

Before applying, potential fellowship applicants, who must be full-time Saint Louis University faculty and complete a pre-submission consultation with an instructional designer, are strongly encouraged to attend an open forum in the Learning Studio to see the space’s furniture and technology, and to experience some of the instructional possibilities of the space. No registration is required to attend an open forum, but interested parties should contact Michaella Thornton to schedule the required pre-submission consultation well before the February 25^th application deadline.

The scheduled Learning Studio (Des Peres Hall, Room 213) open forum dates are:

• Thursday, 1/24 from 3-4 pm in the Learning Studio
• Monday, 1/28 from 3:30-4 pm in the Learning Studio
• Wednesday, 2/6 from 1-2 pm in the Learning Studio
• Monday, 2/11 from 4-5 pm in the Learning Studio
• Wednesday, 2/20 from 1-2 pm in the Learning Studio

More information about the fellowship application process and updated application forms will be available on Newslink and the Center’s website on Friday as well.

Globally Engaged: A Conversation Series for Fostering Global, Online Learning

“Globally Engaged” is a conversation series for faculty, staff, and students to discuss and explore how to foster and facilitate collaborative global distance learning at Saint Louis University. This three-part conversation series is funded by a Bringing Theory to Practice seminar grant from the Association of American Colleges and Universities and will take place during the spring 2013 semester.

To register for the conversation series, please fill out the online form.

The conversation series’ dates, locations, questions, and topics include:

CONTEXT & EXPERIENCE: February 26, 2013 from 3:30-5 PM, Busch Student Center, Room 256

This conversation explores, among other topics, characteristics of a globally-engaged learning environment.

• Identify existing globally-centered organizations, resources, teaching practices, and learning experiences at SLU.

REFLECTION: March 19, 2013 from 3:30-5 PM, Busch Student Center, Room 253

This conversation explores, among other topics, why to foster a globally-engaged classroom.

• Explore best practices and methodologies in incorporating global learning in the classroom, especially how to best use learning technologies at SLU to bridge the distance.

ACTION & EVALUATION: April 16, 2013 from 3:30-5 PM, DuBourg Hall, Pere Marquette Gallery

This conversation explores, among other topics, how to create global learning opportunities.

• Build a customized action plan to incorporate global learning possibilities into classrooms, programs, and departments – for face-to-face, online, and blended classrooms.

We look forward to your involvement in these forthcoming CTTL events and can’t wait to hear more about what strategies and practices you look forward to learning or rediscovering to feel renewed as a teacher.

*Image courtesy of Judy Merrill-Smith via Flickr