Tag: balance

Together We Will

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In her inaugural address President Hutchinson provided us with perspective on our history and our future that moved and inspired. Towards the end of her remarks she gave us this promise:

“Together, we will work as one University; breaking down silos, removing institutional barriers, and encouraging innovations so that we serve our students better and promote their success through applied instruction and engaged learning, community service and civic engagement, and global and multicultural education. And, we will improve upon and make sustainable the means by which we provide support for students’ personal well-being.”

I left the address with those words stuck on repeat in my head. I was thinking about the ways we rise to meet those challenges and how we try, fall short, and get up to try again. Mainly I thought about the phrasing. This is not a directive or a question, it is a promise, which led me to think about who we are making this promise to and how we will make sure we keep it.

Faculty Development relies on an empowerment model rather than on expertise. If you were looking to us for answers, the best tool we have to offer is a mirror. Today I want to point you to the currently active options for enrichment offered through our office and encourage you to think about them as opportunities to learn and teach. More than anything, think of them as ways to keep our promise not that we can, or that we will try, but rather that we will.

Faculty Development Spring 2017 Program Offerings

Feel free to apply for multiple offerings. General questions can be directed to Zach Justus
zjustus@csuchico.edu. All applications due on 3/31/2017.

Academy e-Learning 9.1: Teaching with Help

Leadership: Faculty Development and the Technology and Learning Program
Compensation: $750 (taxable income)
Workload: June 1-2, 5-7 9am-4pm intensive plus assessment reporting
Brief Description: You are invited to participate in Academy e-Learning (AeL) Cohort 9.1, launching with the first of this summer’s one-week institutes –Teaching with Help. During this intensive institute, we will explore highly effective strategies for mentoring and working with TAs/mentors so you can realize their full potential and value in your course(s). Your work during this institute will focus on incorporating assistants, in all their forms, into your courses in meaningful ways.

Full RFP Link
Application

Academy e-Learning 9.2: Best Practices for Working with Student Writing

Leadership: Faculty Development and the Technology and Learning Program
Compensation: $750 (taxable income)
Workload: August 3-4, 7-9 9am-4pm intensive plus assessment reporting
Brief Description: You are invited to participate in Academy e-Learning (AeL) Cohort 9.2, the second of this summer’s one-week institutes. In recognition of the campus’ on-going interest in high impact educational practices, this institute is focused on supporting students’ writing.

Full RFP Link
Application

 Writing Boot Camp

Leadership: Chris Fosen
Compensation: $500 (taxable income)
Workload: May 23-26 8am-4pm
Brief Description: You are invited to take part in a one-week writing boot camp. Applicants are expected to be physically present and participate all day.  Since our goal is substantive writing, it is most suitable for projects that are already well under way.

Full RFP Link
Application

Learning Enhancement Grants

Brief Description: The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) is offering faculty awards of up to $5,515 to improve quality and productivity in learning and teaching in a course or program. Projects that strongly enhance student learning and have a demonstrable impact receive priority consideration. Proposals should address relevance to the University Strategic Plan. Funds awarded in spring of 2017 must be expended between July 1, 2017 and May 30, 2018. Proposals are due by Friday, March 31, 2017 at 5pm.

Full RFP Link
Application

Just in time Professional Development

Brief Description: The Faculty Development Program is offering faculty awards of up to $1,000 in Professional Development Funds to support faculty who need to attend a conference or support a project. The funds must be expended by 5/30/2017.

Full RFP Link
Application

Faculty Development is searching for the next director!

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We are all busy

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This time of the semester it is easy to think our experiences at work are unique to us. Nod in silence if you have said or overheard a colleague recently say

“I am so busy.”

“There is so much grading.”

“Arggh, students.”

“I don’t think (person X) understands how much work I have.”

“Why do I get so many annoying emails from CELT?”

These things might all be true, but it is important to remember they are true for everyone. Your colleagues are stressed and busy, students are scrambling to finish projects and study for exams, your chair and dean are grappling with their own issues, and the administrative assistant you work with all the time is probably getting the worst of it from all sides. Ask yourself how you would treat people if everyone were as busy as you are, and then do that, because they probably are.

Related to this piece of advice, here are a few more for the end of the semester.

  1. You would probably advise your students to abstain from ranting about their employers or coworkers on social media so take your own advice and do the same. What is posted on twitter lives forever in the memory of the internet. Think about how the student you are venting about would feel if you read your facebook post aloud in front of them.
  2. Yes it is the end of the term and ridiculous excuses are a part of our lives, but they can also be true. People do get sick during finals week and people we care about do go to the hospital. The fact that students may have been untruthful before does not mean the student who is emailing you asking for an extension is lying.
  3. Do something nice for someone. donuts Bring your class donuts or ask your administrative support person how his/her day is without immediately cutting them off to ask for a rush order copy job. Sometimes simple kindness gets us through the most challenging times.
  4. Looking for some help and a quiet place to grade during finals week? Check out the Faculty Grading Oasis in MLIB 458. We are open 8-5 with hot coffee, snacks, and student support to help alphabetize exams and data entry (as long as it is FERPA compliant). There may even be spontaneous “Hotline Bling” inspired dance-offs, you just never know.

 

Are we there yet?

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Thanksgiving break is so close you can taste it, and the students can too. This can be a difficult week for substantive instruction as you are probably inundated with emails like “my mom booked a flight for me six months ago and I need to leave town on Wednesday” or “why are you giving an exam this week? Can I take it online?”

Students have lives and we don’t want to be dismissive of them, but how do we balance that with the needs of our other students and our schedules?

I have usually taken a hard line with issues like this, and I have encouraged other instructors to do the same. This week is a scheduled school week and it should be treated as such. If students miss an exam this week then it is the same as if they miss it in the 2nd week of the semester. Some instructors may feel the need to be more flexible, and at times I have been as well.

Regardless, I would encourage you to be clear. Set expectations early in the week or even earlier in the semester about your adherence to the course calendar and expectations for student involvement. Then when you need to break some bad news to a student, it has some context. Nothing softens the blow of bad news like a healthy dose of “I told you so.” Maybe not, but it is still a best practice to keep everyone informed.

Looking for inspiration over break? Don’t forget about our 20 minute mentor subscription.

STEP 1: Activate your 20 Minute Mentor Commons subscription

  1. Go to www.magnapubs.com/sitelicense/registration.html?v=magna61715
  2. Enter information in each of the required fields.  In the Authorization Code box, enter our group Authorization Code CSUCHICO587and click Submit

Please note: entering the Authorization Code is done only once.

STEP 2: Access the 20 Minute Mentor Commons library

  1. Go to www.magnapubs.com/profile
  2. Enter your email address & password & click Submit. If you do not know or remember your account password, use “Forget your password?” to reset it.
  3. On the left side of the screen, under My Account, My Online Access, select Subscriptions. The online content you have access to will be listed to the right. Click the appropriate link to view the content.

Access to 20 Minute Mentor Commons is also available to registered members at www.mentorcommons.com.

Come visit us in MLIB 458 we are open 8-5 five days a week and have space for you to spread out and do work.

Have a great break!

 

Get a Grip…on Time Management

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You’ve heard of running with scissors? At this point in the semester it can feel more like spinning with butter knives:  So much activity, so few things actually completed. The relative of autonomy of faculty schedules is something we should be thankful for every day, but it can also make it challenging to distribute our energy to the right things in the right proportions.  Having spent literally hours on a PowerPoint presentation for a single, not-that-complicated class session (thank you, Google Images), and then wondered why I never finished that grant application, I wear my own scarlet P for Procrastination, or maybe Prioritization-ineptitude. get a grip
Here are three tips for getting a grip on time management.

  1. Identify your biggest time vacuum and find a way to fix it. For instance, if each incoming e-mail chime is a Pavlovian stimulus, silence the alerts while you’re working on important tasks.  Or try limiting your attention to e-mail to one or two blocks of time each day. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review calls this approach “e-mail budgeting” and offers good advice for how to make it work. Maybe your biggest time sink is, like mine, class prep. Try setting a time limit on that, too. When time is up, it’s time to teach, ready or not. Odds are, you really will be ready, even if the more perfect PowerPoint graphic has to wait for next semester’s iteration.
  2. Adopt a time management system. Options include David Allen’s massively popular Getting Things Done; the procrastination-targeting if unappealingly titled Eat That Frog, and The Five Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity, reviewed yesterday in The Chronicle of Higher Education. If you’re a fan of digital tools, you might like timing apps designed to maximize your focus on given projects like 30/30 and Tracking Time.
  3. Protect at least 15 minutes a day for the work that fuels your passion for your discipline.  Truly, just 15 minutes. That’s the theory behind Laura Belcher’s Write Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, currently in use by two faculty writing groups on campus, and it appears to be working.  Whether it’s writing a book or article, developing a grant proposal or conference paper, or working on a project with disciplinary colleagues across the country, set aside inviolable blocks of time to attend to it, even if the longer blocks are few. Just opening the file every day will keep your head in the project and nourish this vital but easy-to-lose aspect of your professional identity.

*  Authored by Dr. Katherine McCarthy.

 

Another Semester Slipping Past Us

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Yes, that faint whooshing you hear is the sound of another semester slipping past us. There’s a certain inevitability to this point in the semester, for us and our students.  After this (long!) week and the Thanksgiving break, those last two weeks of the semester will move at breakneck speed and we’ll find ourselves in the world of exams and is-there-any-extra-credit-in-this-class and who’s hosting the holiday party, anyway?

Seize this moment! Before the grading, the reckoning with piles of unattended laundry, and the renewed commitment to work-life balance, do a 10-minute diagnostic on each of your classes. You will never be better attuned than you are right now to what worked, what flopped, and what needs to be tweaked.  Try creating a “Notes for Next Time” file, or simply mark up a copy of the syllabus indicating what topics needed an extra session, what readings should be updated, or due dates shifted to protect your sanity.  Beyond logistics, are there new pedagogical moves you might try? Consider making a commitment to adding one new tool to your kit—a Blackboard feature, a classroom activity, a creative new assignment. There are innumerable resources to help you with these—check out upcoming TLP and CELT workshops, or let me know about a topic you’d like us to add to the roster.  CELT can also offer department-specific “we come to you” workshops on topics of interest to particular units.

*Authored by Dr. Katherine McCarthy.