Tag: fdev

Teaching Climate Change & Resilience

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The main portion of this tip is brought to you by Dr. Mark Stemen, from Geography and Planning.

Over Spring 2022, 65 CSU faculty redesigned over 75 courses to include greater engagement of climate change and resilience, immediately affecting the education of thousands of students across the CSU the following year, including over 900 students on our campus alone. 

The CSU Teaching Climate Change & Resilience (TCCR) Faculty Learning Community (FLC) was first offered in Spring 2022 through the Office of Faculty Development. 

Since then, the FLC has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and has received the Campus Sustainability Achievement Award by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and most recently received recognition from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. 

In Spring 2024 the FLC will be offered again, with the support of Chico State’s Office of the President, the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, and the Office of the Chancellor’s Innovative Teaching & Learning Programs. The FLC will be open to all 23 CSU campuses and aligns with the California State University Sustainability Policy, which “is intended to position the nation’s largest university system as a leader in the teaching and use of applied research to educate climate literate students.” 

This FLC is designed with busy and burdened faculty in mind. The five sessions are only 90 minutes long, and each will help faculty step by step to easily incorporate climate change and resilience into a course they teach. Our goal is to connect faculty with a broad range of approaches and ideas, as well as resources that are well-researched, relevant, and relatable to their discipline; lots of resources.  

The five Zoom sessions on Tuesdays from 9:00-10:30 a.m. 

This FLC also offers the rare opportunity to connect with colleagues across the system. The FLC will be entirely over Zoom, allowing us to organize breakout rooms based on discipline. We found when we used disciplinary breakout rooms, the sessions became more productive and transformative for faculty.  As one participant remarked, “It felt like the department I always wanted. Everyone believed in climate change and they all wanted to help.” 

The FLC application is due by December 15, 2023. All faculty are welcome to apply.
Additionally, we in FDEV want to point you toward a timely NCFDD resource. Many faculty have been personally impacted by the tragic situation in Israel and Gaza. In addition, many faculty are encountering conversations about this situation in the classroom. In 2020 Dr. Chavella Pittman was featured in a webinar on Preparing for Difficult or Controversial Conversations as part of their Empowered Teaching Toolkit. You have to sign up for NCFDD (which you have free access to for this year), but once you do you will have access to an incredible catalog of useful resources for your classroom and professional development.

Zach Justus
Interim Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

You will never believe who…

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Stopped by the Faculty Grading Oasis during finals week and finished all their grading—You! Come see us during finals week for open space, coffee, snacks, tech support from TLP, and assistance (FERPA compliant) from our student staff.

It is that time of year. Grading is piling up, and each piece of click-bait you see looks more enticing as you try and avoid the regular task of finishing your grading. With that in mind, our “reasons to visit” the Grading Oasis is inspired by the click-bait you should avoid:

  1. Genius uses this one weird trick–to finish all their grading. Seriously, going somewhere new and having some help makes a difference.
  2. You won’t believe what this instructor looks like now–happy once they have come by the Grading Oasis for coffee and snacks. We buy, and you thrive.
  3. Healthy professors do this one thing to stay young–they get help with their grading. Our students help with blinded grading, alphabetizing, anything FERPA allows them to assist with. TLP help is two doors away!
  4. Warren Buffet is warning teachers not to–procrastinate on finishing grading. Avoid the artificial extension of your classwork into the summer by doing it soon.
  5. Shocking photos of polar bear attacks-okay I don’t have a tie in for this one, I just like polar bear videos.

Grading Oasis (4)

 

The call for the 23rd annual CELT conference is live! Submit an abstract today to change the world tomorrow—or maybe in October.

Got feedback on this tip? Got an idea for a tip? Send it along. Check out our new and improved wordpress site here.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Caffeinated Cats podcast. Our newest episode is out now! President Gayle Hutchinson joins Mary, Tracy, and I to discuss the bright future of CSU, Chico. Link to it on soundcloud, itunes, overcast, or follow the podcast on facebook.

Use this one weird trick to finish all your grading in one day!

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Today’s tip is a three-parter, and while I lack the magic solution you may have craved when you opened this email, there is a lesson to be learned; keep reading to find out!

Part One: Audience analysis, perspective taking, teaching empathy—these are all variations on similar teaching practices that cut across all disciplines. In a recent Teaching in Higher Ed podcast about this topic I was struck by one particular example. One of the guests who teaches Android application development dramatically improved his class by incorporating perspective taking and directing his students to start from the consumer perspective and design the application around their needs rather than starting with the technology. It was a powerful example because it illustrated to me the extreme utility of perspective taking, regardless of discipline. In this forum I have often urged you to think about things from the perspective of your students; this is a little different as we are trying to get our students to engage in that same practice. This practice is powerful because it is practical and personally transformative. In a world increasingly customized to our own perspectives and tastes it is easy to assume other people will adjust to us, when in reality we have to start by understanding them.

Part Two: Friday is the deadline for our Spring Programming including Faculty Learning Communities for: Write your article in 12 weeks, We are a Hispanic Serving Institution, Now What?, Improve Your Teaching Practice, Quality Online Learning and Teaching, and the Leadership Initiative. Make Spring a great semester, and get involved with a rewarding community.

Part Three: The Faculty Grading Oasis is as close to “one weird trick” as you are going to get and we will be in full effect during finals week. See the flyer below for details.

grading-oasis-fall-2016-6

Dr. Sara Cooper has provided additional Book in Common Material. Check out this section of the CELT page for regular synopsis updates, discussion questions, and other resources.

Got feedback on this tip? Got an idea for a tip? Send it along. Check out our new and improved wordpress site here.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Caffeinated Cats podcast! Our third episode of the Fall is out now! Mary, Tracy, and I explore athletics at Chico and beyond in the aptly titled “locker room talk.” Link to it on soundcloud, itunes, overcast, or follow the podcast on facebook.

Get by with a little help from your friends

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Get by with a little help from your friends at Faculty Development this week. Maybe you don’t consider us friends, “colleagues” maybe? How about “acquaintances with snacks”?

This week we are running the Faculty Grading Oasis in MLIB 458 and we would love to see you in the office. We offer fresh coffee, snacks, a place outside your normal office, and students to assist you with grading/clerical tasks. Our schedule this week is:

Tuesday Open 8-12, 1-5, Student help 1-5

Wednesday Open 8-5, Student help 8-10:30, 11-5

Thursday Open 8-2, Student help 8-2

Friday Open 8-11:30, Student help 8-11 (we are working on the afternoon schedule)

Without further procrastination, your top 10 reasons for visiting the faculty grading oasis (revised from Fall).

  1. Students studying on the 4th floor are more stressed than you are, feel better by proxy.
  2. No one knocks on our door asking to redo an assignment from early February.
  3. Student workers to help with basic tasks like alphabetizing (remember to be FERPA compliant).
  4. We have dedicated dual monitor workstations you can use and print from. They are probably newer than the post-war ENIAC surplus machine you are reading this on.
  5. Get away from that judgy colleague who already has all their grading done.
  6. Experience one of the only offices on campus where control of the thermostat is possible.
  7. Our office has windows, you know the magical devices that allow light to come in.
  8. We are closer to Common Grounds than where you normally work.
  9. Our office is now is now 173 4 days since our last Chupacabra attack. You will probably possibly be safe.
  10. Have you ever seen the library vaccum Zamboni machine? Need I say more?

Got feedback on this tip? Leave a comment or email it to us. Got an idea for a tip? Send it along.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Caffeinated Cats podcast! The newest episode is on the strike that wasn’t. Link to it on soundcloud, itunes, overcast, or follow the podcast on facebook.