Tag: forum

Upcoming Opportunities to Help Faculty Navigate Research.

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This Tuesday Tip brings to you some resources in relation to research and the opportunity to grow as both a teacher and a scholar! 

Faculty Development(opens in new window) is working on a number of resources that can help faculty navigate research at Chico State. Below you find links and information for upcoming opportunities: 

“Join us for a conversation about interdisciplinary research opportunities! We will hear from faculty who are currently collaborating across Departments and Colleges on various research projects, we will discuss examples of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and we will look at possible funding opportunities for collaborative research projects!” (The description will be added to the website soon) 

I also want to take this opportunity to share the link to the Co-Teaching & Community Engagement page(opens in new window) hosted by the Office of Civic Engagement(opens in new window). Here you find tips and ideas on how to consider possibilities for teaching and research collaborations!  

We hope that these resources and events will be an opportunity to learn more about support for research on campus and a chance to hear about innovative research projects at Chico State! 

Stay tuned! 

Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D. 

Faculty Development, Director 

why are students not reading the syllabus?

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Dear faculty,

Today’s Tuesday Tip focuses on one of the thorniest issues in higher education: why are students not reading the syllabus?

The most recent development in this saga is the famous news from December 2021 (Smart, 2021) about a University of Tennessee professor who hid $50 in a locker at the beginning of the Fall semester and shared the information on how to unlock it in his syllabus. To no one’s surprise, the cash was untouched (and unclaimed) at the end of the semester.

While appreciating the good and playful intentions of the instructor, a Slate article (Weaver, 2022) questions the ultimate benefits of these stunts and explores the reason why most students just glance at the syllabus as opposed to dedicating time and attention to such an important document: “the biggest reason students skip such a crucial step is simple: Many syllabi are unreadable. They’re too long and clogged with opaque, administration-mandated fine print. Some are written with an eye toward a student challenging a grade—that is to say punitively, from a defensive crouch.” I also appreciate how the author of the article reminds how “syllabi not only set up expectations for a class, but are usually the first introduction to the professor. In other words, bad ones can create and perpetuate bad relationships.”

Recently, I have felt more and more that syllabi seem to be written as a weaver of liability for instructors as opposed to being written to provide resources for students. Of course this is a generalization, but it is important to open up the question and explore strategies that can help instructors create better syllabi and encourage students to actually read them.

FRIDAY FORUM: MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Faculty Development will offer a Friday Forum on February 25th (11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) as a chance to discuss this complicated topic and to pause for a moment to think conceptually about what a syllabus should truly accomplish.

The forum, “So, the students aren’t reading the syllabus, ah?” is designed as a conversation where we can brainstorm ideas about what the function of a syllabus should be and what challenges students face in approaching an overwhelming syllabus. We will also explore alternative formats and ideas to creating engaging syllabi, such as infographics, course maps, and video syllabi.

And don’t forget that attending this workshop will count towards the FDEV Challenge!

Share ideas on our blog about strategies that have worked in your syllabi to engage students!

Student Engagement Challenge

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The FDEV team is excited to announce the launch of a 4-week student engagement challenge! 

Beginning this week, and continuing up to Spring Break, we will be issuing a small weekly challenge that you can do in your next class to help improve connection and engagement with your students. Each challenge will take just a few minutes to prepare for and about five minutes of class time to implement. Don’t feel locked into our instructions or time frames. Making each task your own will only improve your results. We will also give you a short explanation of why this strategy enhances engagement. 

In the next three weeks, keep an eye out for the Tuesday Tip to access the easy-to-implement task or activity for each week. FDEV Faculty Fellow Dustin Bakkie, from the Kinesiology Department, is going to be our guide and facilitator throughout this challenge. 
We will wrap this all up in Episode 4 of the Rise, Teach, Learn Podcast (released on March 25th) and in a Friday Forum on March 26th from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. so, stay tuned!

We are going to ask you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit. There will need to be some vulnerability on your part. Engagement is a two-way street. You will have your colleagues and the FDEV team with you the whole way to support you.

So are you in? Are you ready? 

Let’s just dive into Week 1 – The 3 Pillars of Engagement.

This week, we’re going to have you try the subtle Power of Names challenge in your class. It’s SUPER SIMPLE and involves building the personal foundation needed for high-quality engagement.

Framework: In 2014 the Gallup-Purdue Index Report surveyed 32,000 college-level students determined 3 Pillars of Engagement were necessary to foster a sense of engagement and wellbeing. 

·         Pillar 1 – Instructors need to care about students as people first * Most Important

·         Pillar 2 – Instructors need to make students excited about learning

·         Pillar 3 – Instructors need to encourage students to pursue their goals.

Challenge 1: Pillar 1 – The Power of Name

Synchronous Class: Use student’s names as often and granularly as possible. “Great question Tom”, “Good morning Halima”. 

·         Being as intentional as possible about acknowledging students and USING THEIR NAMES. You might be like, “DUH”, but I mean REALLY GRANULAR. Every student who says “hi” in the chat gets named, and I say good morning. Research shows that better social presence from instructors improves student learning and satisfaction. We can do that by using names more often and expressing gratitude. (Ladyshewsky, Richard K. (2013) “Instructor Presence in Online Courses and Student Satisfaction,” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 7: No. 1, Article 13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070113)

Asynchronous Class: You can use students’ names in feedback. If you are leaving video or audio feedback in the Blackboard or Turnitin Suite be sure to use their name. If you are responding to discussion posts or emails include their name. 

That’s it, you’ve now taken the first step to improve engagement in your course! Engagement comes with connections and using someone’s name is a powerful way to do that!

We look forward to hearing your experiences in the classroom, so let us know how it goes!

Dustin Bakkie
FDEV Faculty Fellow
Lecturer, Department of Kinesiology