Tag: Friday forum

RTP Forum Resources

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Dear faculty,

ah, what a day yesterday was! Between the excitement of the RTP discussions and Labor Day, my week got all confused, so here you are getting a Tuesday Tip on a Wednesday! Way to spice up FDEV!

I am happy to share resources from yesterday’s RTP forum, so if you missed it, you can access all information asynchronously.

RTP Forum video recording
RTP Forum slides (the last two slides offer resources and dossier samples you can access and explore)
(both resources are posted in the Friday Forum page)

I also want to take this opportunity to share a great video (Passcode: 2M1!kV5k) that Director of Civic Engagement Dr. Ann Schulte put together to show how the Collaboratory: Community Engagement Database can be used to enhance your dossier.

We will be offering a Friday Forum in the near future about all the possibilities Collaboratory offers, so stay tuned for that announcement!

I truly hope the forum was useful, and please remember that the Office of Faculty Development is always open to help you in the tenure, retention, and promotion journey!

Information Literacy

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Dear faculty, 

We had the pleasure to offer a Friday Forum last week on information literacy, particularly on the way the Framework for Information Literacy can be applied to our curriculum. 

If you missed the workshop led by Irene Korber and William Cuthbertson, I encourage you to explore these resources: 

Video Recording of the workshop 
Google Slides presentation
Handout from the Association of College and Research Libraries

Starting in Fall 2022, information literacy will be included as one of the 5 outcomes in the GE Program at Chico State, allowing students to: “Demonstrate[s] the abilities to recognize when there is a need for information; to identify, locate, and evaluate information; and to effectively, responsibly, and ethically use and share information for the question at hand.” If you are teaching a course that will incorporate information literacy as a student learning outcome, these resources are truly invaluable! 

I also want to encourage you to reach out to our librarians for the following resources: 

  • One-shot information literacy session 
  • Information literacy workshop series 
  • Integrating information literacy into your assignments 
  • Assigned research appointments 

We hope you will find these tools helpful! 

Lecturers, You Belong Here!

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Dear faculty, 

It is not uncommon in Faculty Development to receive emails from lecturers asking for clarification about whether the programs and events that FDEV offers are open to lecturers or not. 

I always found those emails and questions incredibly strange: “why wouldn’t they be open to lecturers, I wonder, since lecturers are faculty?” 

Talking to colleagues who are lecturers and asking for clarification, however, I came to realize that this question really hides a more nuanced and problematic concern. What lecturers are really asking me is: am I welcome to these programs, as a lecturer? 

Frankly, this more complex reading of the question has both humbled me tremendously and broken my heart, because this concern ultimately sheds light on the fact that several lecturers do not feel like they belong at our institution. And this is the part that is particularly hard to digest as faculty development director. There is a quote in this article (“Striking a Major Blow to Adjunctification”) that matches this sentiment: “After moving to the city’s Eastside, I worked as an adjunct for three years. I commuted an hour north to a beautiful, prosperous, hypermodern campus, where I squatted in a borrowed office to eat my lunch, make my lesson plans and meet my students, as is common for contingent faculty. (One semester, a kind administrator advised me to squat in the conference room instead, though I had to hide my belongings in the filing cabinet when real faculty needed the space).” (Wyman, 2021). 

I want to assure you that in Faculty Development we consider all faculty as “real faculty,” and while lecturers certainly face different experiences depending on Departments, Colleges, disciplines, etc., Faculty Development offers a space where every faculty belongs, independently of rank or other factors. For this reason, I am excited to announce a number of FDEV resources and initiatives to support lecturers: 

  1. Faculty Development will be offering a Friday Forum on lecturer resources and support on Friday, October 29th, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. This is a chance to hear about resources on campus available from different units and offices. 
  2. The November issue of the FDEV Zine will entirely be dedicated to lecturers’ information, conversations, and sense of belonging. The Zine will be released on Monday, November 1st. 
  3. Faculty Development has committed funding to create a lecturer mentor position for spring 2022. A call for applications will come out in the next week or so. 
  4. Faculty Development has also committed to planning a full-day lecturer academy event in spring 2022, in collaboration with the lecturers council. We will send more information in early spring. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the lecturers that have educated me about their experience, that have opened my mind about how different a lecturer’s experience can be when compared to that of a tenure-track or tenured professor, and ultimately have given true meaning to the question “are FDEV programs open to lecturers?” 

Add a comment below to share ways FDEV can support you as a lecturer.

An Exploration of Podcasting in Higher Education

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Dear faculty,

This Tuesday Tip is written to encourage you to attend our new series on Podcasting for Teaching and Learning, which will start next week. Faculty Development is organizing the series in collaboration with the Technology and Learning Program, and we hope that you are excited to learn more about how podcasting can be used in your classes. As you can see in the webpage, the meetings will be held in Glenn 302 (a hyflex room, yay!) and also via Zoom, so feel free to attend in your preferred fashion, but we do ask that you register here so we can plan according to the expected audience.

In tandem with this series, I want to make sure that you are aware of a number of resources available on our website:

In particular, I want to point out this article, “Can creative podcasting promote deep learning? The use of podcasting for learning content in an undergraduate science unit” (Pegrum, Bartle & Longnecker, 2014), which examines the use of podcasts in an undergraduate chemistry course, specifically in relation to deep learning. I want to encourage all faculty to think of ways in which podcasting could be useful and beneficial in your classes, across Colleges, disciplines, and formats.

The first workshop will be held next Wednesday, September 29th, 3:00-4:30 pm, and we hope to see you there!

Add a comment to share ways in which you use podcasting in your class!

Resources for Tenure, Promotion, and Dossier Writing

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Dear faculty,

I hope that your first week in class (virtually or in person) went as smoothly as possible and that you could all get re-energized by the interaction with your students!

This week, I want to encourage you to focus on yourselves for a moment, and to consider the resources available for retention, tenure, and promotion (RTP), and more general resources that can help with your dossiers (whether you are going through a performance or periodic review this year, and whether you are a T/TT faculty or a lecturer). Last year we offered a number of Friday Forums that provided insights into a variety of topics pertaining to RTP, and many faculty helped me explore concrete examples of successful practices. 

I want to share the recordings from those forums, as many of you have dossiers due on September 17th, and I hope that you can find valuable information there.

  1. How to Showcase Evidence of Teaching Excellence (Class Evaluations) – additional material available here
  2. How to Showcase Evidence of Teaching Excellence (in the RTP Dossier) – additional material available here
  3. How to Prepare for a Class Peer Evaluation – slides available here
  4. How to Approach Service Strategically – additional material available here

I want to encourage all faculty (T/TT and lecturers) to reach out to Faculty Development for questions about RTP, dossier writing, class evaluations, etc. We might not have all the answers, but we should be able to point you in the right direction. I am also happy to share my dossier with anybody who would like to see an example, just reach out to me!

Lastly, I want to send one more reminder about the Friday Forum on RTP. Join us for a discussion about tenure and promotion with the Office of Academic Personnel, Deans, Department Chairs, and newly tenured faculty on Friday, September 3rd, 12:00-2:00 p.m. The forum will be offered via Zoom and all sessions will be recorded.

Do not hesitate to reach out to me or Faculty Development for any questions!

Chiara Ferrari 
 
Faculty Development, Director 
Campus zip: 026 
Phone: 530-898-3094 
https://www.csuchico.edu/fdev
Professor 
Department of Media Arts, Design, and Technology 
Campus zip: 504 
Phone: 530-898-4647

The ChicoFlex Pilot

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Dear faculty,

I want to take this opportunity to share some information about the ChicoFlex pilot that started in early April and invite you to this week’s Friday Forum for a chance to hear from the faculty who are participating in the pilot. Danielle Hidalgo (Sociology), Jaime Raigoza (Computer Science), Kevin Kimbell (Finance and Marketing), Nicholas Nelson (Physics), and Scott Brady (Geography and Planning) have been teaching in classrooms equipped with hyflex technology for the last couple of weeks, and have experimented with different pedagogical practices.

Faculty Development has been working closely with Classroom Technology Services and the Technology & Learning Program to learn the ins and outs of hyflex technology, class management, and general pedagogical needs for hybrid courses that will adopt the ChicoFlex Model. The ChicoFlex Team (Brent Liotta Chiara Ferrari, Kathy Fernandes, Marjorie Shepard, and Mike Magrey) has attended these classes in a variety of capacities: acting as students in person, participating as students online, and providing some tech support.

We are incredibly grateful to the faculty who are participating in the pilot, and I think I speak for our whole team when I say that we are learning so much about the possibilities, as well as the challenges of this mode of instruction. This Friday Forum will give us an opportunity to share what we have learned so far: we encourage everyone to join us for a chance to ask questions about ChicoFlex and hear about Summer training opportunities!

ChicoFlex Pilot Friday Forum

(Friday, April 30th, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., via Zoom)

The ChicoFlex Spring Pilot Team

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

Open Access (Friday Forum)

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Do you have questions about Open Access and how it impacts your scholarly work and publication?

Open Access encompasses a variety of issues but includes literature that is digital, free for users, and that offers authors a variety of licensing options. The relatively new process of publishing in Open Access venues raises questions, however, regarding the process, authors’ rights, and the implications of Open Access publishing for the RTP process.

The film Paywall: The Business of Scholarship highlights some of the pressing issues driving the Open Access movement. 

In March of 2019 the Academic Senate of the California State University passed a Resolution in Support of Faculty Publication Rights with a Green Open Access Policy for the California State University but what does that mean to the academic community at Chico State?

Please join us in a discussion about the status of Open Access on Friday, February 12th (11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., via Zoom). Chico State librarians will discuss research and resources at CSU, Chico. 

We seek to learn about your interests and concerns regarding Open Access publication and want to hear from individuals across campus to engage in a learning community about this topic. This Friday Forum is designed to share information about the process and policies in place, while understanding how we might best direct efforts to support Open Access publication on campus. We hope you will share your experiences and insights.

A few things we will cover in this forum:

  • Explore what Open Access means for our academic community.
  • The Elsevier APC Waiver Agreement with the CSU system, and how you can take advantage of an opportunity to expand access and visibility to your published articles for no additional fees. 
  • Details of Chico’s Open Access Institutional Repository, ScholarWorks.
  • Resources from the library to aid additional exploration.
  • Feedback and stories from you on Open Access relating to your scholarship and discipline.

Our desired outcomes include:

  •         Invite a conversation with OA leaders on campus – listening session
  •          Learn about OA needs for campus
  •          Determine future needs around OA on this campus
  •          Let folks share their existing efforts around campus on OA     

Have questions? Feel free to contact us!

Chrissy Hursh cmhursh@csuchico.edu

George Thompson ghthompson@csuchico.edu

Pam Kruger pkruger@csuchico.edu

William Cuthbertson wcuthbertson@csuchico.edu

Podcasting for Teaching & Learning

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As a film scholar in love with Orson Welles, I remember the first time I listened to the controversial 1938 War of the Worlds: I was fascinated by both the concept (a Halloween prank that turned into mass hysteria) and the content (the narrative of aliens attacking Earth). And of course, by Orson Welles’ incredible voice (seriously, just listen to it if you haven’t yet).  

Since then, radio technology has evolved significantly, and now we all have our favorite podcasts saved on our phones. But a core element has not changed: good storytelling. And I’ve always loved to think about teaching as a form of storytelling. Podcasts have been used very successfully for both teaching and learning, at various educational levels. As one podcaster reminds us, “students listen for longer than they’ll watch or read,” podcasts are easily accessible, and promote better learning for students with mental and visual disabilities. EdTech offers some recommendations about Higher Ed podcasts, this article even discusses the benefits of podcasts for faculty development, and this podcast offers great pedagogical resources for instructors.  

If you want to learn more about podcasting for teaching and learning, the Office of Faculty Development will hold a Friday Forum on December 4th via Zoom, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  

A panel of faculty will share their experience with podcasts, discuss tips and best practices, and offer ideas on how you could use podcasts in your own classes.  

Lastly, I want to remind everyone about the call for applications for FDEV Spring 2021 programs, see below: 

Closing the Equity Gaps Faculty Learning Community 

Digital Pedagogy Faculty Learning Community 

Faculty Writing Community 

Quality Learning and Teaching Workshops 

All calls for applications will close on Monday, December 7th, at 5:00 p.m. You can also find a list of all open calls in the FDEV Programs page. 

We look forward to receiving your applications and being able to offer you continued support! 

Election Day

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Today is a complex day, made even harder by the lack of human interaction that we are all experiencing due to Covid-19.

Ann Schulte, our director of Civic Engagement, reminds us that the presidential election is an important event, especially for those who are voting for the first time, like many of our students. Our democracy, however, depends on far more civic participation than once every four years. Being an ally and working to make a difference in our local communities happens every day. We can help our students use their voice and learn to advocate through many different avenues.

The Chronicle of Higher Education offers some advice about preparing students for the aftermath of the election in our mostly virtual world. Inside Higher Ed offers lessons from the 2016 election and reminds us that “we need a framework to engage and support our students.”

In this spirit, we want to share some available resources:

  • Sue Peterson, Chico State Debate Coach, shared her ideas about how to use Living Room Conversations in a Friday Forum. 
  • The WellCat Counseling Center has created a guidebook to help faculty facilitate conversations
  • The WellCat Counseling Center has also have set aside time to talk with students who are having election-related anxiety and resources to support students experiencing racial trauma. 

Today’s tip is really about trying to take extra care of your students and yourselves in the coming days, as we navigate a historical election.