Welcome back!
Happy 2024! I hope you had the kind of break you needed to have a great spring semester.
The CTL Advisory Board is finalizing our spring schedule and will email our flyer with everything you need to know about upcoming events. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you at the virtual Spring Forum on Monday. Dean Paige Eager, Dr. Amy Kilpatrick, Dr. Marisel Torres-Crespo and I have prepared some wonderful sessions on a variety of relevant topics. What better way to greet a new semester than by learning together!
If you're a careful reader of this newsletter, you may notice that the "Innovation Station" isn't featured in this issue. It's time to collect more of your exciting and innovative strategies--please reach out if you'd like to be featured in a future issue.
The CTL Advisory Board welcomes applications for its two Academic Innovation Grants through March 25, 2024. One grant is specific to introducing high impact practices into a course or a curriculum and the other supports broader teaching innovation. For the application link, keep reading this issue!
Perhaps you’re offering a new course, or you’re looking to revamp an old one. Even if you don’t need to write or revise a course syllabus, though, there’s never a bad time to re-examine and rethink your syllabi. In this Chronicle article, Kevin Gannon outlines syllabus essentials and some important considerations.
James Lang and Krista Rudenga reflect on the power of extrinsic motivators in a recent Chronicle article:
"Research on teaching in recent years has awakened faculty members to the importance of cultivating intrinsic motivation in class. The idea is that, instead of relying on grades or late penalties to get students to complete their work, we should turn to more meaningful motivators: the inherent love of learning, the fascinating nature of the subject matter, the desire to belong to a community, the impulse to help others...
In fact, most work — especially the challenging and unpleasant parts — comes wrapped in both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators." Feeling motivated to continue reading? Click here!
In many courses, the days after the first exam can be stressful. Some students might feel worried about the results, or even doubt their abilities. So at the end of one challenging exam, a professor took a few minutes of class time to reassure her students.
Her brief remarks led to the kind of email that every faculty member should want to receive: “The speech you gave post-exam was something I needed to hear. Thank you for reminding me that I belong here and have the potential to succeed.” The student’s words tell you a lot about the instructor’s teaching style.
You may wonder: Is the role of a college instructor to help students feel included and ready to thrive? Is that something I should be doing? As champions of inclusive teaching, and the authors of a new book on the subject, we say — emphatically — yes. To continue reading Viji Sathy and Kelly A. Hogan's guide on inclusive teaching, click here.
To better equip students with health and wellness resources, colleges and universities can invest in self-guided resources, giving students a way to address their concerns on their own time. Inside Higher Ed compiled three areas of institutional supports can that aid learners in their health journeys--library resources, fitness resources, and multimedia resources. To get the specifics, click here.
Among the statistics in this Inside Higher Education article:
- Forty-six percent of faculty members say their students come to them with a mental health concern multiple times per month or more.
- Ninety-one percent of borrowers say financial stress is impacting their mental and physical wellness, with student loan debt as the key driver of this financial stress.
- Sixty-one percent of students spend three or more hours per day on social media, with most using TikTok.
- About two-thirds of Gen Z grads define a high starting salary as $82,000 a year.
For more facts and figures, check out the entire list.
February 22, 2024
1-2pm EST
A truly safe and inclusive learning environment encourages all students to exchange (and expand) their perspectives, regardless of cultural background, religious affiliation, or political ideology. But today’s political climate forces higher education leaders to prioritize freedom of expression OR inclusion, even though both are vital. This webinar will provide a systems framework for integrating these efforts. Learn how to engage your teams around balancing free speech while limiting harm to marginalized groups. Hear from university leaders on approaches that blend freedom of expression and inclusion efforts — their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. And leave with insights and resources to thoughtfully shape an environment where diverse viewpoints are shared, and student well-being is prioritized in tandem. Register
Excerpt from Chronicle column by Paul Brest:
Belonging, in this context, does not imply the cozy feeling of being with like-minded people. Rather, as the social psychologist Geoffrey Cohen defines the term in his 2022 book Belonging, it refers to “the feeling that we’re part of a larger group that values, respects, and cares for us — and to which we have something to contribute."
Cohen and his colleague Gregory M. Walton coined the term "belonging uncertainty" to refer to the “state of mind in which one suffers from doubts about whether one is fully accepted in a particular environment or ever could be.” Belonging uncertainty inhibits students’ full participation in discourse and is a pervasive problem on American campuses.
To read the full piece, click here.
"The importance of fostering safe spaces in online spaces cannot be overstated. Engaging in open and ongoing discussions with educational leaders becomes an imperative for creating policies that uphold the safety and well-being of all those who are working in online spaces. This dialogue ensures a comprehensive understanding of online policies, allowing for the development of effective strategies that promote a secure virtual learning environment. The significance of communication between educators and leaders is crafting policies that foster safe and conducive spaces for learning in the digital age. " To read more from Faculty Focus' Courtney Plotts, click here.
The Center for Teaching & Learning
Email: CTL@hood.edu
Website: www.hood.edu/CTL
Location: Hood College, Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD, USA
Phone: (301) 663-3131