The Center for Teaching & Learning

Message From the CTL Director

Faculty Focused:

• Welcoming Visiting Professors
• Curriculum Development: Mirrors, Doors, and Windows
• Student Engagement Strategies
• Staff and Faculty Innovation and Research Exhibition (SAFIRE)
• Academic Innovation Grant Opportunities
  

• College Students and Eating Disorders
• Relationship Between Student Well-Being and Course Design

Equity Emphasized:

• Anti-DEI Legislation Tracker
• Podcast Episode: My Classroom is a Safe Place: Empowering Trans-spectrum Students
• Webinar Announcement: Reshaping the Discourse: Integrating Free Speech and Inclusion

• Podcast Episode: Demystifying Online Group Projects

Scheduled:

• February 16th: Making the Grade, Part One
• March 1st: Making the Grade, Part Two
• February 27th, March 28th, and April 30th: Considering the Conversation
• April 15th: SPIRE Symposium (includes Staff and Faculty posters, too!)

The CTL event calendar is nearing completion! Mark your calendars for our upcoming two-part series on Grading. On February 16th, Jeff Welsh will lead a Zoom session on Blackboard grading tools and tips. On March 1st, Drs. Aaron Angello and Heather Mitchell-Buck will conduct a workshop on alternative grading. See below for details and registration information. We are also excited about our upcoming peer consultation sessions called “Considering the Conversation,” where CTL facilitators welcome participants to talk about the difficult conversations and topics in and out of the classroom (see details below).

Springtime at Hood brings warmer weather and... scholarly presentations! Please save the date for these two events:

• 3 Minute Thesis (3MT): Thursday, April 11th, via Zoom. The program begins at 5:30pm.
• SPIRES: Scholarship, Performance, Innovation, Research, and Experience Symposium, more affectionately known as SPIRES! This year’s event will be held in different buildings across campus on Monday, April 15th. Undergraduate faculty, please consider this Alternate Day of Instruction as an opportunity for your students to showcase their work and learn across disciplines. Staff, please support the event by attending! Faculty and staff are welcome to submit their own proposals in the SAFIRE event (see below for more details). Submission dates for SPIRES and SAFIRE are the same: Tuesday, March 19th.

Lastly, if you or your colleagues are implementing innovative teaching strategies or know someone who is, we'd love to hear from you! We are putting together a series of short videos and newsletter pieces on accessible, inclusive, and creative strategies to engage students. This invitation to reach out is also extended to those of you using open educational resources (OER) in your courses. Email ctl@hood.edu or gricus@hood.edu.

In this essay for the Chronicle, Bret C. Devereaux “focus[es] on actions that departments and individual tenure-line professors could take — at zero or minimal cost — to extend basic collegiality to their nontenure-track colleagues. Unfortunately, in my experience and that of many of my fellow contingent academics, these steps, while basically free, remain a rarity.” Devereaux’s essay is a response to a piece written by Dunn and Halonen called “Dos and Don’ts of a Visiting Professorship.”

This year’s Black History Month theme: “African Americans and the Arts” provides opportunities to add mirrors, doors, and windows to your humanities and interdisciplinary courses. Consider these resources and events related to the theme:

• The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Digital Toolkit “Art as a platform for social justice.”
• The Smithsonian offers a variety of digital collections on art and music.
• The NAACP turns 115 this month. The History Channel website offers some fantastic content on this advocacy organization and other celebrations of Black/African Americans.

In 2023, Hood hosted the inaugural Staff And Faculty Innovation & Research Exhibition (SAFIRE). SAFIRE is a great place for faculty and staff to present their best work! Whether you plan to present a completed research project or an innovative program, SAFIRE welcomes your submissions! For this year’s SAFIRE, the event will be condensed into poster sessions at 9am and 1pm during the larger SPIRE Symposium on Monday, April 15th.

Proposals are due by EOD on Monday, March 18th and require just some basic information, a title, and a brief abstract. To submit your SAFIRE poster proposal, click here.

Center for Teaching and Learning Academic Innovation Grant

• Annual contract faculty (0.5 FTE or greater) may apply for the Academic Innovation Grant.
• The Academic Innovation Grant provides a stipend or reimbursement of expenses of up to $2,500 for projects designed to enhance teaching and learning.
• The Center for Teaching and Learning Advisory Committee will review faculty proposals.
• Academic Innovation Grant Application deadline – March 25, 2024.

Center for Teaching and Learning Academic Innovation Grant for High Impact Practices

• Annual contract faculty (0.5 FTE or greater) may apply for the Academic Innovation Grant for High Impact Practices.
• The Academic Innovation Grant for High Impact Practices provides a stipend or reimbursement of expenses of up to $2,500 for the development of a new or expanded high impact learning experience associated with a course.
• The Center for Teaching and Learning Advisory Committee will review faculty proposals.
• Academic Innovation Grant for High Impact Practices Application deadline – March 25, 2024.

The CTL has a dedicated bookshelf space in the Library Commons for CTL resources and materials! Feel free to check out these books and return them when you are finished. If you would like the CTL to order other materials to increase our repository, contact Kerri Eyler with your request.

February 26th-March 2nd, 2024 marks National Eating Disorder Week. According to the Child Mind Institute, “The challenges of college life can create a ‘perfect storm’ for [eating] disorders. College students are constantly around other people their age, and the pressure to be social and look good is intense. Many kids are also in charge of when, what, and how much they eat for the first time. The most common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. Eating disorders typically begin between 18 and 21 years of age. Between 10 and 20% of women and 4 to 10% of men in college suffer from an eating disorder, and rates are on the rise.” To learn more, click here.

Faculty Focus's latest podcast episode focuses on strategies for helping transgender students feel safe.

Subscribe to the show “Faculty Focus Live Podcast” through your favorite podcast app or listen to individual episodes at their website.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) condemns all forms of systemic racism, bias, and aggression against Black people, indigenous peoples, people of color, and those of marginalized genders, as well as discrimination based on socioeconomic status. We understand that excellence in teaching, by definition, must reflect our shared humanity and promote inclusive practices such as:

• being conscious of biases, racial abuse, micro-aggressions, and those who are minimized or left out;
• understanding and supporting those underrepresented in our Hood community; and
• promoting ways to actively foster equity, diversity and inclusion in our classrooms, research, and publications.

The CTL is determined to raise awareness of all those who have been systematically oppressed and call upon Hood faculty to join us in this commitment to create a more inclusive world. As members of the CTL Advisory Board, we stand united and affirm that Black Lives Matter

Rebecca Hogue teaches in the Masters of Instructional Design program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston Check out her tips for doing online group projects in an episode of “Teaching in Higher Ed,” a weekly podcast. To locate this episode #403) and other episodes, search your podcast app or click here.

Explore effective grading practices in this two-part series. Focusing on diverse grading models and technology integration, this series equips course instructors to provide constructive feedback and enhance student outcomes. Perfect for both seasoned professors and new instructors.

February 16th, 2-3pm, via Zoom: In Part One, hosted by Jeff Welsh, Director of Instructional Technology, participants will learn about the tools available in Blackboard to facilitate traditional and non-traditional grading strategies.

March 1st, 2-4pm, Whitaker 220: In Part Two, Drs. Aaron Angello and Heather Mitchell-Buck will discuss their strategies for adopting and implementing “ungrading” and other alternative grading strategies in their courses.

February 27th, 1-1:45pm, Whitaker 220

March 28th, 12-1pm, Zoom

April 30th, 1-1:45pm, Whitaker 220

For more information, or to access the Zoom link, email ctl@hood.edu.

• Michelle Gricus, Associate Professor of Social Work, Director of the CTL
• April Boulton, Associate Professor of Biology & Dean of Graduate School
  
• Catherine Breneman, Assistant Professor of Social Work
• Ashley Coen, Assistant Professor of Education
• Paige Eager, Professor of Political Science, Dean of Faculty
• Jessica McManus, Assistant Professor of Psychology
  
• Heather Mitchell-Buck, Associate Professor of English; Coordinator of Digital Learning
• Katherine Orloff, Associate Professor of Journalism
• Kathryn Ryberg, Reference & Education Services Librarian
• Atiya Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology & Counseling
• Jill Tysse, Associate Professor of Mathematics
  
• Jeff Welsh, Director of Instructional Technology in the IT division
• Adam Weintraub, Graduate Assistant for the CTL

Email: CTL@hood.edu
Website: www.hood.edu/CTL
Location: Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD
Phone: (301) 696-3397