Category Archives: Presentations

Mary Dunn Shares Online Teaching Strategies for the Traditional Classroom

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Mary B. Dunn, Assistant Professor of Management

Mary B. Dunn, Assistant Professor of Management

Mary B. Dunn, Assistant Professor of Management, is one of several panelists for the 2017 Teaching Symposium Session, “Online Teaching Strategies for the Traditional Classroom”.  Since Mary can’t make the session, she has offered her remarks in the following essay:

Four Tools I Adopted in My Traditional Classrooms After I Taught On-Line

Good afternoon! My name is Mary Dunn. I am an Assistant Professor in the Management Department in the Munday School of Business. I teach traditional undergraduate classes as well as non-traditional, blended courses for undergraduate and graduate students. I developed and taught an MBA course in the low-residency format at St. Edward’s.

The bulk of my teaching experience has been in the face-to-face format, but I have developed my on-line and blended teaching skills considerably over the past several years. In all of my classrooms (traditional and on-line), I take a relational approach (e.g. Parker, Hall, & Kram, 2008) to learning and building social capital (e.g. Burt, 2000; Coleman, 1990; Granovetter, 1973, 1974), so students are more likely to learn from one another and engage actively with the content. When I teach on-line, one of my primary goals is to create an on-line learning community that is just as interactive, collaborative, and cohesive as those in my traditional classrooms since interaction facilitates positive learning outcomes (Swan, 2002).

Initially, I didn’t expect that my traditional classrooms would gain much from experiences teaching on-line, but I was wrong. I have incorporated several new practices in my traditional classes that help me make my classes more collaborative and interactive. In particular, I find it easier to incorporate technology to flip the classroom, respond to unexpected changes, promote students’ learning from one another in shared reflection, and provide additional feedback. Continue reading →

General Faculty Meeting 2016 Technology Update

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Global Learning Ecosystem--now without Blackboard

Global Learning Ecosystem–now without Blackboard

Rebecca Frost Davis, Director of Instructional and Emerging Technology gave an update to faculty at the general faculty meeting on Tuesday, August 23, 2016.  Since she was one in a long parade of speakers, this blog posts shares that update in written form, as well as links to items covered.

Global Learning Ecosystem

We think of ourselves as part of a global learning ecosystem—students learn in and out of the classroom, on and off campus, locally, globally, face-to-face and online. The same is true of us–faculty, staff, and administrators at St. Edward’s University. And the real kicker, the ecosystem is constantly changing. Some changes we drive, like discontinuing use of Blackboard, and some change is thrust upon us. Both our graduates and our colleagues need resilience to deal with all of this change. In the Office of Information Technology, we’ve been focusing on developing internal processes of adapting to that change by experimenting, gathering data, and iterating. In other words, we are using research to drive change. So, what do we know from that experience, and what changes can you expect when you enter the classroom next week? Continue reading →

Watch Videos about Experiments in Teaching at St. Edward’s University

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Curious about what your colleagues are up to in the classroom? Looking for some new ideas for next semester?  Check out this playlist of two-minute videos from the “Experiments in Teaching” faculty innovation showcase held Friday, October 24th.

Want to try your own experiment? Consider applying for an Innovation Fellowship or Technology for Innovative Learning & Teaching Pilot Project Grant.

How Are Faculty at St. Edward’s University Fostering Student Research?

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Student presenting research in a poster sessionOn October 1, 2014, Dr. Richard Kopec, Professor School of Natural Sciences, Dr. Molly Minus, Associate Vice President, Dean and Director McNair Program, Sonia Briseno, Assistant Director McNair Program, Dr. Sara Henseler, Associate Professor, BSS, and Dr. Jason Rosenblum, Assistant Professor, School of Management and Business, presented at a Tech Snack on the topic “Fostering Student Research in the Classroom and Beyond.”

Dr. Richard Kopec

Dr. Kopec explained how the School of Natural sciences is fostering student research through the following initiatives:

  • The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) seeks to increase the number of students receiving associate or baccalaureate degrees in established or emerging fields within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
  • The Natural Sciences LLC  (also known as the CASAR Project: Community for Achievement in Science, Academic, and Research) was established by a grant from the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC, to give science majors at St. Edward’s University unique opportunities to begin establishing their credentials as experienced scientists. The participants participate in the Freshman Accelerated Research Methods (FARM) Workshop where they learn research tools and methodologies.
  • The Natural Sciences Learning Clusters  are open to all science and mathematics majors. Cluster members can participate in the pre-college research workshop. Participants will also be eligible for a research stipend, and housing stipend. The Natural Sciences Learning Clusters are provided by a grant from TG (the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation). During the Freshman Introduction to Research Experience (FIRE) weekend workshop, participants meet other science cluster members and several science faculty members and learn research tools and methodologies focused in their discipline.During the spring semester science seminar course, students learn about possible research projects and meet the supervising faculty. If there is a project that interests the student, he/she can apply to participate in a six-week research project with the faculty member/research project of their choice. Up to 15 students are supported for summer research during the first six-week summer session.

Dr. Molly Minus and Sonia Briseno

Dr. Molly Minus and Sonia Briseno explained the mission, vision, objectives, and accomplishments of the McNair Scholars Program at SEU:

In August 2003, St. Edward’s University received their first four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to begin the McNair Scholars Program This program prepares participants for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. The goal is to increase the attainment of PhD degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society. McNair scholars are undergraduate students interested in pursuing PhDs who are typically underrepresented in their fields of interest. A majority are low-income and first-generation college students. The program provides funding for faculty-directed research that includes a stipend for scholars. In addition, McNair scholars benefit from visits to graduate schools, academic counseling, course tutoring, professional conferences, preparation for GRE exams, and advice and assistance with the graduate school selection and application process.

The McNair program at SEU has produced more than 30 Master’s Degrees, three Ph.Ds and two Ph.D candidates.

Dr. Sara Henseler

Dr. Sara Henseler explained the different elements that she uses to foster student research in her Experimental Psychology and Research Methods class trough the development of longitudinal and correlational studies in her class. She also encourages students to conduct research, collect, and analyze data using online survey technologies like Qualtrics.

Dr. Jason Rosenblum

Dr. Jason Rosenblum shared with the audience his experience creating a digital capstone course that meets the student learning outcomes required, that builds on prior faculty expertise, and is manageable both as an instructor and by the students. He share that students bring a diverse array of research skills to their capstone experience, but their experience with digital research strategies are spotty. Be prepared to review basic strategies to conduct online research and schedule research support time with library staff.

Tech Snack – Managing Your 21st Century Classroom

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Tech SnacksWhat should the 21st century classroom look like? In the fall of 2013 the Taskforce on Academic Innovation and New Academic Approaches surveyed faculty. One of the questions asked faculty to imagine a classroom that is ideal, from a technological standpoint, for teaching.  Responses included whiteboards, smartboards, audience response systems, video conferencing and easily configurable furniture.

What would you like to do in your class? Bring in guest speakers via Skype or Jabber Video? Play videos from the Library collection? Get immediate feedback from all of your students? Join us in a discussion of customizing your classroom using digital tools to create a borderless learning environment. Discover the changes and improvements in the classroom technology in Fleck Hall.  Join Instructional Technology and Austin Doak from Media Services as we discuss the 21st century classroom on Wednesday, September 17 from 3:30 – 4:30 in the Faculty Resource Center, Premont 110.

Please sign up today: http://bit.ly/SEUITTraining so we can bring enough snacks.

 

 

Designing Digital Projects

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Travis county AlmanacOn Thursday, August 21, Pongracz Sennyey and Rebecca Frost Davis will co-lead a session at the Teaching Symposium, 10:30 – 11:30 am in JBWS 261:

Designing Course-based, Student-faculty Collaborative Research Projects Using Digital Tools

In the 21st century we face complex problems that cross disciplines and require collaborative approaches. Digital tools and information networks make it feasible to design project-based learning experiences that integrate students into the research process. This presentation will provide examples of how such projects, when integrated into courses, help students develop skills to work collaboratively, apply appropriate tools, and learn flexible problem-solving skills.

Slides

During the session, participants will use this checklist to plan a digital project: Process Checklist for Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into Courses

Projects

Travis County Almanac, Michael Wasserman, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science & Policy

Latin 323: Tacitus, Professor Rebecca Benefiel, Department of Classics, Washington and Lee University

Wheaton College Digital History Project, Kathryn Tomasek, Associate Professor of History, Wheaton College

Enduring Women, Mary Brantl, Associate Professor, Visual Studies & Charles Porter, Assistant Professor, University Studies

Opportunities

Interested in getting your students into local archives? Check out the

Austin Archives Bazaar http://www.austinarchivesbazaar.org/

E-Portfolios

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Have you been hearing about portfolios and want to know how they are used at St. Edward’s Univeristy?  Are you interested in how portfolios might be used for student assessment and reflection?  Have you been using portfolios and are ready to throw out the binders?  Portfolios or their electronic version, e-portfolios are used in many ways on our campus. Please join Instructional Technology and the Center for Teaching Excellence as we discuss portfolios on Wednesday, April 16 from 2 – 3:30 pm.

What Do We Mean by Portfolios? 
a roundtable discussion
– Shannan Butler | Communication
– Lori Eggleston | New College
– Anna Escamilla | Social Work
– Emily Salazar | Career Services
– Corinne Weisgerber | Communication
Wednesday, April 16, 2 – 3:30 pm
Fleck Hall 314
RSVP: Please register to help ensure that we bring enough snacks: http://ow.ly/vmsnt
In this session, we will discuss the many models of portfolios used across campus. Some of our presenters will share models for using portfolios in classes to enable students to build media-rich e-portfolios. Others will discuss how e-portfolios are used for documenting skills, career readiness, or prior learning. Come and discuss how portfolios are used in your discipline and the value and challenges of using them.

Enhancing Your Presentations with the ‘Substitution’ Method

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Substitution is a technique that addresses the phenomenon sometimes referred to as ‘Death By PowerPoint’. DBP occurs when a speaker reads his slides to the audience (very often word-for-word). While we’ve all endured DBP as audience members or students, it’s still difficult to avoid as a presenter. Particularly when the bulk of what we want to say is already on the slide, we end up in the position of either reading the slide to the audience or attempting to vary what we say to avoid reading. Either way, it can be very difficult to avoid DBP.

In an effort to address the issue of DBP, the “Substitution” method can be very helpful. Neuroscientists (and advertisers) have long known that our brains can associate complicated ideas with images and that images are often easier to remember. The Substitution method capitalizes on the same idea. What begins as a dense, text-based PowerPoint deck can be transformed into an engaging presentation that combines auditory and visual learning modalities to enhance learning and engagement.

Essentially, the steps are very simple. First, we copy the text of each slide and paste it into a word document. Next, we gather content that will allow us to replace the text of each slide with images, charts or infographics. Finally, we replace the text on each slide with relevant content. The net result is that we are able to read from the text of our earlier slides while simultaneously providing the audience with compelling imagery to maintain interest and aid in later recall.  You can see this technique demonstrated in the example below.

If you would like to learn more about this technique, feel free to contact one of the instructional designers in the FRC for more details.Slide1

Slide2

Open Educational Resources

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This page contains a list of a variety of open educational resources to support course content and academic scholarship.  Open content is published by a wide variety of academic sources and partnerships.  Included in this list are links to university published content that has been made freely available.  In addition, a number of open content repositories are listed here (i.e. MERLOT) which are designed to aggregate listings of open content published across a variety of sites (i.e. MIT's Open Courseware).  In addition, many social media sites (such as the few listed here) also provide ways to search for "open" content.  Links have also been provided to open textbook sites (i.e. Connexions) as well as sites to support academic scholarship (i.e. Academic Commons).

 

It is important to note that even with open educational resources, freely distributed content is still copyrighted.  Content that is published under an "open" license does not always provide the right to reuse/republish and/or to remix the work.  Please check the Creative Commons license for individual works for more information, and visit the Creative Commons site to learn more about open licensing.

 

University sponsored open courseware

MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials
"MIT OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity."

University of Michigan | Open.Michigan
This site offers, "open initiatives supporting free and open educational resources from the University of Michigan." The collection is open to the publish and is easily searchable across a range of course materials, videos, tools and student work. Material is licensed for re-use.

Harvard Open Courses for Free | Open Learning Initiative
"Take free Harvard online courses through Harvard Extension School's Open Learning Initiative. Course videos feature Harvard faculty." You can find a link to Harvard's EdX courses from this easily searchable site.

Tufts OpenCourseWare
"A free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world." Tufts Open Courseware is sponsored by Tufts University and offers open access to select university materials. The main page links to courses by school.

Open Yale Courses
"Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn." Yale offers a wide range of courses and materials for public use. Yale is also listed on iTunes.

Webcast Berkeley: UC Berkeley Video and Podcasts for Courses & Events
"Webcast.berkeley is the campus service for recording and publishing course and campus events for students and learners around the globe. Audio and video recordings of class lectures and special events are processed and made available to everyone through webcast.berkeley.edu." Berkeley has long been a pioneer of making lecture materials freely accessible. Video recordings are hosted on Youtube and course materials is easily searchable and covers a wide range of disciplines.
 
iTunesU
iTunesU is a services provided by Apple, through its iTunes Store. iTunesU is home to content from scores of universities who have made educational content in the form of audio and video podcasts freely accessible. However, as with other open resources, free does not mean all content can be re-used and re-mixed. Check the copyright for specific works for usage rights.

Stanford on iTunes U
"The first publicly available iTunes U site. A comprehensive online audio and video collection from Stanford University. Celebrating 5 years of edutechnosharification."

Searchable open content repositories

OER Commons
The OER Commons was created by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education and is a result of "alliances between trusted content providers and creative users and re-users of Open Educational Resources". OER content is well-organized and searchable by grade level and subject material.

DnaTube.com – Scientific Video and Animation Site
" DnaTube is a non-profit video site which is aiming to be a visual scientific resource for its visitors making scientific concepts easily understandable." A wide variety of video resources are available here, and the site is easily searchable. In addition to videos, you can search the site for course lectures.

MERLOT – Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
" Free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, collection of peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services. " Although not a comprehensive catalog of all open online resources, MERLOT aggregates peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed open content and contains links to a range of content types, from courses hosted by universities ,text materials to video lectures and multimedia learning objects.

OTTER — University of Leicester
OTTER stands for Open, Transferable and Technology-enabled Educational Resources. OTTER is hosted by the University of Leicester in the UK. Course content includes a range of materials published as open material by the University of Leicester.

Curriki
"Open Educational Resources – Free Learning Resources for the World". Curriki offers open educational content for K-16 content. Content is searchable by topic and grade level.

Learning Resource Exchange
The Learning Resource Exchange is provided by the European Schoolnet and provides content from a wide range of partners including Penn State, the Open University, and Khan Academy.

Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources
The CCCOER is a consortium of community colleges and universities that offers OER content through a catalog of 750 open textbooks and 41 online courses.

Open Textbook Resources

Connexions – Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities
Connexions is hosted by Rice University and is a respository for open, online textbooks. Content covers a range of college level topic areas, and includes peer reviewed content. Courses are organized into modules, and includes text, audio and video materials.

Flat World Knowledge
Flat World Knowledge offers visitors 32 different online texts to use for free across a variety of subject areas.

Open publishing platforms and research tools

Academic Commons
The Academic Commons was created by the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College and provides the academic community an open platform for publishing on topics related to liberal education as well as the uses of technology in liberal education.
 
eScholarship | University of California
"eScholarship provides Open-Access scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide". Although publishing is limited to U of C faculty and students, this content is open and searchable.

Massively Online Course (MOOC) initiatives

Udacity | Free Online Courses. Advance your College Education & Career
"Learn. Think. Do. Free Online Classes in Programming, Computer Science, Math, Sciences and Entrepreneurship from Top University and Industry Instructors." Udacity offer Massively Online Courses–otherwise known as MOOCs. Course content is available to those who sign up for courses. However, it is unclear whether content is licensed to be re-used and re-mixed.

EdX: MITX
EdX is a partnership originally founded by MIT and Harvard to offer open e-learning through Massively Online Courses (MOOCs). Courses are available from member institutions. As with other MOOC providers, content licensing is based on the copyright of individual works. Not all content is available for re-use and re-mixing.

Khan Academy
"The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere."  Notably, MOOC content is searchable from the main site, without the need to enroll in a class.

Coursera
Coursera offers 200+ courses across 20 categories, "spanning the Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and many others. Whether you're looking to improve your resume, advance your career, or just learn more and expand your knowledge, we hope there will be multiple courses that you find interesting."

Open Content Licensing

Creative Commons
"Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators." The Creative Commons site provides in-depth information on licensing for open content and is an excellent resource for people looking to use as well as to publish open content.

Social Media Site examples with Open Educational Content

Vimeo, Your Videos Belong Here
Vimeo is a video hosting platform. According their TOU, video content on Vimeo is considered, by default to be licensed as "open content" through creative commons licensing. A wide range of non-commercial and educational content can be found here.

Slideshare
Slideshare is a social media presentation tool that is used by a range of academic professionals who have shared presentation materials. Materials can be found on a wide range of academic and non-academic topics, with many presentations shared as downloadable resources.

Youtube EDU
A wealth of open educational videos can be found on Youtube, and many open educational resources point to videos published on youtube.  However, you can search youtube directly for content to find these resources as well.