Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

In recent years, Anxiety has emerged as the number one presenting concern at College Counseling Services across the country. College students are now entering college with less emotional resilience than in previous generations. Left untreated, ongoing anxiety and other mental health disorders contribute to poor social connections, diminished campus integration, poor academic performance, and often withdrawal from the university. University professors and staff members sometimes see themselves pressured into a role of surrogate parents or counselors, positions they did not anticipate or prepare for upon entering the field of academia. This presentation will inform attendees about recent trends in college mental health, the impact of mental health concerns upon the classroom performance and university retention, and how these concerns impact Winthrop University. Additionally, we will engage the audience in discussion regarding strategies to cope with this generation of college student as they present with more and more intense mental health concerns.

We’ve all seen it: Students distracted in class checking their phones under a desk or with Facebook pulled up on their laptops. Social media can often serve as a distraction for students’ education, but when implemented carefully social media can also serve as an effective tool to bringing the “real world” into the classroom. This presentation will review current research and pedagogy on the use of social media in the classroom. The presenter will share practices utilized in preparing and implementing different social media tools as well as specific concerns and challenges that can be problematic in implementing such educational practices. The presentation will also introduce approaches educators can utilize to engage students and prepare them to be lifelong learners through the use of 1) encouraging student collaboration and opportunities for feedback, 2) helping students identify educational resources, 3) connect with professionals and opportunities within their field, 4) become savvy consumers of information available on social media, and 5) highlighting students’ quality work. The presentation will conclude with an opportunity for session attendees to discuss and further share their own experiences with these educational practices.

In a digital environment, teachers and students have access to a wide variety of material that can be used to create discussion, spark inquiry, and prompt critical thinking. One of the social media tools that can be used for this is Pinterest, a free online visual discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool that allows users to curate and share information through the creation of visual bookmarks called “boards.” Users can “pin” material to their boards either by linking to other online sites or by uploading materials of their own; boards can be grouped by similar characteristics, themes, events, questions, ideas, or other concepts. Pinterest allows users to “follow” other users, to collaborate on shared boards, and to “re-pin” materials from other users to their own boards. As such, it is a powerful tool to allow students to gather, organize, analyze, and evaluate source materials.

In my presentation I will demonstrate how I have used Pinterest in both graduate and undergraduate classes, for both majors and non-majors, to allow students to study concepts, analyze corpuses of data, share information, and reflect critically on their learning processes. I will illustrate the presentation with examples of student work and comments on some of the lessons I have learned in using this tool to ‘flip’ my teaching. The presentation can be delivered in 20 minutes and will require access to the Internet and projection equipment.

https://www.pinterest.com/drkoster/

Creativity… Innovation... Design Thinking... Design Intelligence? The last fifteen years of design centered buildup has generated a slew of hot topics and claims of newness, but what do these terms mean? What do they offer? And how can we make the most of them? The design disciplines hardly have monopoly on design processes and methodologies. Design thinking is used throughout the curriculum, from creative writing to research design. Design thinking is process, analysis and synthesize… solve et coagula. Design thinking uses both analytic and holistic thinking and attractive catch phrases such as “wicked problems”, “problem seeking”, “strategic analysis”, “programming”, “scenario building” and “solution-orientation”. Ok, so what is it? How do I use it? This presentation attempts to clear up the main concepts, theories, methodologies, processes and models of problem solving and decision making that are used in and define design thinking. The topics and materials covered attempt to provide an approachable and coherent view and framework for the classroom; they include using design thinking to foster creativity, facilitate critical thinking and engage students in metacognitive self-awareness, as well as how to get the most out of design thinking to promote dialogue between the instructor and student. While design thinking can still be thought of a “buzz” word, much can be applied to learning and teaching.

While prior knowledge is essential for new learning, prior knowledge that is incomplete, confused, and/or flawed becomes a barrier to learning. Faculty and students themselves are often blind to these misconceptions and flawed understandings until tests or other major assessments reveal them. This blind spot is often explained by the gap between experts and novices. Thus faculty who develop strategies for identifying students’ prior knowledge and strategies for making visible students’ unstated misconceptions and flawed understanding can help remove barriers to learning and potentially accelerate student learning. This workshop will provide the opportunity to review the compelling literature on this topic, examine examples of prior knowledge assessments from a variety of disciplines, practice identifying common misconceptions in different disciplines, and develop assessments and learning activities for addressing these common misconceptions.

Activities:

• Participants will work on an activity as a student might on prior knowledge in particular disciplines
• Participants will work on an activity on how to identify common misconceptions novices bring to their specific discipline.
• These identified misconceptions will then be the focus for participants creating diagnostic instruments and active learning activities to clarify students’ confusion.

The explosive growth in online education has resulted to more faculty learning to teach online. Faculty who teach online need to take on a multi‐dimensional role and need varied range of competencies to effectively accomplish tasks and responsibilities. There is a need to assess the competencies for effective and successful online teaching to plan for support and professional development opportunities. In this phenomenological study, interviews were conducted with eight distinguished award-winning faculty who teach online to share their perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, competencies, and tasks of successful online instructors. We present our findings as themes emerging from a constant comparison qualitative procedure. Results show that the major role of online faculty is to design and facilitate courses. Faculty are responsible for providing an effective learning experience, to promote interaction and engagement, and to provide timely feedback or response to students. As major competencies, online instructors must be willing to learn, use, and grow with new technology, as well as, understand student learning and engagement strategies. Distinguished online faculty recommended that novice online faculty should engage in professional development to strengthen their competencies to teach online.

As post-secondary education coursework moves to entirely online formats, questions arise about the rigor of this alternate mode of delivery. Predominantly, concerns include suspicions about the nature of student engagement in an online environment. Along with skepticism about meaningful learning outcomes, critics of online course delivery doubt the rigor of teaching and learning without face to face meetings.

The rigor of an online course is largely determined by the type of student engagement that occurs along with resulting learning outcomes. Student engagement occurs largely through online discussion boards. Although best practices exist in building community and engaging students, variance in online course design and implementation limits the generalizability of existing research regarding rigor. Therefore, the development of evaluative research that assesses student impact of online teaching and learning is recommended.

In order to assess course rigor, a study was conducted to determine the nature of students’ participation in an online discussion board. Student responses to weekly discussion board prompts were downloaded and studied. Postings were analyzed for depth and complexity using an existing conceptual framework. Additionally, all student postings were scored using a rubric that assesses the relationship of prompts to learning outcomes. Finally, students’ perceptions of learning outcomes were collected with the Questionnaire for Reflective Thinking. Together the findings represent course rigor.

The nature of discussion posts was investigated. Findings describe the nature of rigorous learning. The correlational data that represent the relationships between student engagement practices and learning outcomes may be used to guide successive course design and implementation. The research methodology and design utilized will serve as a model for replication across online coursework. Therefore, this session will focus implications for best practices in facilitating rigorous student engagement and learning outcomes as well as the importance for investigating rigor.

The value of a 21^st-century college education comes from the expectation that college graduates are cognitively prepared to deal with complexity, change, and diversity through the application of transferable and practical skills such as written and oral communication and analytic problem-solving. Winthrop University’s General Education Core, consisting of three specific courses completed by all students, provides a shared intellectual experience for students and equips them with powerful, college-level tools in critical reading, critical thinking, and academic writing. Moreover, the Core cultivates valuable academic habits of mind that are particularly valuable in a today’s dynamic world where college graduates are expected to be intellectually engaged and intellectually curious, display intellectual humility, engage in critical analysis, and exhibit rhetorical awareness. These academic habits of mind are necessary for substantive, deep learning as students learn to engage in academic, professional, and social discourse, and these traits must be taught and reinforced in deliberate, intentional ways in the college classroom. This panel will highlight three key academic skills – critical research, critical listening, and critical reading – and will provide practical strategies to help students learn to cultivate academic habits of mind to become not only successful students, but also successful 21^st-century citizens.

Sway is a NEW innovative web-based learning tool that can be used on any device you may have access to in the classroom. Develop your most creative and innovative abilities. This tool can be used to share your stories, experiences, or reflections. Join us as we learn how you can use Sway to build important skills such as research, writing, organizational, problem solving, presentation, assessment and communication. Students can easily create great digital stories also. Learn how to integrate a variety of media components (audio, videos, images, music, social media, documents/charts) in a matter of minutes. Bring your device and you will leave with an interactive story to share.

In this workshop, attendees will learn how to evaluate a student’s resume using a resume rubric. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to apply the rubric to determine a resume’s effectiveness in landing an interview. This session will begin with an overview of the rubric before breaking into small groups. Each small group will evaluate a sample resume using the rubric. The whole group will then pull back together for a formal discussion.

The Foundations for Teaching and Learning at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is seven-part faculty development initiative offered each year since 2013 and hosted by the MUSC Apple Tree Society. This series provides opportunities for expanding and practicing teaching skills, learning fundamentals, networking, and fun! Participants are eligible to earn a certificate by completing a teaching portfolio and other requirements.

Series topics include getting ready to teach, instructional design, portfolios, teaching methods and techniques, educational technology, and formative and summative assessment

In this session, we will present on essential topics and components of the series, feedback from participants, and lessons we've learned.

Adjunct faculty are a growing and significant portion of teaching faculty at Universities across the United States. They are, however, vastly different from the traditional faculty member in terms of their needs, challenges, goals, and professional development options within their respective role and department. The proposed session would discuss the results of an adjunct faculty needs assessment conducted at UNC Charlotte. Additionally, it would present the steps that have since been taken to better serve adjuncts at this institution in terms of clarity, communication, networking, and professional development. Initial responses from department heads and adjunct faculty will also be discussed to further demonstrate the positive impact of these initiatives.