Register for the CAE’s Back-to-School Workshops, Jan. 10-14

The CAE’s Mid-Semester Assessments of Teaching (MATs) have proven to be an incredibly valuable way for full-time and part-time instructors to gather feedback from students and make modifications that can improve the learning for those very learners. The CAE will continue to offer our facilitated MATs, but this spring we’re also introducing a “do-it-yourself” MAT process that will allow instructors to gather anonymous information from students on their own. In this workshop we’ll talk about the goals of MATs and how you can make sense of the feedback they provide, as well walk you through the process of using the same tools and templates that we employ to conduct our MATs.

2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Blackboard Basics (presented by Toni Pennacchia, Academic Computing)

If you’re new to Blackboard - or if you’ve simply forgotten some of the basics - join Academic Computing/ITS and the CAE for this introductory session on getting starting with the Blackboard course management system. Learn how to create assignments, quizzes, and tests; manage and automate grading; and comment on papers and provide annotations directly. Get all of your courses set to go for January including video, publisher, and Zoom content.

4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.: Blackboard Grade Center (presented by Toni Pennacchia, Academic Computing)

Take a deeper dive into Blackboard’s Grade Center with Academic Computing/ITS and the CAE. Learn about manual, automatic and calculated columns and how to organize them Also how to create grade weighting schemes, calculated columns and categories. You will also get tips and tricks for organizing your Grade Center from deploying Assignments and Tests for grading, to further managing columns, categories, and calculations.

10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.: Making Your Pitch: Writing Effective and Persuasive Research Impact Statements (presented by the Office of Research and Grants)

This session will provide you with the opportunity to better articulate the broader impact of your grant initiatives, and to write more persuasive proposals.  As experts in our own fields – used to communicating with other experts in our fields – it is not always easy to describe the significance of our work to more generalist audiences.  We will provide you with structured writing tasks, time to write your own “pitches” and engage in peer review, and also hear from a colleague who has served as a grant reviewer.

1:00 p.m. to 3 p.m.: Building Your Toolkit: Learning and Using Institutional Research Supports (presented by the Office of Research and Grants)

This session will provide you with information about, and time to explore, institutional research tools and organizations, including GrantForward, Digital Measures (now known as Faculty Success), Zotero, the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD), and the Faculty Resource Network (FRN).  These tools allow you to seek out grant opportunities that fit your needs, log and disseminate your scholarly and creative work, and network to cultivate new research partners.

10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.: Developing a Faculty Led Program Abroad(presented by Shannon Harding and Patricia M. Pivarnik)

A faculty-led program abroad is a terrific way to take your course “on the road,” using the location to enhance learning. This workshop will review:

All first time faculty-led program faculty are required to have attended a “Developing a Faculty-Led Program Abroad” session. 

            

            

The value of active learning as an effective pedagogy has been widely established by studies across all types of colleges and universities, and many Fairfield faculty have long been applying this strategy to engage students in learning. In this workshop, we will explore a number of different tech tools and the ways they can be employed both in the classroom and in online/asynchronous settings to draw students into a less passive - and more integrated - way of learning. We also encourage faculty who’ve had success with active learning using tech tools to join the session so they can share their insights and practices.

If you’ve ever wished you had a way to create an online board for class post-its, a virtual timeline that includes photos and videos, or a collaborative workflow creation tool, you’ll want to learn about Padlet. A simple-to-use tool that operates on its own or within Blackboard, Padlet offers all of the capabilities described above — and more. In this session we’ll present an introduction to Padlet and how it works; a pre-recorded video from Prof. Bryan Ripley Crandall (School of Education & Human Development) that illustrates how the tool has transformed his teaching; and a whole-group conversation and demonstrations that explore your ideas for using the software.

2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.: Introduction to Gradescope (presented by Gradescope and Fairfield faculty users)

Join our online workshop with Gradescope and the CAE and learn how you can use Gradescope to deliver and grade your existing assignments, whether online or in person. We will offer guidance on how to save time grading and get a clear picture of how your students are doing. In this workshop, you will learn how to:

Join the CAE and a community of colleagues for a day-long writing retreat on Friday, January 14th, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Plan, begin, revise, or complete writing projects (e.g., manuscripts, books, syllabi, reports, portfolios/dossiers). Share and report on your writing goals, consult with peers or CAE staff about any stage of your writing process, or use the time for some solo writing. Bring your writing materials and tools. 

Sign on via the Zoom link below for a one-on-one consultation with a CAE Director about any aspect of your syllabus (learning outcomes, assessment strategies, active learning activities, tech tools, etc.). We'll be available for one morning and one afternoon time slot to assist with your Spring 2022 course needs.