Speakers
Note: this list is an archive of speakers and presentations from the 2nd Annual SoTLA Conference, held on January 11, 2018.
Keynote Speaker
Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Ph.D. Keynote address: Thursday, January 11, 2018 @ Sykes Student Union 9:00 – 10:00 am
Sarah Rose Cavanagh is currently on the faculty at Assumption College, where she directs the Laboratory for Cognitive and Affective Science and serves as Associate Director for Grants and Research in the Center for Teaching Excellence. Her teaching focuses on emotion, motivation, and neuroscience. Sarah's book, The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion, is part of James Lang's series on teaching and learning in higher education at West Virginia University Press.
Breakout Session Topics and Speakers
3G: Grab their Attention and Gauge Learning with Kahoot! Gaming
Bina Daniel, Director of Assessment, Delaware State University
Lynda Murray-Jackson, Associate Professor, Delaware State University
The free Kahoot! web application is a fun, learning and engagement tool. Active learning is the process of engaging students in the learning process beyond passively listening to lectures (Faust and Paulson, 1998) and has been associated with higher student achievement (Lynch, 2016). Kahoot! is a game-based system used as a Classroom Response System (CRS), allowing students to use cellphones as game responders. This interactive session demonstrates how to use Kahoot! to gauge learning through quizzes, motivate students through immediate feedback/acknowledgment, explain topics, and conduct audience polls. Kahoot! is useful for collecting/reporting student learning outcomes data. The interactive features make Kahoot! an ideal active learning and formative assessment tool.
Accommodating Independent Study Courses in the Virtual World
Gulbin Ozcan Deniz, Assistant Professor, Thomas Jefferson University
This study explores the best ways of delivering an independent study course (e.g. a thesis/project) online. Independent study courses require students to be active, engaged, and self-motivated. Sustaining the engagement in these courses becomes even more challenging in an online platform, and thus both faculty and students need clear directions during the teaching/learning process. The presentation will discuss guidelines for faculty to design and teach online independent study courses. The application of guidelines in a hybrid version of the Masters' Project, assessment of tools, and lessons learned from the hybrid delivery will be shared with the audience.
Addressing Systemic Oppression in the Classroom: A Faculty Primer
Erin Hipple, Adjunct Professor, West Chester University and Widener University
In our current social climate, it is important to create equitable spaces for students in higher education. Systemic oppression in college settings can create a hostile learning environment and can have a significant, negative impact on learning outcomes for students of marginalized identity status. Faculty members often inadvertently perpetuate these dynamics. This workshop examines the ways that faculty can work to support students of marginalized identity status in educational settings. It will also offer skills, techniques, and resources to better facilitate difficult conversations around race, sexuality, gender, and systems of oppression in classroom settings. Both faculty and students are welcome.
Application of Case-Based Learning in Undergraduate Education
Aaron Roman, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
Note: this session has been canceled.
Assessing the Impact of Class Size on Student Learning Outcomes
Liz Wang, Professor, West Chester University
Lisa Calvano, Associate Professor, West Chester University
Johnna Capitano, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
Certain academic disciplines and types of higher education institutions rely on large sections of classes more than others, especially for introductory classes. However, research suggests that increasing class size has a negative affect on academic performance, quality and equity of learning outcomes and student retention rates (Maringe and Sing, 2014; Leufer 2007). The introduction of large sections of selected classes in WCU's School of Business during spring 2018 semester provides an opportunity to asses the impact of class size on student experience and learning outcomes. The results of our study will help develop strategies to support effective teaching in the School of Business and beyond.
Best Practices for Integrating Feedback into Teaching and Scholarship
Dara Dirhan, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
Alessandra Sarcona, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
Patricia Davidson, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
Providing quality feedback on students’ assignments is integral to enhancing student learning. As educators who provide feedback regularly, do we know how this feedback is best received by our students and our own preference for provision of feedback? Further, how can something as rote as providing feedback to our students contribute to good teaching practices and scholarship? This feedback project in a professional skills course evaluated students’ and instructors’ preferences for audio versus written feedback and intersected this data into teaching and scholarship practices. Attendees will evaluate practices in their courses, including research and improvement in teaching and learning strategies.
Building Self-Regulated Learners Through Self-Assessment and Self-Paced Assignments
Elly Porter-Webb, Adjunct Instructor, West Chester University
This interactive workshop will offer examples and model ways to build self-regulated learners in the college classroom. These tools are from a first-year course in a College Reading and Study Skills Course within the Academic Development Program but can be useful across the university to ensure students are building strategies necessary to be self-regulated learners at every point in their college careers and beyond. Participants will receive templates of self-assessment tools and self-paced assignments and will have an opportunity to envision how they can integrate these tools in their classrooms.
Collaboration between Courses: Coaching Graduate Practicum Students
Tina Selvaggi, Associate Professor, West Chester University
Jill Agostinelli, Adjunct Professor, West Chester University
This presentation will describe the collaboration between EDR 532: Literacy Practicum and Seminar II and EDR 606: Practicum and Seminar in Literacy Coaching. In this collaboration, post graduate Literacy Coaching students coached M.Ed. students tutoring students in Grades 6-12 in the WCU Reading Center. Collaboration between professors and students will be described and the research-based organizational strategies, assignments, and culminating project will be presented.
Creating Engaging Content For Online Classes
Drew Anderson, Meteorologist, West Chester University
In this energetic presentation, we'll discuss some some strategies and ideas for creating engaging content for your online or blended courses. Specifically, we'll discuss strategies for making smart phone field videos, videos lectures, and labs/assignments that connect with students in an online world. Expect to see some samples of media and content, which you can just as easily make, that have a proven track record of student engagement and online success.
Emotional Intelligence and Student Success
Alison Ersheid, Instructor, West Chester University
The 1990 article “Emotional Intelligence,” by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, birthed a litany of research and study on the importance of Emotional Intelligence to academic success. The robustness of student emotional and social health has been linked to student engagement factors ranging from retention and persistence to depression and substance abuse. Because Emotional Intelligence is rooted in the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action, promoting an awareness of its importance has tremendous implications for classroom engagement and pedagogical success.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Intermodal Translation as a Pedagogical Tool
to Open a Dialogue about Social Justice in the Classroom
Ana Sanchez, Instructor, West Chester University
Social justice is a relevant issue that can be incorporated in any curriculum regardless of the discipline. A unit on 'social justice' equips students with the knowledge and skills to critically talk across university campuses about inequalities and discrimination regarding race, gender, religion, power and ethics, regionally, nationally and globally. One of our goals as educators is to prepare students to become contributing global citizens capable of developing critical thinking skills, and being proactive to effect change in the places where they live. Professor Sanchez will show how a multimodal translation of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, by Rebecca Skoot, which was part of The Frederick Douglass Institute “One Book WCU project”, was incorporated in the syllabus of a class of Spanish 201. The assignment gave students the opportunity to develop communicative skills and the same time, to open a dialogue on a wide range of topics such as access to healthcare, discrimination based on race and gender, unethical research practices, religious and beliefs among others.
Preparing STEM Trainees for Developing and Teaching Online Courses
Mary Gozza-Cohen, Curriculum & Instruction Specialist, Center for Teaching and Learning
Faculty, Department of Occupational Therapy, Thomas Jefferson University
Natalie Chernets, Administrative Postdoctoral Fellow, Thomas Jefferson University
Lisa Kozlowski, Associate Dean for Student and Postdoctoral Affairs, Thomas Jefferson
University
Thomas Jefferson University collaborated with Widener University to develop an Online Teaching Immersion Experience with the support of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Guidance for Trainees grant. Our program teaches best practices in online course design and pedagogy to STEM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The goal is to enhance STEM trainees teaching skills and knowledge of different learning environments to improve their marketability for faculty positions. Leaders in online learning realm offer our trainees a unique opportunity to participate in a mentored, immersive, online teaching and learning experience. In this presentation, we will discuss our successes and lessons learned.
Strategies to Help Students Self-Regulate Their Learning
Kathleen (Taffy) McAneny, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
This presentation will target how strategies presented in a mathematics content class for elementary pre-service teachers assist students in regulating their learning. I will discuss an activity used in the first class setting where the students examined a list of 29 methods of self-regulation. Other strategies utilized with students include weekly “quizzes” that are not graded, along with reflections about knowing and not knowing. This session will end with data from the students gathered through a final survey about the use of the quizzes and reflections. Participants will engage in the activities and discuss how this method can be improved.
Textual Engagement: The Effects of Reading Aloud on Student Editing
Michelle Blake, Instructor, West Chester University
In elementary school, it is a common practice for teachers to have students read their work out loud. And in writing centers at many universities, this is the standard practice as well. But in the college classroom, this practice appears to largely evaporate. In this session, I will report the results of my IRB-research on the effects of reading aloud on student writing, making the case for why this simple practice can help students engage with their texts and their writing in ways that positively affect the quality of their work and their confidence as developing writers.
Translation of Traditional Debate Techniques into the Online Learning Platform
Veronica Wilbur, Assistant Professor, West Chester University
The exercise of the debate has been used since the time of Greek and Roman Scholars to practice and apply critical thinking about controversial topics. Now, imagine a contemporary exchange of structured argumentation online in a debate format. This session provides instruction how to transition the debate process within an online application. Topics include the online debate process, evaluation of effectiveness and student outcomes. Participants leave the session with tools that can be utilized immediately in the online classroom.