2014_CFE_Spring 1

Learners

Communicating for

Eigth Annual Teaching and Learning Fair | Did You Know?

Visionary Status | Book Review | Hot 5 |

The Eighth Annual Teaching and Learning Fair

Every year the campus community gathers to celebrate teaching and learning at the Teaching & Learning Fair, sponsored by the Center for Faculty Excellence. This year’s fair will be held in the BTSU Lenhart Grand Ballroom from 9:00 to 11:00 on Friday, February 14.

More than 100 educators will be there to share their best ideas for teaching and learning. There is no cost or prior registration required for the fair, and everyone on campus is invited—faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students. You can come anytime and stay for as long as you like.

Drs. Susan Kleine and Sue Houston enjoy the various poster presentations at last year’s Fair.

how the community interacts with these students and what impact they have on student learning. Greater intentionality in developing true partnerships with communities can increase the learning for students and communities. This presentation will share research findings and operating frameworks for partnerships that help ensure mutually beneficial outcomes for all involved.”

At last year’s Fair, members of the STEM learning community tried out some features of the Olscamp Active Learning Classrooms.

Some of the poster presentations scheduled for the fair include information about teaching online, helping students improve their information literacy skills, active learning strategies, online and blended learning, and using digital media in the classroom.

The keynote speaker, whose presentation begins at 11:15, is Dr. Barbara Holland, an internationally known expert on service-learning and civic engagement.

She will speak on “The Role of Community Partners in Student Learning.” She notes that “many forms of experiential learning involve placing students in community settings. Research tells us a great deal about

As an extra-added attraction Mike Kudela of the Center for Faculty Excellence, formerly of the Center for Online and Blended Learning, will hold a breakout session entitled “Simple Tips and Tricks for Using Canvas. Over the past year, Mike has worked with many faculty developing courses in Canvas, and during that time he has discovered and shared a lot of great ideas for using the LMS to its fullest advantage. This session will be held in BTSU 316 from 9:30-10:30. As with the fair, this special session is free and no registration is required.

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Did You Know?

New Executive Director

The Center for Faculty Excellence is pleased to announce a new Executive Director for the unit, Professor Paul Cesarini. He is currently Chair of the Department of Visual Communications Technology (VCT).

Paul will be joining us on February 17 and brings a wealth of knowledge about pedagogy and technology to this new position. Join us in welcoming Paul.

Quality Matters

The Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE) will be hosting an “Applying the Quality Matters Rubric” workshop for faculty on Monday, March 10th, 2014. Quality Matters is a faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses. Quality Matters has generated widespread interest and has become a national standard in its peer-based approach to quality assurance and continuous improvement in online education. The all-day training session is provided at no cost for BGSU faculty. Faculty who complete

the training can opt to attend additional training to become a national Quality Matters online course reviewer. This is a wonderful opportunity for professional development and for networking with peers who share an interest in teaching online.

Seating is very limited and fills quickly.

For more information, contact Connie Molnar at cmolnar@bgsu.edu or 419-372-7900.

Rockin’ Robin

Tweet, Tweet. This year, participants and presenters at the Teaching and Learning Fair will be able to tweet their reactions.

Find us @CFE_BGSU. Tweet the Fair at #BGSUtlf2014.

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Visionary Status: Barbara Holland

Bowling Green State University, like many other institutions of higher education, values service learning as an opportunity for students to connect their theoretical/academic knowledge to the surrounding community through meaningful service.

Dr. Barbara Holland is one of the leading scholars in the field of community engagement, and BGSU is privileged to have her as the keynote speaker at the 8th annual BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair. In her keynote presentation, Holland will address “The Role of Community Partners in Student Learning.”

Her presentation will focus on her insights in the area of service learning, noting that “many forms of experiential learning involve placing students in community settings. Research tells us a great deal about how the community interacts with these students and what impact they have on student learning.

Greater intentionality in developing true partnerships with communities can increase the learning for students and communities.”

Dr. Holland is an internationally known expert on organizational change in higher education with an emphasis on the institutionalization and assessment of community service learning, engagement and partnerships. She has held positions as Pro ViceChancellor Engagement at University of Western Sydney, Vice-President of the Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance (AUCEA), and senior academic and administrative roles at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Northern Kentucky University, and Portland State University.

Beyond these positions, she frequently travels to speak and consult in the field. She has held senior leadership roles at many Universities in the U.S.A. and in Australia. While in a leadership role with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, she managed large grant programs for universitycommunity partnerships. Later she served as the director of the Learn and Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse for seven years.

Dr. Holland has also published and co-authored many articles on the topics of community-campus partnerships, community-based learning, and the assessment of service-based learning and community engagement. She is editor or co-editor of two journals and an editorial board member on six other journals.

For more information on Barbara Holland, check out the following websites: • http://www.compact.org/advancedtoolkit/pdf/ holland-all.pdf • http://www.infoagepub.com/products/CreatingOur-Identities-in-Service-Learning-and-CommunityEngagement.

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Book Review

The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain

Usually the books we review here are written specifically for college faculty and administrators.

This one is different in that it is written primarily for students to help them become better learners. The authors, Todd Zakrajsek and Terry Doyle, who have been keynote speakers at our Teaching and Learning Fairs (2012 and 2013), have teamed up to share with students the sort of information they’ve been talking to faculty about for some years. Using medical research into how the brain processes information, Doyle and Zakrajsek have urged faculty to take a learner-centered approach to teaching and to build active learning into their classes.

Here, they tell students how to be active and effective learners. Even though the book is addressed to students, faculty will find a lot of good ideas, especially for helping struggling students.

Some of their advice is quite basic: the brain doesn’t function well when it is hungry or tired or thirsty, and thus students need to eat right, drink plenty of water, and get enough sleep. But some of the research they cite is both surprising and enlightening. While scientists have known for some

years that aerobic exercise enhances brain health and functioning, Doyle and Zakrajsek point out that the brain actually learns better while the body is moving. “Being in motion, by walking, for example, when thinking about how to solve a problem, developing ideas for a paper, brainstorming a great speech, or performing many other learning tasks is an optimal way to learn. . . . [thus while] sitting at desks is practical for taking notes, it is not nearly as effective as walking when learning new material.”

Evidently Socrates wandering the agora with his pupils had the right idea.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the book is the authors’ emphasis on the conscious, deliberate effort involved in learning. “Only when you practice, read, write, think, talk, collaborate, and reflect does your brain make permanent connections. Your teachers cannot do this for you, and at times this work will make you tired.” Again and again they repeat the mantra, “The one who does the work does the learning.” This is a very important concept for students to understand and reason for faculty to recommend this book to students.

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Hot 5 Hot 5 Looking for sites that provide news and information in modern and creative ways? Below are five such sites. Enjoy them!

1)

Digital Public

http://dp.la/

Library of America

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a free open-source resource that showcases America’s research libraries, archives, and museums all in one place. It aims at making accessible to everyone the “full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.”

2)

Narratively http://narrative.ly/ Narratively is a digital publication that focuses on original, true, and in-depth stories about New York, with plans to expand to other cities. It provides a rich and robust analysis of what the city is all about. Using different formats appropriate for each thematic story about New York, such as long-form article, animated documentary, a photo essay, or a short documentary film, Narratively provides “an immersive and multidimensional storytelling experiences that you can’t get elsewhere.”

4)

TWiT

http://twit.tv TWiT is a podcast network that features “roundtable discussions and debates surrounding current technology news and reviews, with a particular focus on consumer electronics and the Internet.” TWiT stands for This Week in Tech.

5)

ChartGirl http://chartgirl.com ChartGirl uses “infographics” and images to report on news, culture, and relevant events. It is used to present complicated matters in “easily digestible” charts that make learning creative and fun.

3)

Quartz http://qz.com/ Quartz is also a digital source of news for business people in the global economy.

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