For each of the topics below, you’ll find a recorded program, 3-8 pages of supplemental materials, a copy of the PowerPoint presentation, and a complete transcript. The videos and written materials are on SC Connect, so you may be asked to enter your username and password.
Course Design, Syllabi, and the First Day of Class
How Can I Clarify Fuzzy Learning Goals?
Linda Suskie discusses a variety of ways to clarify learning goals that may be vague or unclear. In this 20 minute program, you will learn the impact of fuzzy learning goals on students’ ability to learn; how to clarify goals that are vague or unclear; and how to use rubrics, describe successful behaviors or ask “Why?” to help clarifying fuzzy learning goals.
Learner-Centered Teaching — Where Should I Start?
Maryellen Weimer shares three strategies that demonstrate how learner-centered approaches can benefit teachers and students. During this 20 minute program, you will learn concrete activities for implementing learner-centered teaching; low-risk activities that provide you with a starting point in adopting the learner-centered teaching approach; and activities for students who tend to be more dependent than independent as learners.
How Do I Discuss Academic Integrity During the First Class?
Gary Pavela, J.D., of the University of Maryland, explores the recommended option of prevention for dealing with the thorny problem of academic dishonesty and provides targeted solutions to use as each semester begins. At the conclusion of this professional development program, you will understand why reusing your old exams is a big mistake, have effective strategies for discouraging cheating on assignments, know the 20-60-20 Theory of cheating, and appreciate the benefits of classroom honor codes.
How Can I Capture Students’ Interest in the First 5 Minutes?
Teaching and learning depend on building and sustaining student interest and strong course openings get it all started. The key is making sure the first thing you say in class is exciting. Alice Cassidy, Ph.D. calls this an “enthusiasm statement,” and she’ll show you how to generate your own by describing how you first got drawn into the course’s subject matter, introducing students to the hottest controversies in your field, helping students explore cutting edge ideas of leading scholars, and telling students about the most important things they will learn in your class.
Should I Encourage Experiential Learning During Class? How?
In this concise and comprehensive video seminar, presenter Barbara Jacoby, Ph.D., faculty associate for leadership and community service learning at the University of Maryland, reviews the definition of experiential learning, the benefits of experiential education in the classroom, and guidelines for critical reflection. You’ll discover classroom-ready active learning techniques such as problem-based learning, role playing, collaborative learning discovery learning, artistic creation, and collective inquiry.
Is Your Syllabus Sending the Wrong Message?
Find out how you can use your syllabus to create interest and inspire learning in your courses in from Maryellen Weimer, Ph.D., award-winning educator and editor of The Teaching Professor newsletter. After completing this program, you’ll be able to articulate a proactive, student-focused role for classroom policies in the syllabus, identify three key concerns about the function of classroom policies in your syllabus describe alternative approaches to classroom policy design and incorporate effective classroom policy design in your next syllabus.
Feedback and Grading
How Can I Make My Multiple Choice Tests More Effective? *NEW*
Learn how to make your multiple choice tests more effective by creating a test blueprint and formulating test questions that go beyond memorization to evaluate thinking skills. Testing is more than a responsibility for faculty members. It’s an opportunity to assess the progress you and your students have made toward your learning objectives. Multiple choice tests aren’t about playing the odds—instead, they can help you make the most of your chances to connect with students.
How Can I Use Voice Feedback to Improve Student Learning?
Research shows that students value and are far more likely to incorporate voice feedback in completing their assignments than written feedback. What’s more, research indicates that students learn more effectively and retain more of what they learn through voice feedback. In addition, teachers both save time and significantly improve student outcomes by using voice feedback. In this Magna 20 Minute Mentor, John Orlando, Ph.D., explains the benefits of using voice feedback and walks you through the process of how to incorporate this approach into your teaching.
How Should I Respond to Wrong (or Not Very Good) Student Answers?
Maryellen Weimer introduces 13 possible strategies and responses that faculty members can use when a student has provided an answer that is wrong or not very good. By participating in this program, you will be challenged to think about exchanges that you have had with your students and how they responded, and then about other approaches that you could have used in these situations to obtain better results; introduced to 13 specific strategies to help encourage interaction with your students; and able to identify strategies that you are currently using and then to consider additional strategies to help expand your repertoire.
What Can I Learn From Student Ratings?
Ike Shibley will show you how to read student ratings so you can use students’ comments to help you, or another teacher, improve and grow. As a participant, you will learn how to understand how to prepare yourself for student ratings, reflecting on what you thought went well and where improvements could be made; create a list of areas in which you performed well and a list of areas where you can improve; and take advantage of existing campus resources to improve your teaching skills.
What Are My Rubric Results Telling Me?
Linda Suskie, an internationally recognized expert on assessment, walks you through the key essentials of interpreting and summarizing rubric results so you can better understand how to use this important tool to improve your teaching. At the conclusion of this program, you will be able to: summarize rubric results into a meaningful chart, present results in a short and simple way, and share the story that the results are telling.
How Can I Use Frequent Student Feedback to Improve My Courses?
Mary Clement, Ed.D., shares the five times in the semester when getting student feedback is valuable and provides practical ways to obtain that information. During this information-packed session, you’ll learn how to: select optimal times to solicit student feedback, develop easy-to-use instruments for student feedback, ascertain the quality of student feedback, use student feedback to generate collegial discussions about teaching, and make course improvements based on student feedback.
What Is the Best Way to Grade Participation?
While emphasizing there is no single way to assess student participation, presenter Maryellen Weimer, Ph.D., delivers a concise and comprehensive overview of what not to do, activities worth doing, how to do them, and how to evaluate your own process. After completing this program, you’ll be able to describe and avoid common pitfalls associated with grading student participation, identify positive and negative criteria you will use to evaluate student participation, develop strategies for implementing your assessment plan, use appropriate techniques to keep all students involved with and aware of your participation assessment plan, and develop and implement feedback strategies to help students improve their participation.
How Can I Make My Exams More About Learning. Less about Grades?
Making exams better suit your learning goals requires student participation at every step of the process. Maryellen Weimer, Ph.D., widely published author, scholar, editor of The Teaching Professor, and award-winning educator, shares real-world, tested guidelines for integrating student input, including having students—as individuals, groups, and a class—think about what will be on an exam, assigning preparation of review materials as a group project for students, using development of test questions as a student assignment, and making students responsible for correcting exams.
How Can I Enhance the Impact of Feedback in Online Classes?
To be effective, online grading and feedback needs to be high quality and something students use. This video will teach you four dynamic feedback strategies to help you connect with your students:
- Feedforward—Providing students with the resources they need to reach learning objectives, when making the assignment.
- One-to-many—Streamlining generalized online feedback and delivering it to all students.
- Peer-to-peer—Harnessing the power of student communication to support online teaching goals.
- Multimedia—Engaging students with different learning styles and enhancing discussions through audio, animation, video, and screen capture.
The supplemental materials that accompany this video include information about free Web 2.0 applications you can use to create multimedia feedback, a list of dos and don’ts for providing effective and efficient feedback, and links to additional resources.
How Can Rubrics Make Grading Easier and Faster?
Do you spend too much time on grading? This video will help you answer that question and how to design and use rubrics to meet your needs. You’ll explore how to use different assignment types to reduce grading volume, use self-checklists and peer pre-review to improve student learning and grading, provide feedback students will use, formulate an overall grade based on a rubric score, and identify potential errors and biases in scoring.
Flipping a Class
How Can I Structure a Flipped Lesson? *NEW*
There’s more to the flip than just telling students to complete the work before class and then turning them loose when they arrive in the classroom. Fortunately, you don’t have to figure out flipping all on your own. Relieve some of your fears and concerns by using this four-part lesson plan model to organize your flipped classroom and ensure that you’re connecting the pre-class work to the flipped learning experience. It’s an effective and versatile approach that you can easily replicate and adapt to any discipline.
What are 5 FAQ’s about Faculty Roles in the Flipped Class? *NEW*
This video provides answers to five frequently asked questions about faculty roles in the flipped class: 1) How can you adapt a course to the changing role of the instructor in a flipped classroom? 2) Why shouldn’t you flip everything? 3) How can you identify what to flip? 4) How can flipping be reframed as an educational philosophy and mindset rather than as a teaching strategy? 5) And how can you address student resistance to the flipped classroom?
What is Storyboarding? And How Can It Help Me Flip My Class? *NEW*
If we expect our students to watch a video, it should be a video of reasonable length and decent quality. Plus, it should convey the course content in a way that helps students understand and retain it. Storyboarding is a tool for making sure that we shoot the video we need and that the video we shoot actually communicates information well. And you can learn how to do it in this video by Sarah Egan Warren, an expert in both flipping and storytelling.
Where Can I Find Flippable Moments in My Classes? *NEW*
Integrating flipping strategies into your classroom promotes student engagement, challenges students to address higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and increases student success and learning. Yet just because flipping works well does not mean that you should use it all the time. The key is to flip strategically. This video explains how to identify the three best places to look for flippable moments, and what to do when you see a flippable moment.
Service Learning
Can Service-Learning Work in My Discipline?
In this video, you’ll learn how to think creatively about service-learning, and how you can make it a part of your students’ educational experience. Led by Barbara Jacoby, Ph.D., Faculty Associate for Leadership and Community Service-Learning, University of Maryland, College Park., we show you what service-learning can add to your courses and provide concrete implementation strategies.’
How Do I Get Started with Service-Learning?
If you’re looking for guidance in integrating service-learning into a new course or an existing one, you’ll find it in this video. At the end of this video, you’ll know the benefits of service-learning, how you can develop a service-learning course syllabus, how to combine the service experience with academic content, and how to manage the operational details. You learn from by Barbara Jacoby, Ph.D., Faculty Associate for Leadership and Community Service-Learning, University of Maryland, College Park.
Student Engagement and Student Learning
How Can I Promote Deep, Lasting Student Learning?
Linda Suskie shares research-supported strategies that have proven effective in promoting deep, lasting student learning. During this 20 minute program, you will learn 17 research-supported strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of student learning; real-life examples of how courses can be designed to incorporate these proven strategies; and how to identify learning strategies or areas that you can improve on in your teaching.
How Can I Promote Deep Learning Through Critical Reflection?
Dr. Barbara Jacoby explains why critical reflection is so important and how one can incorporate exercises and activities in your syllabi to promote it. She also will give ideas on assessing and grading students on their critical reflection. In her words, “From time to time, every faculty member looks out across a classroom or lecture hall and wonders: “Is any of this sinking in?” We all know that mere passive absorption of information is a poor way of learning. Students should be receiving information, reflecting on it, questioning it, testing it, applying it … really understanding it. Learning deeply, in other words.” Watch this 20 Minute Mentor video and learn some of her techniques!
How Do I Get More Students to Participate in Class?
Although getting more students to participate is challenging, the good news is that it can be done, and it doesn’t have to involve such tactics as “cold calling” on students or resorting to a points system. In this program, Maryellen Weimer describes 18 strategies that work. During this 20 minute program, you will learn how to better encourage students who rarely participate to speak more often; provide other participation opportunities, such as brief written exercises or small group discussion, to help generate contributions; move beyond seeing reluctant participators as a problem; limit the participation of students who speak too often; and find something positive to say about a first-time contribution.
How Do I Get Students to Read Their Assignments Before Class?
Maryellen Weimer describes several strategies that you can use to help students learn the value of reading. She demonstrates what to say and do in your classroom to increase the level of student preparation before class. During this 20 minute program, you will learn how to motivate students constructively to come to class prepared; create and adopt consequences for students who come to class unprepared; convey to students the value of having read the assigned text; and communicate to students that they are responsible for reading the assigned material.
How Can I Use Informal Writing as Part of a Low-stakes Grading Strategy?
Informal writing assignments can be part of your strategy of frequent, low-stakes (FLS) grading. This approach incorporates many informal, low-pressure writing assignments that keep students engaged in the course materials and continually improving. In this Magna 20 Minute Mentor program, find out how informal writing assignments can create a dialogue between the students and instructor, boost student confidence, and increase student motivation. At the conclusion of this program by Scott Warnock, Ph.D., associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum at Drexel University, you will understand how writing helps students learn, know how to use informal writing as part of FLS grading strategy, and be familiar with available technologies and rubrics to grade/assess informal writing
How Can I Use Discussion to Facilitate Learning?
Jay Howard, a widely published author and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University, reveals classroom norms that inhibit discussion. After completing this program, you’ll be able to recognize when classroom norms limit student engagement and participation, access new pedagogical tools to engage students in classroom discussion, and implement new teaching strategies to increase the quality and focus of classroom discussion.
How Can I Create Effective Mini-Lectures?
With its balanced blend of theory and practice, Christy Price, Ed.D., an award-winning educator from Dalton State College, shows you the whys and hows of developing an effective presentation. You’ll learn techniques to facilitate student memory processing through lecture notes, the optimal time length for a mini-lecture, design elements you should and shouldn’t use in classroom presentations, the key ingredients of a Zen presentation, practices great communicators use to connect with audiences, and content and stylistic guidelines to make sure your mini-lectures are engaging students.
What Key Concepts Improve Student Learning and Memory? *NEW*
This program presents five different memory-boosting strategies to incorporate into your teaching. Learn how to use cueing, the testing effect, semantic encoding, peer teaching, and the spacing effect to help your students learn more course content, move to higher levels of learning, and recall information more easily on exams.
What Kinds of Questions Encourage Student Interaction? *NEW*
Changing how you use questions requires a few simple tweaks to your approach and not a major overhaul of your teaching methods. Learn the subtle things you can do to make your questions more powerful and your classroom interactions with students more fruitful.
Teaching with Technology
How Can Document Sharing Tools Help Students Collaborate?
The online document sharing tools can be very helpful in the process of student collaboration/group work. This seminar presented by Dr. John Orlando shows the capabilities of the different vehicles and you’ll learn the best document sharing tool to use for various types of projects. You’ll not only learn how to set up group projects using document sharing systems, but also how to track students’ contributions and participation in the group projects.
How Can Google Docs Help Foster Productive Collaboration? *NEW*
This presentation will show you how Google Docs can be one of the most effective teaching tools around. With Google Docs, you’ll be able to increase student-to-student and student-to-faculty communication, deepen your students’ connection to course content, and help them start learning the important skill of collaboration.
How Do I convert a F2F Course to a Hybrid Course? *NEW*
We cover the process of online course conversion, from initial course review to working with technology. Learn a step-by-step approach to maximizing the educational benefits of blended learning—in a minimal amount of time make the most of what you’re already doing and learn to use technology to enhance student engagement and learning.
How Do I Create Engaging Threaded Discussion Questions?
A properly crafted question can engage students’ interest, foster ideas and contributions from other students, and in little time at all help transform what may have been an uninspired or “flat” classroom into a hotbed of learning in which the ideas and comments of one student are quickly built on by another. During this 20 minute program, you will learn the difference between good and bad discussion questions; why questions written for a test or essay do not work in an online environment; how to tease out a good question from different subject matter; and key do’s and don’ts to consider in writing good online discussion questions.
I’m Teaching Online Next Term: What Do I Have to Know? *NEW*
If you’re teaching your first online class next semester, and you’re completely confident you know exactly what to do … then you’re probably the first. If, on the other hand, you have more questions than answers, this program is tailor-made for you. We provide you with a 12-step framework for online teaching success.
In Blended Courses, What Should Students Do Online?
A 2009 meta-analysis of Department of Education data found that blended courses, mixing online learning and classroom instruction, resulted in better student performance than either delivery format independently. For university instructors interested in exploring blended learning, deciding which course elements to teach face-to-face and which to address through online technology can be a major stumbling block. Learn a framework for making those essential educational judgment calls in this 20 Minute Mentor program, presented by Tim Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor at The University of Western Ontario, and Ike Shibley, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks. This fast and focused professional development session will help you make the most of the opportunities presented by blended learning.
What Is Blended Learning?
Blended learning, which combines face-to-face classroom instruction with supervised online activities, is one of the hottest topics in higher education today. Find out in this Magna 20 Minute Mentor program how you can fuse the best of traditional techniques and cutting-edge online technology. This session is conducted by experienced and engaging professors—Ike Shibley, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, and Timothy Wilson. Ph.D., assistant professor at The University of Western Ontario—and explores the basics of blended course design.
What Three Things Could I Do to Improve My Blended Course?
Teaching a great blended course involves much more than divvying up content between face-to-face instruction and online technology. Effective blended course design requires faculty to reconsider their role in learning. It calls for rethinking your approach to students, teaching, technology, and your colleagues. In this video, you’ll also learn new ways to think about organizing knowledge, make the most of technology, and work with your colleagues. Ike Shibley, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, and Timothy Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor at The University of Western Ontario, concentrate on three core considerations for improving blended learning design: think about all phases of learning, deliberately seek out technology, and collaborate.
I’m Teaching Online Next Term: What Do I Have to Know?
If you’re teaching your first online class next semester, and you’re completely confident you know exactly what to do … then you’re probably the first. If, on the other hand, you have more questions than answers at this point, this Magna 20 Minute Mentor program is tailor-made for you. Larry Ragan, Ph.D., Director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus, provides a framework to help you succeed in the online classroom.
How Can I Improve My PowerPoint Presentation Skills?
Viewing this video will provide you with slide formatting tips to maximize student engagement, tests to ensure that your slides are readable, guidelines for using animation, and suggestions for using the emotional power of images. The supplemental materials include a dos and don’ts checklist, a sample before and after slide show, and a list of additional resources, including websites with free apps to improve slide readability.
Writing and Critical Thinking
How Can I Help Students Develop Critical Thinking Skills?
Debi Moon and Rob Jenkins will review activities that promote active learning and reinforce critical thinking skills. A meaningful education is measured not by the facts a student accumulates, but by what he or she is able to do with those facts. Developing critical thinking skills is the real business of higher education – teaching students to analyze and dissect every idea, ruminate about it, and arrive at thoughtful, informed opinions. Fill your classes with experiences including case studies, role play, brainstorming and journals plus more!
How Do I Give Feedback that Improves Student Writing?
Maryellen Weimer shares her seven novel feedback techniques that will motivate your students and drive real improvement in their writing. You’ll learn how to gain student “buy-in” to the feedback process, how to separate feedback from grading for better results, how to use benchmarking and “gateway” techniques to streamline the feedback process, and how to make feedback for “actionable” for students.
How Can I Use Informal Writing as Part of a Low-stakes Grading Strategy?
Informal writing assignments can be part of your strategy of frequent, low-stakes (FLS) grading. This approach incorporates many informal, low-pressure writing assignments that keep students engaged in the course materials and continually improving. In this Magna 20 Minute Mentor program, find out how informal writing assignments can create a dialogue between the students and instructor, boost student confidence, and increase student motivation. At the conclusion of this program by Scott Warnock, Ph.D., associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum at Drexel University, you will understand how writing helps students learn, know how to use informal writing as part of FLS grading strategy, and be familiar with available technologies and rubrics to grade/assess informal writing
Mentoring
How Can I Be an Effective Mentor?
You can’t help your mentees if you don’t know what help they need. This program will show you how to start your mentoring relationship off on the right foot and carry it through to a successful conclusion. You’ll learn what you and your mentee should establish from the start, the most important thing to build with your mentee, helpful communication practices for mentors, the three realms in which mentees need to achieve, how to determine when your mentee needs additional help, and the best ways to support junior faculty through the tenure process.
How Can I Best Learn from My Mentor?
Drawing on their unique blend of experience, your presenters cover the dos and don’ts of mentoring, sharing a brass tacks approach that’s grounded in basic principles. You’ll learn new faculty attitudes that alienate senior faculty, the best questions to ask formal and informal mentors, mentoring techniques for turning your weaknesses into strengths, top considerations when setting goals with mentors, and the biggest challenge new faculty members face, and how mentoring can help.
Working with Specific Populations
What Learning Activities Help Student Veterans Succeed?
Simpson College has an increasing number of students who are veterans transitioning back to civilian life. After viewing this video, you’ll be able to implement learning activities to help student veterans succeed, understand and explain the differences between military and academic decision making and communication, and help student veterans learn how to reflect and write for an academic rather than a military environment.
How do I Accommodate Student Veterans with Disabilities?
This video will provide you with an idea of what it feels like to have a variety of different cognitive disorders. More importantly, it will teach you how making simple adjustments to the way you teach face-to-face will make it easier for student veterans to succeed. You will learn to recognize the impact acquired disabilities have on students, discern the difference between associative and cognitive tasks, and understand the impact of acquired disabilities on learning.
How Do I Design Courses to Enhance Student Veterans’ Success?
This video will provide you with an idea of what it feels like to have a variety of different cognitive disorders. More importantly, it will teach you how making simple adjustments to the way you teach face-to-face will make it easier for student veterans to succeed. You will learn to recognize the impact acquired disabilities have on students, discern the difference between associative and cognitive tasks, and understand the impact of acquired disabilities on learning.
How Can I Make the Activities in My Course More Inclusive?
Presenter Beth Harrison, Ph.D., director of the Office of Learning Resources at the University of Dayton, will share practices known to improve accessibility for students with disabilities. After participating in this session, you’ll be able to identify and appraise your assumptions about how students should engage in a course, formulate appropriate ways to discuss accommodations with a student who has disabilities, and demonstrate practical techniques to remove barriers to learning.
What Do I Do if I Suspect a Student Has Asperger’s Disorder?
Working successfully with Asperger’s students requires an understanding of their behavior and knowledge of how to communicate with them. Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D., offers you recommendations for helping these students to succeed. At the conclusion of this program, you will know how to: use conversation techniques that emphasize short, focused messages in speaking to Asperger’s students to build better relationships and to foster increased success socially and academically, build a positive classroom environment with open communication to help students better interact with Asperger’s students, and have an understanding of which campus resources to involve in working with Asperger’s students.
Other Issues
How Should I Handle Pushy Parents?
Parents worry. Some are concerned about their children’s relationships, academic stand, or living arrangements. And some parents bring their concerns to bear when speaking with faculty members…sometimes at the top of their lungs. So what should you do? In this video, Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D., suggests that you see this type of situation as a “teachable moment” for the parent and recommends applying your skills as a teacher to create a better result. The program also includes supplemental materials that feature “How to” guidelines and a rubric that shows both poor and better responses to common questions from parents.
What Can I Do About Feeling Tired, Stressed, and Burned Out?
Boundaries, Burnout and Balance – ahhh, it’s such a fine line we all walk. Learn how to distinguish normal stress and burnout with the help of Dr. Brian Van Brunt. He will be presenting five core concepts to create a life in balance. Small baby steps now can help you overcome some bad habits and will change your life (and the life of those around you) for the better!
What Should I Do When a Student Challenges My Authority?
When a student crosses the line, it can not only throw you, but derail the focus of the class. Classroom veteran Dr. Ike Shibley addresses those challenges, why they happen, how to assess their seriousness, and most importantly, how to respond. You can’t know in advance when a student will challenge your authority … but you can prepare in advance. Learn the right way to respond.
How Do I Stay Calm When Students Push My Buttons?
Students aren’t always perfect. Sometimes they can be downright rude, arrogant, and insulting. Would you like to learn how to set limits so you can maintain a levelheaded, gracious approach even in the most irritating and insulting circumstances? Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D., a counselor and an experienced higher education instructor, shares an approach so you, as an instructor, can keep your cool when your students are clambering on your last nerve.
What Can I Do to Increase Student Retention? *NEW*
It’s never a good feeling to learn that a student has left your class … or worse, left school altogether. Especially because it so often comes as a complete surprise; before you even realize they have a problem, they’re gone. We give you some powerful tools and techniques you can use to prevent these “unhappy endings”.
What Works and What Doesn’t When Teaching Large Classes? *NEW*
You don’t have to compromise your expectations when you teach large classes, but you might need to alter your approach. Learn the ways to manage a large class and make it feel smaller, more intimate, and more manageable in just 20 minutes.