MORNING SESSION

EC 514

Dana Munk, Movement Science and Pew FTLC

The course syllabus is often overlooked as a powerful motivational tool for students. Research indicates when faculty use their syllabus as a vehicle to share their passion for the content and for students to be successful, students become more excited about learning new material and skills. This session will illuminate strategies for creating welcoming, inclusive and motivating syllabi.

MORNING SESSION

EC 611

Janet Vigna, Biology and Donovan Anderson, Modern Languages & Literatures and CLAS Dean’s Office

Every generation of students brings new experiences, perspectives and expectations to GVSU.  What should we all know about our students to help give them a Strong Start? What can faculty do with this knowledge? This session will begin with a discussion of Grand Valley’s newest generation of students, the factors that have shaped their views, and the challenges they face in the transition to college. As we reflect on this student population, members of the FTLC’s Faculty Learning Community on the Strong Start Initiative will talk about influential things faculty can do to maximize the factors that support first-year success.

MORNING SESSION

EC 614

Michael Scantlebury, Hospitality and Tourism Management 

EduBirdie, established in 2015, is a website which promotes its professional writing services to students at all academic levels using more than 250 YouTube channels.  This discussion will examine how we might support academic integrity in this challenging environment.

MORNING SESSION

EC 423

Jeanine Beasley, Occupational Science and Therapy and Mark Staves, Cell and Molecular Biology

Beginning with an example of using Panopto as a tool for collecting and evaluating graduate student work and proceeding to a discussion of some of the ways grading graduate students might differ from grading undergrads, we envision a lively discussion of issues related to grading the work of graduate students.

MORNING SESSION

EC 310

Dave Eaton and Louis Moore, History

Podcasting has been around for decades, but the diffusion of smartphones has dramatically increased its popularity. Is it possible to take advantage of this new landscape as instructors? This session will try to answer this question. Leading the discussion is Dave Eaton, founder and co-host of On Top of the World, a podcast about world history research and teaching.  Drawing on his three years of experience running the show, this session will examine the challenges posed by this practice, explore ways to integrate podcasts into curricula, and explain why this format may be ideal for connecting with other instructors. Facilitating discussion will be Louis Moore, professor of African American history at GVSU. He is currently designing a collaborative podcast as well as integrating VR into his civil rights course.

MORNING SESSION

EC 410

Jae Basiliere, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Gretchen Galbraith, History and CLAS Dean’s Office

This session will explore both the "why" and the "how" of Reacting to the Past—a pedagogy that engages students with big historical questions through immersive role play. After providing a brief overview of SOTL literature on gamifying the classroom, simulation learning, and RTTP specifically, we will discuss our experiences with this pedagogy. We will share why we chose to incorporate it into our respective classrooms, the challenges and rewards doing so has offered, and advice we might offer to others interested in engaging their students in historical debates through play. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 316

Dalila Kovacs, Chemistry

Taking risks is part of human nature, a skill we acquire through life experiences. We learn, at a very early age, to try new things, savor in the success and accept failure. I, however, never looked at my teaching as a risk-taking profession, until I read a post in Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning, by M. Weimer, published on July 19, 2018:  “it takes courage, the willingness to fail, stand, dust off, and fail again in front of all those students... Maybe that is the biggest learning they get”.  A couple of long summer days of hiking alone in the San Antonio mountains of California allowed me to deeply reflect on this quote and revisit my approach to teaching form a new perspective. I strongly believe that failure and the capacity to accepts it makes us better teachers. This session is for the explorer in you, an opportunity to share and learn from each other how to take risks in teaching – strategies, tools, pedagogy, etc. – and how,  through the process, we support our students in developing their own risk-taking skills. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 311

Heather Wallace and Julia VanderMolen, Public Health

This session will explore the use of story making and storytelling as a teaching and learning strategy in the health professions.  Discussion and examples of how storytelling can be used in the context of the illness experience and  within health professions education will be shared. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 414

Kurt Ellenberger, Coeli Fitzpatrick, Roger Gilles, and Amy McFarland, Honors

After a March 2017 site visit and program review, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) issued a report summarizing their view of the honors program and making recommendations. Tucked away in the report was a recommendation—long dreamt about by the director and faculty—that the Frederick Meijer Honors College create a “standalone” curriculum that serves as a true alternative to the General Education program. Though unsure whether something so different would be accepted by various committees and administrative bodies, the faculty decided to pursue this idea. Somewhat to our surprise, the idea was enthusiastically approved by the General Education Committee, the dean of Brooks College, and the provost’s office. Feeling a bit like the dog that caught the bus, the full-time honors faculty and staff embarked on the exciting and daunting task of creating a new and enticing honors curriculum. This session will present for discussion several contrasting curricular models developed by the Honors Curriculum Revision Task Force. The session will thus be both informative and interactive, as we seek input and guidance from our colleagues to help create a new Honors Curriculum that is rigorous, innovative, and suited to the unique culture and learning environment that defines Grand Valley.

MORNING SESSION

EC 421

Jeffrey Rothstein, Sociology

Online courses reveal important dynamics of the relationship between instructors and students that impact pedagogy. This session will highlight one professor’s experiences and explore their implications for teaching in both online and face-to-face environments.