Discussion in the College Classroom

Fall 2015

A small group of faculty will gather to read and discuss this particular book. Great interest in this book was expressed at the Pew FTLC Fall Conference on Teaching and Learning (via the book raffle) so we wanted to give faculty an opportunity to read, discuss, and learn from each other.  

Facilitator: Christine Rener, Pew FTLC

Inclusive Excellence Learning Community

Fall 2015

Facilitator: Dana Munk, Pew FTLC

The Skillful Teacher

Fall 2015

A small group of faculty will gather to read and discuss this particular book. Great interest in this book was expressed at the Pew FTLC Fall Conference on Teaching and Learning (via the book raffle) so we wanted to give faculty an opportunity to read, discuss, and learn from each other. 

Facilitator: Christine Rener, Pew FTLC

What Do We Mean By Digital Studies

Fall 2015

Participants in this teaching circle will critically engage the field of Digital Studies and Digital Humanities. We will discuss how aspects of Digital Studies intersect with our research and teaching. This teaching circle will serve as one avenue to the creation of a sustained cross-campus dialogue concerning the digital technologies\

Facilitator: Kimberly McKee, Liberal Studies

Women's Leadership: the Confidence Code

Fall 2015

This is a continuation of the Pew FTLC Teaching Life Retreats of May and December 2014 that focused on Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranton's How Remarkable Women Lead. Ultimately, the goal of this group is to provide a venue for women at GVSU to build their leadership skills and reflect on the role leadership plays in their teaching and professional goals. This teaching circle will continue the group's discussion of women's leadership by focusing on the relationship between confidence and leadership.

Facilitator: Sarah Clark, Chemistry

Citizen, An American Lyric

Winter 2016

This objectives of this Teaching Circle are as follows: 1) to share materials used to teach Citizen in a variety of courses, 2) to discuss students' response to the book, 3) to reflect on our teaching methods for engaging students with Citizen and the issues it raises about race in the United States, and 4) to connect the issues raised in Citizen to both other literature and social science research.  This Teaching Circle will conclude with a campus visit by Claudia Rankine and participants will receive a copy of the book “Citizen, An American Lyric” (the ’15-’16 Community Reading Project selection). 

Facilitator: Amy Masko, English

Confirmation Bias: What is it? How does it affect us and our students? Can our writing assignments inhibit it?

Winter 2016

Confirmation bias is a recognized problem in many fields and professions (Nickerson 1998). It is generally defined as the human tendency to notice only the information that supports our pre-existing ideas (that confirms our biases). On the one hand, it is a necessary cognitive strategy to manage overload in a data-rich environment, on the other hand, it poses a threat to inquiry and critical thinking in both the sciences and humanities. This faculty learning community will discuss what is currently known about confirmation bias, reflect on how it affects our and our students’ thinking, and collaboratively strategize ways to help our students to inhibit it. The work of this FLC will inform a workshop in March or April offered to all faculty, one that examines writing assignments designed to inhibit confirmation bias and deepen critical thinking. This workshop will be carefully marketed to faculty teaching SWS sections of courses. In addition, participants will be invited to design small action research projects on inhibiting confirmation in their own courses, in collaboration with Lindsay Ellis, director of Writing Across the Curriculum. These Scholarship of Teaching (SoT) projects can be written into Faculty Activity Plans (FAPs) as an area of significant focus.

Facilitator: Lindsay Ellis, Department of English

Contemplative Teaching

Winter 2016

Participants will discuss approaches to contemplative practice both as a tool for teachers (in support of their professional activities) and as a tool for students (in support of their academic activities). Emphasis will fall on the pragmatics of contemplative practices and teaching, but discussions will necessarily range widely over issues related to the lives of teachers and students. Participants will receive a copy of  J. Simmer-Brown and Fran Grace’s Meditation and the Classroom.

Facilitator: Peter Anderson, Classics

Data Visualization

Winter 2016

We will study contemporary theory and practice in data visualization, and identify strategies to teach these ideas to undergraduates. The selected book, Graphical Data Analysis with R by Antony Unwin, applies techniques of data visualization in the statistical software application, R. The software is a foundation of data visualization by Amanda Cox at The New York Times, who will visit the Grand Valley campus in March. Participants will receive a copy of the book. The Data Inquiry Lab will hold introductory workshops at the beginning of the Winter 2016 semester on using R for faculty unfamiliar with it. 

Co-Facilitators: Whitt Kilburn, Political Science, and Gerald Shoultz, Statistics

Design Thinking in the Classroom

Winter 2016

Design thinking is a collaborative process of problem solving. It uses an organized method of observation and responsiveness, generating multiple solutions that are prototyped and tested. Design thinking is particularly helpful in dealing with ‘wicked problems,’ those that are ill-defined and complex, where both the seeds of the problem and the solution are unknown. It is a methodology that encompasses a multi-disparate, active approach to learning and develops strategies that are context dependent. Design thinking solutions are long-term, sustainable, and focused on the social good of our community. Grand Valley State University has embarked on a Design Thinking Initiative to expand understanding of and experience with this collaborative process of interdisciplinary and integrative problem solving. The Pew FTLC has formed two separate Faculty Learning Communities to examine the Design Thinking model more closely and explore ideas for its application in the classroom. 

Facilitator: Kathryn Stieler, Pew FTLC and Music and Dance

Developing Oneself as an Educator: Clarifying the Educational Process in Graduate Education

Winter 2016

Participants will be introduced to the educational philosophy around professional education, adult learning and setting the stage for empowering students and faculty in the classroom. The objectives are: 1) Identify classroom strategies that allow students to be a part of the teaching/learning process, 2) Assist faculty in seeing the linearity of flow from program goals, curricular objectives, to learning outcomes, accreditation standards and evaluative measures, 3) Foster faculty comfort with the ambiguity of discussion as a major form of learning in graduate education, and 4) Assist faculty in infusing transformative learning opportunities throughout the graduate curriculum. Participants will receive a copy of the book “The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust and Responsiveness in the Classroom”. 

Facilitator: Cynthia Grapczynski, Occupational Therapy

Engaging Difference in the Classroom through Intercultural Competence

Winter 2016

Why is Intercultural Competence important in the classroom? Because it has been identified as a key capability for developing positive relationships with students across cultural boundaries, both internationally and domestically. Critical to the faculty role is the fact that intercultural competence is central to such outcomes as the reduction of academic disparities between dominant and non-dominant identity student groups, such as graduation rates, achievement scores, and retention rates. This Faculty Learning Community will incorporate the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) as a means to explore, and ultimately enhance, intercultural competence and the ability of faculty to engage different learners in the classroom.

Facilitator: Dana Munk - Movement Science, Pew FTLC 

Interdisciplining Digital Humanities: Boundary Work in an Emerging Field

Winter 2016

Participants in this Teaching Circle will further conversations first initiated in the "What do we mean by Digital Studies" Teaching Circle in Fall 2015 and serve as one avenue to the continued cross-campus dialogue concerning digital technologies. We will explore how we currently use or intend to integrate digital studies/digital humanities into our research and teaching. Faculty will discuss best practices as it relates to implementing digital studies projects in the classroom and how we sustain these projects over multiple semesters and/or courses. We will also explore tools to communicate and teach the web-based skills that are necessary for our students to effectively engage these projects. Conversations will also include dialogue regarding what it means to implement successful digital studies projects in face-to-face, hybrid, or online classes as the method of dissemination may differ due to teaching platform. Finally, we will discuss how we work collaboratively across disciplines on digital studies projects as it relates to our teaching and research.

Facilitator: Kimberly McKee, Liberal Studies

Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for ALL Learners

Winter 2016

According to the book's authors, Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison, we teachers tend to focus more on activity and work rather than understanding. By, first, exploding several myths about the nature of human thinking and how it is expressed in classroom environments, the authors show teachers at all levels how to engage students in acts of understanding new concepts. This is linked to processes of explanation and interpretation, acts that form the cornerstone of critical thinking, itself a cornerstone of a liberal arts education. The book lays out a number of classroom procedures designed to help teachers engage students in critical thinking. Discussions will focus on how to apply these processes to the higher education classroom and how to adapt them for different academic disciplines.

Facilitator: Nancy Patterson, College of Education - Leadership and Learning

Never Send a Human to do a Machine's Job: Correcting the Top 5 EdTech Mistakes

Winter 2016

According to the book's authors, Yong Zhao, Gaming Zhang, Jing Lei Wei Qui, "technology has transformed our lives, and virtually every school and classroom is connected. Why then, has it not transformed education?" In response to this question, this Teaching Circle seeks to facilitate conversation and learning regarding educational technology and how it can best be utilized to enhance teaching and learning. Through reading and discussing this book, participants will have opportunities to consider (and re-consider) pedagogy and practice as well as share examples and ideas. Conversations will be aimed at further developing participants' understanding of how/when to use technology to improve student learning outcomes.  

Facilitators: Erica Hamilton, College of Education - Leadership and Learning

Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts: Lesson Plans for Librarians

Winter 2016

Participants will learn about threshold concepts, specifically information literacy threshold concepts. Participants will discover how to create (or edit existing) lesson plans that use information literacy threshold concepts as their foundations through looking at examples created by other librarians as exhibited in the book. Participants will explore how information literacy threshold concepts (in relation to the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education) relate to the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Participants will explore new teaching strategies and lessons and share their experiences implementing them in the classroom. Participants will learn from each other in this space with the intent of growing as teachers of information literacy.

Facilitator: Ashley Rosener, University Libraries

Community as Classroom: The Pedagogy and Practicality of Community-based Teaching and Learning

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016 (Year-long)

This faculty learning community supports new and engaged scholars in their community-based teaching, learning and research through a community of practice focused on building courses with a service learning (community outreach) focus.  The format for this learning community will include brief presentations by various experienced faculty followed by extended dialogue/review of participant project ideas, concerns, and questions. 

Facilitators: Danielle Lake, Liberal Studies and Patty Stow Bolea, Pew FTLC

eLearning for CCPS

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016 (Year-long)

This Teaching Circle will look at the pedagogy and philosophy of eLearning, templates for successful BB sites using Quality Matters criteria, and appropriate apps and software to facilitate successful student learning online. The goal at the completion of the Teaching Circle will be to have a working document that answers the many questions concerning teaching in an online environment including: Is the selected course appropriate for the online environment? What components should I have within the site to best facilitate student learning in an online environment? How do I create a productive online community with my students? 

Facilitator: Robert Robins

Increase Student Engagement in Your Classroom

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016 (Year-long)

Have you been meaning to try more active learning in your classroom but never seem to get around to it?  If so, this FLC is for you! Dozens of empirical studies show that active learning pedagogies increase student learning, classroom participation, student motivation and faculty enjoyment.  Effective strategies include peer instruction (aka clickers), just-in-time teaching, inverted classrooms, process-oriented guided inquiry (POGIL) and collaborative learning.  The common theme of these approaches is that students spend more time engaged with each other and with the material instead of passively listening to you lecture.

Facilitator: Scott Grissom, Pew FTLC and School of Computing & Info Systems

Online & Hybrid Instruction

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016 (Year-long)

Sponsored by IDeL (Instructional Design for eLearning) and the Pew Faculty Teaching & Learning Center, this workshop will provide a venue for faculty-led dialogue and to share collective expertise regarding online/hybrid instruction at GVSU. Support for new and experienced online/hybrid faculty through dialogue. Explore best practices associated with online/hybrid teaching and learning. Identify emerging technological needs to support online teaching and learning, Share collective expertise across disciplines

Facilitator: Kim Kenward, Instructional Design for eLearning

Using Cognitive Coaching to Enhance Faculty Effectiveness

Fall 2015 & Winter 2016 (Year-long)

The overall goal of this project, Using Cognitive Coaching to Enhance Faculty Effectiveness, is to provide a structured opportunity for faculty in the College of Education to conduct critical reflections about some aspect of their teaching. Faculty will engage in critical reflection about their teaching by completing a self-study of their teaching practice. In this project, the process of collaborative self-study will be facilitated by the cognitive coaching model developed by Costa and Garmston (2002). This FLC will provide support for faculty to engage in critical reflections about their own teaching, increase faculty interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and enhance faculty effectiveness.

Facilitator: Mary Bair, Education - Special Education, Foundations, & Technology