Early Literacy Education Learning Communities

Fall 2016

This Faculty Learning Community will help to build shared understandings for literary instruction and create aligned teacher preparation programs here at GVSU that prepare teachers and leaders to teach/support effective literacy instruction and assessment. The FLC will open opportunities for faculty to gather in discussion and reflection around literacy instruction for: (1) English Language Learners, (2) culturally diverse students, and (3) struggling readers. Learning from this FLC will directly impact faculty teaching and student learning as faculty seek to understand: how to both meet the literacy needs of all students, and help preservice teachers/leaders meet the literacy needs of all students in the classroom.

Books:

• Group One: Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom by Pauline Gibbons
• Group Two: The Skin that We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit
• Group Three: To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension by Ellin Oliver Keene 

Facilitators:

• Elizabeth Stolle/Associate Professor/Leadership & Learning/COE ([email protected])
• Paula Lancaster/Professor/Leadership & Learning/COE ([email protected])
• Barbara Lubic/Associate Professor/Special Education Foundations & Technology/COE ([email protected])
• Catherine Meyer-Looze/Assistant Professor/Leadership & Learning/COE ([email protected])

Thriving Through Change

Fall 2016

Participants will read Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard (Chip and Dan Heath) and discuss the examples and advice shared by the authors. Discussion will center around change in the workplace and classroom and how we can successfully cope with and affect change.  In addition, participants will:

• learn the pattern of successful change.
• learn how to lead successful change in their classroom, department and personal life.
• be able to incorporate new strategies into their lives for coping with changes both big and small.

Facilitators: Ashley Rosener/Liaison Librarian/University Libraries and Elizabeth Psyck/Liaison Librarian/University Libraries

Design Thinking in the Classroom

Winter 2017

Design thinking is a collaborative process of interdisciplinary and integrative 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. This faculty learning community will seek to expand understanding of and experience with design thinking as well as explore ideas for its application in the classroom.

Group I; Thursdays, 1:00-2:30 p.m., 3068 Zumberge, every other week beginning January 19th
Co-facilitators: Jody Vogelzang, Department of Public Health & Kathryn Stieler, Music and Dance, Pew FTLC Faculty Fellow

Group II: Fridays, 9:30-11:00 a.m., 1077 Seidman, every other week beginning January 20th
Co-facilitators: Amy Gyorkos, Movement Science & David Coffey, Mathematics Education

The Language of Information Literacy: Library Collaboration for Student Success

Winter 2017

If students in your course/s write research papers or complete research projects, work with primary sources, or if information literacy is a general education learning outcome in your department, we invite you to join in “The Language of Information Literacy: Library Collaboration for Student Success” Faculty Learning Community. This community will meet four times during the winter semester to:

• Discuss and develop a shared understanding of information literacy
• Explore threshold concepts within disciplines
• Explore specifics, from terminology to large concepts and how to teach
• Identify ways to collaborate with Library faculty to integrate skills into class planning

Facilitators: Gayle Schaub and Cara Cadena, University Libraries

Text As Data

Winter 2017

Our Learning Community will focus on text mining, the analysis of quantifiable features of text corpora. Our goals will be to learn about applications of text mining across disciplines, explore freely available software tools for text mining, and evaluate on campus needs to support text mining in our scholarship and teaching. Participants will be given an introductory text on the subject.  No prior experience with text mining is required or expected, only an interest in the subject and getting to know like minded colleagues around the university. The facilitators will provide participants with sample text datasets for analysis in meetings planned around a particular technique of text mining. Participants with prior experience in text mining will be encouraged to share their expertise with fellow participants. Some prior familiarity with data analysis software, including the R statistical programming environment, is helpful, though not required. Introductory courses on using R will be held through the Data Inquiry Lab, scheduled at https://www.gvsu.edu/datainquirylab.

Book: Text Mining by Ignatow and Mihalcea (2016, Sage Publications)

Co-Facilitators: Whitt Kilburn, Department of Political Science ([email protected]) and Jerry Scripps, School of Computing and Information Systems ([email protected])

Valuing Our Work (VOW)

Winter 2017

This Faculty Learning Community will focus on 1) an enhanced understanding of the concept of giving and how it applies to faculty work, 2) through reflection and use of the philanthropic lens, a more complete framing of their work with respect to how it impacts the public good beyond service, 3) an increased valuing and appreciation for their work, and 4) how we as faculty can model the importance of contributions to the public good to our students and convey their important role.

Documentary/Book: Participants will begin the FLC by viewing the documentary What is Philanthropy? Participants will then read two chapters every two weeks from the multi-authored book, Faculty work and the public good: Philanthropy, Engagement and Academic Professionalism.

Facilitator:  Salvatore Alaimo, School of Public, Nonprofit and Health Administration

Collaborative Engagement at GVSU: Catalyzing Inclusive and Equitable Transformation

Fall 2016 & Winter 2017

“The health of our society in many ways hinges on the cultivation of empowered, innovative, focused, caring, and determined thought leaders who have the effrontery to own their spaces, assert their voices, and advance a transformative rhythm that contributes to the insatiable push toward realizing the ideal purposes of higher education” (xiii).  

This FLC will collaboratively explore the boundaries between 1) the disciplines, 2) curriculum and student services, 3) students, instructors, and community members, 4) campus and community, and 5) place, considering the local, regional, national, global scales.  In addition, the group will review and discuss the challenges and the rewards of collaborative engagement practices from their own and other positionalities, create a consolidated list of recommendations for fostering collaborative, place-based and social justice focused engagement, and consider the implications of the final report and potential next steps. 

Book: Publicly Engaged Scholars: Next-Generation Engagement and the Future of Higher Education (2016) edited by Margaret Post, Elaine Ward, Nicholas Longo, and John Saltmarsh

Facilitators: Danielle Lake, Department of Liberal Studies, and Amy McFarland, Honors College

Online & Hybrid Teaching Learning Communities (CHS, Allendale, Pew Campus)

Fall 2016 & Winter 2017

Sponsored by IDeL (Instructional Design for eLearning) and the Pew Faculty Teaching & Learning Center, this faculty learning community will provide a venue for faculty-led dialogue and to share collective expertise regarding online/hybrid instruction at GVSU.   Specifically, the objectives of the faculty learning community are as follows:

• Support new and experienced online/hybrid faculty through dialogue and samples
• 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

At the first meeting, faculty will determine discussion topics and to assign various faculty to act as lead facilitators for subsequent meetings.  The Instructional Designers from IDeL will assist in organizing meeting agendas, collecting minutes, and posting resources shared at the various meetings to a Blackboard organization for further distribution. 

Facilitator: Rotating Faculty Members. Contact: Kim Kenward, [email protected]

Standards Based and Specifications Grading (SBSG)

Fall 2016 & Winter 2017

The purpose of this group is to learn about, plan, and then implement standards-based/specifications grading (SBSG) in GVSU courses. SBSG refers to systems of grading in which students are not graded using arbitrary point/percentage-based systems but rather on the quantity and quality of evidence they produce that they have met clearly-defined learning outcome objectives in a course. That evidence is in the form of concrete learning objects that are graded on the basis of whether the quality of the work meets professional quality standards ("specifications") as determined by the instructor. SBSG systems also allow students greater choice in how they are assessed as well as multiple opportunities for revision and reassessment. The goal of the group is to have each participant convert one course he/she teaches over to an SBSG system during the fall, and then implement it in the winter. The group itself is a community of practice that supports each other in this practice and learns together.

Book: Specifications Grading - Linda Nilson
Facilitator: Robert Talbert, Mathematics