Loyola University Chicago

Focus on Teaching and Learning

Focus on Teaching and Learning: Fall 2012

Focus on Teaching and Learning: Fall 2012
Engaging Students In and Outside the Classroom

The Fall 2012 Focus on Teaching and Learning is scheduled for Thursday, August 16 in the Information Commons on the Lake Shore Campus. Our keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Barbara Wright, Vice President of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a renowned scholar on assessment, faculty development and accreditation issues.

In addition to Dr. Wright’s keynote presentation, there will be nine faculty-lead breakout sessions on three main topics: (1) balancing work inside class with engaged involvement outside class; (2) reformulating the in-class experience; and (3) strategies for assessing student learning. 

Tentative Schedule:

9:00                   Welcome: Dr. John Pelissero, Provost

9:05-10:15         Keynote: 

Through a Different Lens: Teaching, Learning, and a New Role for Faculty [Wright Keynote][Watch Video]
Dr. Barbara Wright, Vice President of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges

Assessment of student learning has helped us to see student’s education from many new perspectives. In this talk, we’ll explore some of the implications for faculty – and the creative ways in which the role of faculty may evolve.

10:30-11:30       Breakout Session I:

A.  Models of Engaged Learning: A Panel of Loyola’s Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows—Patrick M. Green, Director, Center for Experiential Learning (facilitator), Daniel Amick, Department of Anthropology, Mary Dominiak, Undergraduate Health Systems Management Program, Sarah Gabel, Department of Fine and Performing Arts, Asim Gangopadhyaya, Department of Physics, Bren Ortega Murphy, Women's Studies/Gender Studies/School of Communication [Amick PDF FOTL][Watch Video]

This panel features faculty who have demonstrated significant examples of engaged learning in the areas of service-learning, academic internships, undergraduate research, public performance, and field work. An overview of the Engaged Learning requirement will be discussed. Each panelist will share how they have implemented engaged learning with students, sharing their course models and how student learning was enhanced in and out of the classroom.

B. Lessons Learned: Faculty and Students Perspectives on Developing Transformative, Sustainable Community-Based Projects—Rebecca Silton, Colleen Conley, Edna Romero, and Maryse Richards; Department of Psychology [Silton FOTL information]

During this session, faculty and field supervisors who are interested in community-based service learning methods will benefit from hearing about students’ first-hand experiences developing site-specific, collaborative projects during an academic internship. These projects were designed as part of the Internship in Psychology (Psyc 390) curriculum; the proposed presentation will involve a panel of students who successfully completed their internship projects.

C. Students’ Perception of the Use of Social Media Tools and Technology for Learning—Stacy Neier and Linda Tuncay Zayer, Department of Marketing [Neier Zayer Session Info]

Recent research has advocated the use of social media tools, such as Twitter, or technology such as iPads, to enhance learning in the classroom. This session will present findings from a study done to assess what social media and technology tools students currently use and which ones they feel have the potential to enhance learning in the classroom.

D. Teaching with Sakai at LUC: Using an Open Source LMS as an Alternative to Blackboard

This session will provide a demonstration of setting up a course in the Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment. Faculty who piloted Sakai during the 2011-2012 academic year and ITRS Sakai support staff will present the basics of course configuration in Sakai and the use of common Sakai tools. Loyola will provide Sakai accounts to interested faculty beginning in the fall semester, 2012. Sakai is an open source learning management system used by over 350 institutions worldwide.


11:45-1:30           Lunch and Resource Tables

1:30-2:30            Breakout Session II:

A. Critical & Creative Strategies for Integrating Classroom and Community, or Teaching “Kindness and Truth [to] Meet”—Christopher Skrable, Center for Experiential Learning, Kathleen Maas Weigert, Social Justice Initiative, Office of the Provost [Session Information][Watch Video]

So-called “deep learning” pedagogies such as service-learning and community-based research seek to enhance students’ academic and pre-professional development by providing them with opportunities to learn from both traditional academic and community sources of knowledge.  However, the depth of students’ transformation in such experiences is dependent upon instructors’ creativity in  inviting their students to integrate these two realms of knowledge.  This workshop will share promising practices and concrete examples of critical reflection as a necessary element of community-engaged course design, as well as specific mechanisms for assessing students’ integrative learning in such courses.

B. Creating Open Courseware Using Free and Open Source (FOSS) Publishing Tools—George K. Thiruvathukal, Andrew Harrington, and Konstantin Läufer; Department of Computer Science [Session Information]

The presenters will provide a hands-on tutorial for how to organize course materials using the methods created by the FOSS community. We will cover an emerging class of documentation tools that are based entirely on simple plaintext authoring and look at simple authoring languages. We’ll demonstrate that although these tools were created for software developers, they in fact are general enough to support writing across all disciplines (e.g. humanities, arts, social sciences, life/physical sciences, and mathematics) and are straightforward to learn.

C. Exam Wrappers: Not Just Pretty Packaging—Cass Coughlin, Student Academic Services/Residence Life

Exam wrappers are reflective tools students complete in conjunction with completed exams, tests, quizzes, papers, projects, etc. These learning assessment tools are rooted in both pragmatic and cognitive domains. In this session, participants will develop a sample exam wrapper based upon an actual course they instruct and will investigate how exam wrappers contribute to student learning, both subject material and student self-awareness.

D. Hands-on Adobe Connect training (pre-registration required)

Adobe Connect is an conferencing tool that allows faculty and students to meet synchronously online; it also provides a means for recording lectures or presentations that can be shared with students asynchronously. This training serves as the first step to attaining a license to use Adobe Connect.


2:45-3:45            Breakout Session III:

A. Connecting the Dots: ePortfolios as a Tool for Integrative Pedagogy, Learning, and Assessment—Ashley Kehoe and Christopher Skrable, Center for Experiential Learning [Session Information][Watch Video]

This session will demonstrate how ePortfolios can facilitate “academic dot-connecting”—or the purposeful integration of student learning, assessment, and professional development. We will review the basics of ePortfolio pedagogy, provide details about Loyola’s ePortfolio program, and highlight best practices for using ePortfolios to enhance teaching and learning strategies.

B. Student Learning: What Happens in Peoria Starts in Rogers Park—Michelle Moy, School of Continuing and Professional Studies

Student learning of basic medical laboratory science material was put to the test in the usual ways—tests on Blackboard, quizzes in class, field studies at the medical center—but the ultimate test came on the stage of a student academic quiz bowl.  This experience allowed the students to assess their own learning and the reaction was unexpected.

C. Some Useful Tools in Blackboard

This session will demonstrate three useful tools in Blackboard 9.1: Assignment, Adaptive Release,  and Course File. The Assignment tool allows you to create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student.  Adaptive Release enables you to control the release of content in your course to your students based on a set of rules that you can select (date and time, group membership, scores, etc.).  Course Files provides the functionality for you to drag-and-drop multiple files into a specific course, then organize and store all of your files in one place.

 

Fall Focus on Teaching and Learning is sponsored by: Academic Technology Services, the Center for Experiential Learning, Faculty Administration, the Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, the Office of Research Services and University Libraries.