VCU CTE - What's New

LEARNING-CENTERED TEACHING

Developing a Teaching Philosophy
This workshop will help you create a teaching philosophy from scratch, or to rewrite your existing philosophy. The focus will help participants explore the explicit and implicit messages behind their philosophies.
Date/Time/Location: 10/2 9 - 10:30am, Harris Hall 5182

Developing a Teaching Portfolio
It is never too early to begin a teaching portfolio. In addition to exploring the functions of a teaching portfolio, participants will learn about the portfolio content, development and organizational strategies.
Date/Time/Location: 10/2 11am - 12 noon, Harris Hall 5182

Developing a Learning-Centered Syllabus--Contract to Roadmap
This workshop will help you (re)write your course syllabi in such a way that you engage and motivate more of your students - including non-majors, while maintaining the contractual nature of the document.
Date/Time/Location: 10/2 1 - 3 pm, Harris Hall 5182

Exploring Learning-Centered Teaching: A Framework for Self-Evaluation
This workshop will introduce faculty to a learning-centered rubric that can be used to assess one's own course and can provide faculty with realistic steps for integrating L-C techniques into their course(s).
Date/Time/Location: 10/7 1 - 3pm, Harris Hall 5182

Improving the Effectiveness of Your Lectures
Over the last few years we have witnessed a sometimes vociferous debate between the lecture bashers and the avid lecture defenders. Unfortunately, not much has emerged form these conversations that informs our work in the classroom. From our perspective, it is not about lecturing for the sake of lecturing, nor is it about euthanizing the lecture. Rather, there is a time, a place, and a reason to lecture. Participants in this workshop will explore the contexts in which the lecture can be most effective.
Date/Time/Location: 10/27 9 - 11am, Harris Hall 5182

TEACHING WITH BLACKBOARD

Developing ePortfolios
Participants will gain an introductory overview of the portfolio tool and create a sample portfolio.
Date/Time/Location: 10/7 9 - 11am, Cabell Library 320

Getting Started with Blackboard
Learn how to customize Blackboard to create an online learning space that enhances your class and facilitates student learning.
Date/Time/Location: 10/13 9 - 11am, Cabell Library 320

Exploring Web Based Communications
Learn about communication tools in Blackboard and on the web that facilitate connecting with your students and promoting student engagement.
Date/Time/Location: 10/26 1 - 3pm, Cabell Library 320

Assignment and Gradebook Management in Blackboard
Learn how to more effectively distribute assignments, collect student work, and provide feedback back to students once graded.
Date/Time/Location: 10/29 1 - 3pm, Cabell Library 320

ENHANCING TEACHING WITH TECHNOLOGY

Using Wikis in Education
Wikis are openly editable websites, and their use has opened the door to new opportunities for collaboration and user-generated content on the web. This session will introduce participants to the educational use of wikis, and examine key questions and challenges faced in successfully implementing them into coursework. Faculty participants will brainstorm potential uses in their own courses and gain hands-on experience setting up and using freely available wiki tools on the web.
Date/Time/Location: 10/8 10am - 12 noon, Cabell Library 320

Exploring Social Media for Teaching and Learning
The web has become a very different place than it was just a few years ago. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, instant messaging, social networking sites, and video / image sharing sites have transformed the web into a space that is social and participatory. Through demonstration of a variety of social media practices and discussion of key questions, this session will ask participants to consider how the social web may be impacting education and the implications it may have for practice.
Date/Time/Location: 10/13 1 - 3pm, Harris Hall 5182

Making Thinking Visible: Using Concept Mapping for Instructional Planning and Teaching
Have you wondered if your students really understand what you've been teaching? Do you think they "get it?" Do they think they get it? Concept mapping is a tool that can help both you and your students realize what they do and do not understand. It can be used as a teaching and evaluation tool, and a way for you to develop your course. This workshop will introduce you to this learner-centered technique and how concept maps can be used, created, and assessed.
Date/Time/Location: 10/14 9am - 11am, Cabell Library 320

Critical Thinking on the Internet
The critical reasoning skills that we developed in dealing with print-based media do not always readily transfer to the digital realm. How do you determine the author or owner of a web-site? What tools and practices help us to evaluate the authority of information on a web site? If content on the web is not static, how can the history and development of a web site be examined? This session is designed to address these questions and introduce tools and practices that can make us - and our students - more savvy users of the Internet.
Date/Time/Location: 10/19 1 - 2:30 pm, Cabell Library 320

Exploring Digital Storytelling: An Overview of the Process
Digital storytelling (DST) uses new digital tools to help ordinary people tell their own `true stories` in a compelling and emotionally engaging form. This session provides an overview of a process for creating your own digital stories and encourages faculty to explore how DST might work in their discipline/content area.
Date/Time/Location: 10/21 9 - 11am, Harris Hall 5182

BROWN BAG LUNCHES - Harris Hall 5182

Exploring Open Courseware: Issues and Questions
OpenCourseWare is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. Current examples include the MIT OpenCourseWare Project, Open Yale Courses, iTunesU and course videos on university YouTube channels. How are open access course materials impacting traditional notions of education? What advantages / disadvantages are presented by an open education model? Please join us to discuss these and other questions.
Date: Friday, October 2

Rethinking How We Teach Science
Content? Understanding? Facts? Application? How do you teach in a discipline that places equal value on facts and the application of those facts? Join us and share your
experiences in teaching science for understanding and application.
Date: Friday, October 29

Twitter: Does It Have A Place In Education?
Twitter is an increasingly popular social networking / communication tool which allows users to post brief (up to 140 characters) messages. It has begun to gain appeal in a
range of contexts including politics, journalism, business and education. This session will feature a panel of VCU faculty and staff who will share their varied uses of Twitter. Join us to participate in conversation about the possible advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter in education.
Date: Friday, October 16,

Scholarly Teaching
How do you make decisions about course design and/or revision? How do you make decisions about your own professional development? Join us for a conversation about what's worked and what hasn't. Together, we can learn to make more informed decisions about course design, pedagogy, teaching / learning styles and context.
Date: Friday, October 23

What Is Online Learning?
What is online learning? How does this differ from learning online? How is teaching being re-conceptualized as a result? With an estimated four million college students taking at least one online course this year, and forty-four states (including Virginia) now having significant online programs in their K-12 systems these questions beg fresh consideration for higher education. This brown bag session invites faculty members to discuss the current impact of the web on their courses, share ideas for online program development, and consider possible advantages and disadvantages afforded by teaching and learning online.
Date: Friday, October 30