Category: Harte Center

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Join us for Technology and Tacos: Focus on ChatGPT and AI

Robot seated at a table, writing with a pen. Thursday, Jan 26 @ 12 PM | Leyburn 119. In this session, Associate Professor Jeffrey Schatten will give an introduction to the topic, participants will have a brief opportunity to explore the software, and the session will end with a discussion of the implications of AI and ChatGPT. Sign up at go.wlu.edu/techandtacos.

Gray human brain situated against a background with mathematical concepts on the left (logic) and a tangle of colorful swirling lines on the right (creativity) Tuesday, Jan 31 @ 12 PM | Leyburm 119. A good defense is the best offense and grounding your teaching in good pedagogical practice can help to ensure that ChatGPT's disruption of our students' learning is minimal. Join Dr. Paul Hanstedt, Director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning, for a discussion of effective practices in the age of AI. Sign up at go.wlu.edu/techandtacos.

ITS Academic Technologies and the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning cordially invites all W&L faculty and staff to our Technology and Tacos series. For the Winter Term, we’ll talk about how AI tech developments could affect our classrooms. How do we teach now that it exists? How can we use it?

ChatGPT, which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” is a cutting-edge AI model developed by OpenAI. It has the ability to generate human-like text and has shown remarkable performance in tasks such as language translation, question answering, and even creative writing.

As a “disruptor,” ChatGPT has the potential to change the way we interact with technology and how we process information; in fact, it already is! However, it also presents a great opportunity for us to explore new and innovative ways to use AI.

Interested? Sign up online at go.wlu.edu/techandtacos.

We look forward to seeing you there and discussing the exciting (and admittedly worrisome) possibilities of ChatGPT and AI with you.

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Who’s going to be where at the Spring Term Festival?

floor plan of the 2022 Spring Term Festival

For those who requested easels:

Your easels will be labeled. Please do not take easels from other classes. If you need additional easels, please visit the ITS Information Desk on the Main Level.

 

If possible, please arrive 5-10 minutes early to pick up your poster and foam board on Lower Level 1, in the Harte Center.

 

For those who requested projectors:

If possible, please arrive 15-30 minutes early to set up. The resident computer will be turned on and ready to go! 

Someone who will be present for the duration of the Spring Term Festival should be the one to log on to the resident computer with their W&L credentials. Note that the screen will lock after 15 minutes of inactivity.

To play a loop of videos, we recommend using VLC Media Player and creating a playlist of videos.

  1. From the VLC Media Player’s main window, use the menu bar and navigate to View > Playlist or use the shortcut key Ctrl+L.
  2. Drag and drop your media files (.mp3, .mov, .avi, etc.) into the window to build your playlist.
    • We suggest uploading all media files to a Box folder, then downloading the folder to the resident computer.  To unzip the entire folder, right-click to select Extract All, and then follow the instructions. Depending on the size of the folder, it can take 5-10 minutes to download and unzip!
  3. When done, click the loop button ONCE (see below) to loop the playlist, then click the Play button.

red circle encasing the loop button in VLC Media Player

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You’re Invited!

Take it to Harte - Join us on Wednesday from 10-11 am for light refreshments

The Harte Center is hosting an informal gathering at the southern end of the Harte Center, every Wednesday from 10-11:00 a.m., through the end of Winter Term.

Feel free to stop by, grab a cup of coffee or tea and some nibbles and hang out and chat. Nothing fancy, just a chance to take a little break in the middle of the week, gather with colleagues and students, and get to know the Harte Center. 

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Departmental Initiatives in DE&I #2: Creating Gateways for Greater Inclusion at All Levels of Our Institution

This session brings to the table ideas about steps your departments can take to create success in our programs for both students and faculty.

Please join us on Thursday, October 7th at 12:15 pm in Hillel 101 for a conversation about ideas⁠—some fully formed, others still in a nascent stage⁠—developed in Art and Art History, Computer Science, and Chemistry.

Creating Gateways for Greater Inclusion at All Levels of Our Institution

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Departmental Initiatives in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a central tenant of W&L’s strategic plan.

The University has invested greatly in this effort, including creating a dedicated physical space for a Center for DE&I, allocating $10M in additional funding from the endowment to accelerate this work, and creating programming. W&L’s commitment to DE&I extends to all facets of the University including student life, academics, admissions, employee hiring, faculty recruitment and retention, and Institutional history.

The Harte Center and Academic Technologies are teaming up to host a luncheon series: Departmental Initiatives in DE&I.

If our institutional efforts toward diversity, inclusion, and equity are to be truly impactful, we need to find ways to share effective practices with each other. This series, highlighting departmental and programmatic DEI initiatives, is designed to create conversations about what all of us–every department, every program, every individual–can do to ensure that every student who arrives on our campus has the opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. 

The luncheon series begins at the end of the month, highlighting the work of the Geology department.

 

Geology: Unlearning Racism in Geo Sciences (URGE) - September 16, 2021 at 12:15 pm in Leyburn 119

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The Houston H. Harte Center for Teaching and Learning is now OPEN!

Looking for Academic Technologies or Harte Center staff? We’ve moved!

You can now find us —

  • Senior Academic Technologist Brandon Bucy; 
  • Associate Director of Assessment Kristy Crickenberger; 
  • Director of the Harte Center Paul Hanstedt;
  • Director of Academic Technologies Julie Knudson;
  • Director of Fellowships Matthew Loar;
  • Academic Technologist Helen MacDermott, and
  • Harte Center Administrative Assistant Brittany Wright

— on the 1st floor of Leyburn Library.

You will ALSO find lots of new, comfortable, and inviting spaces to read, work, or meet with colleagues! And whiteboards galore! 😍😍😍

Please come by to say hello! We’re also reflecting upon and recovering from this past academic year, and preparing to support W&L faculty and staff for a hopefully LESS stressful and chaotic Fall Term.

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Recap of the POGIL Training Seminar

POGIL is an acronym for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning.

As a student-centered instructional approach, in a POGIL classroom, students work in small groups/teams on specially designed activities that follow a learning cycle paradigm of exploration, concept invention, and application, with the instructor acting as a facilitator.

Developed in Chemistry before expanding to fields throughout the disciplines, the POGIL approach has two broad aims: to develop content mastery through student construction of their own understanding, and to develop and improve important process skills such as information processing, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and metacognition and assessment.

Matt Tuchler and Gail Webster

Image 1 of 10

Gail Webster, Professor and Chair of Chemistry at Guilford College, and our very own Matt Tuchler, Associate Professor of Chemistry, acted as the facilitators, leading us though the organization of a POGIL course, how guided inquiry is structured in a POGIL classroom, several POGIL activities, as well as considerations for classroom facilitation.

Attendees who experienced a POGIL-based learning environment included faculty and staff members from Accounting, Biology, Business Administration, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Cognitive and Behavioral Science, Computer Science, ITS, Journalism and Mass Communications, Physics and Engineering, and the University Library. 

Many thanks to both Gail and Matt, and all who took the time to attend. We’re always thrilled to offer provide training in new teaching pedagogies and even more elated when faculty are interested and willing to learn to use these methods.

BONUS: Find the Enhancing Learning by Improving Process Skills in STEM (ELIPSS) rubrics helpful? We did, too! View and/or download all the rubrics.

  • CT = Critical Thinking
  • IC = Interpersonal Communication
  • IP = Information Processing
  • MC = Metacognition
  • MG = Management
  • PS = Problem Solving
  • WC = Written Communication
  • TW = Teamwork 

The files with “feedback” in the title — CT, IC, IP, TW — are those with suggestions for improvement. This new style is not available for all rubrics yet.

Interested in future pedagogy workshops? Sign up for the Academic Technologies once-per-term newsletter or reach out to Julie Knudson, Director of Academic Technologies, or Paul Hanstedt, Director of the Center for Academic Resources and Pedagogical Excellence (CARPE).

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Upcoming Pedagogical Conversations!

All of the following events are co-sponsored by the Center for Academic Resources and Pedagogical Excellence (CARPE) and yours truly (Academic Technologies).

Winter Term

TBD
by
participant
schedules

OBSERVATION CIRCLES: Developing Our Teaching through Constructive Observation Practices

Curious about how other faculty create dynamic lectures, facilitate effective discussions, or enact powerful active learning? Or trying something new yourself, and looking for thoughtful, confidential feedback?

Observation circles are very simple: faculty are put into teams of three, coordinating a series of visits to each other’s classroom. The goal is to provide each other with confidential, formative feedback on how we can make our classes and our teaching more effective. Previous participants have found Observation Circles to be a stress-free way to improve their work and to deepen collegiality.

Interested? E-mail phanstedt@wlu.edu, subject line “Observation Circles.” Be sure to include your department and your schedule for winter term.
Winter Term

Dates: TBD

Location: TBD

 Let’s Start the Conversation: ANTI-RACIST PEDAGOGY READING GROUP 

“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”—Angela Y. Davis

As educators, we need to ask: what it does it mean to be truly inclusive and where does one start? Anti-racism is continuous work, requiring active seeking and questioning of society and of ourselves, at times leading us to places of discomfort and frustration. However, through that engagement, productive conversation and curricular changes occur that truly promote a more inclusive environment. In this group, we will read and discuss works that engage with anti-racism and connect those messages and methodologies to pedagogy, thereby modeling ways to integrate anti-racism into the classroom and our daily lives. Readings will be manageable lengths (15-20 pages— however the content may take time to digest.

Interested? E-mail Dr. Adrienne Merritt at amerritt@wlu.edu.
Winter Term

 

Dates:

  • 1/14/20
  • 2/4/20
  • 2/18/20
  • 3/10/20
  • 3/31/20

4:30-6:00 PM

Ruscio Center for Global Learning 123

SMALL TEACHING DINNER SEMINAR

What is SMALL TEACHING: EVERYDAY LESSONS FROM THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING? It’s a book by James Lang, a leading voice in the scholarship of teaching and learning, using the best science on classroom techniques to argue that we don’t have to make huge changes in our classes to deepen student learning.

What is the “Small Teaching Seminar”? It’s CARPE’s inaugural dinner/book club, a series of five linked sessions built around a tasty dinner and Lang’s book, designed to allow any professor in any discipline to strengthen long-term learning. Everyone who signs up for the seminar will receive a copy of Lang’s book.

Though we recognize that not all enrollees will be able to attend every session, attendees are encouraged to make space for as many of the dinners as possible, recognizing the power of collaboration and community to strengthen both our learning and our practice. 

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteachingseminar
Wednesday
26 February

8:30 AM –
4:00 PM

Ruscio Center for Global Learning 114

POGIL TRAINING SEMINAR—Strengthening Student Learning through a Proven Classroom Approach

POGIL is an acronym for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. Because POGIL is a student-centered instructional approach, in a typical POGIL classroom or laboratory students work in small teams with the instructor acting as a facilitator. The student teams use specially designed activities that generally follow a learning cycle paradigm. Developed in Chemistry before expanding to fields throughout the disciplines, the POGIL approach has two broad aims: to develop content mastery through student construction of their own understanding, and to develop and improve important learning skills such as information processing, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and metacognition and assessment. 

Interested in learning more? Faculty from all disciplines are invited to attend this comprehensive, full-day workshop over winter break led by experienced POGIL facilitator and Professor of Chemistry Gail Webster of Guilford College.

Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/pogil.
Tuesday
17 March

4:30-5:30 PM 

Northen Auditorium

James G. Leyburn Library

TEACHING DISTRACTED MINDS—A LECTURE BY JAMES LANG

As faculty struggle with the problem of distracted students on our campuses and in our classes, they have become increasingly frustrated by the ways in which digital devices can interfere with student learning. But are students today more distracted than they were in the past? Has technology reduced their ability to focus and think deeply, as some popular books have argued? Drawing upon scholarship from history, neuroscience, and education, this lecture explores productive new pathways for faculty to understand the distractible nature of the human brain, work with students to moderate the effects of distraction in their learning, and even leverage the distractible nature of our minds for new forms of connected and creative thinking.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.  He is the author of five books, the most recent of which is Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education and has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than a hundred colleges and universities in the US and abroad.

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteaching
Wednesday
18 March

8:00-9:30 AM or 12:00-
1:30 PM

Science Addition 202A (8:00 AM) or Hillel House
101
(12:00 PM)

 

SMALL TEACHING: FROM MINOR CHANGES TO MAJOR LEARNING

Research from the learning sciences and from a variety of educational settings suggests that a small number of key principles can improve learning in almost any type of college or university course, from traditional lectures to flipped classrooms.  This workshop—offered at two different times and locations—will introduce some of those principles, offer practical suggestions for how they might foster positive change in higher education teaching and learning, and guide faculty participants to consider how these principles might manifest themselves in their current and upcoming courses.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.  He is the author of five books, the most recent of which is Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education and has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than a hundred colleges and universities in the US and abroad.

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteaching

 Late arrivals and early departures welcome.

Questions? E-mail Dr. Paul Hanstedt at phanstedt@wlu.edu.

Save the Dates!

Top-to-Bottom Course Design Workshop
June 10-12, 2019

Got a new course you’re creating? Or an old course that needs to be refreshed? This workshop is an opportunity to get a jump-start on that process, and to learn from and share ideas with colleagues. Stay tuned for more details!