Category: Resources

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New Resource: Inclusive Teaching Practices Toolkit

By implementing inclusive teaching practices, faculty create learning environments where all students feel they belong and have the opportunity to achieve at high levels.

ACUE is excited to introduce a set of free resources—including videos and downloadable planning guides—that can be immediately put to use to benefit both faculty and their students. These practices are tailored for online teaching but are also relevant to the physical classroom.

These 10 practices include:

  1. Ensure your course reflects a diverse society and world.
  2. Ensure course media are accessible.
  3. Ensure your syllabus sets the tone for diversity and inclusion.
  4. Use inclusive language.
  5. Share your gender pronouns.
  6. Learn and use students’ preferred names.
  7. Engage students in a small-group introductions activity.
  8. Use an interest survey to connect with students.
  9. Offer inclusive office hours.
  10. Set expectations for valuing diverse viewpoints.

The Inclusive Teaching Practices Toolkit was developed in collaboration with Dr. Marlo Goldstein Hode, Senior Manager, Strategic Diversity Initiatives, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, University of Missouri-St. Louis.

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FACULTY FOCUS: “A Reflection on the Sudden Transition: Ideas to Make Your Synchronous Online Classes More Fun”

Fun Activities for Online Classes

  1. We play a “This/That” game. It is really silly, but both the students and I have fun with it, or at least I do. For example, I start the game with the first student who volunteers. “Do you like Semantics/Pragmatics? Why?” “Would you like to be the Broca’s area/Wernicke’s area? Why?” “Would you like to have a conversation with a toddler/a preschooler? How?”  Then each student calls out a peer’s name and asks them a similar question. We make sure that everyone gets a turn.

  2. We play “Two truths and a lie.” For example, I start with the first student. “Intentional communication emerges around 8-9 months. Joint attention emerges around 6 – 10 months of age. Inflectional morphemes are mastered by age 3.” The student has to select which one of these statements is a lie. And then, I give the students a checklist that they can use to ask the next person another “Two truths and a lie” question. 

  3. Another game we play is called “Circle of questions.” One student starts with a question. For example, “What is decontextualized language?” The next student then responds and asks a question to the person that she / he tags. The next question needs to be in some way related to the first question. For example, it can be related to decontextualized language or language development in preschoolers. All students get a chance to ask and respond.

  4. We play a “Tell your grandma” / “Teach your grandpa” game. I post questions ahead of time. If there are 10 students, I post 10 questions. Each student picks a question and spends about two minutes preparing an answer. I then pretend to be the grandma or grandpa, and I ask a question pretending to not know anything about it. For example, I say, “What exactly is phonological awareness?” And then I annoy them by saying, “Really? I can’t understand that. Could you tell me what a phoneme is first? Why would a child need phonological awareness? What does it have to do with reading?” etc. So, I spend about five minutes with each student doing this. 

  5. Another game is called “Emoji Slides.” This is a great game to play before exams. I have a set of pre-made slides. Each slide displays a concept or a word or a question. I share my screen and present one slide at a time. Students have to respond by reacting to the word/concept/question on the slide with an emoji – ? Happy , ? Sad, or ? Neutral. If I see a ? happy emoji from all students, I move on to presenting the next slide. If a few students respond with a sad or neutral emoji, I stop and explain the concept or give examples, and then ask them to react with an emoji again. If the emoji is now happy, we move ahead. Students can also create their own slides, share their screen, tag a person, and ask them to react.

  6. Another game we play is “Who am I?” For example, I say, “I am a part of the cochlea that separates the scala media and the scala tympani. Who am I?” “I acquired two languages at the same time before the age of 3.Who am I?”

  7. We do online role plays. For example, one student volunteers, and we practice asking questions as part of a case history while I pretend to be the caregiver and the student takes the role of a speech-language pathologist. We then reverse roles. We also role play to practice counseling. I provide a list of case-based scenarios that all students can look at. I read each scenario aloud, and students take turns to counsel me while I play the role of the client.

  8. For review of concepts, we use collaborative worksheets. We use this activity every time we meet online as students like the structure and repetition of this activity. I post a worksheet with several questions (multiple choice, fill in the blanks, true/false, explain a term, give an example, compare two concepts, etc.). Students can then open this worksheet on their Microsoft Teams browser and start typing answers to these questions. Students can see each other’s responses, and I can see both their names and their responses. They get immediate synchronous feedback. I respond next to their responses with a happy emoji if their answer is correct. If their answers seem vague or incorrect, I edit it online while everyone else can see my edits. You can do this activity with Google Docs if you are not using Microsoft Teams.

  9. Finally, we use short 15-minute quizzes during the synchronous class time. I create quizzes using Microsoft Forms because it is compatible with Teams. These quizzes are not part of the course grade; they are merely used for practice. Students can complete the quiz on their individual devices during class time, and I can review their responses, where they can get immediate feedback. You can create these on your course LMS, use Google Forms, or simply read a question out loud and have students respond in the chat screen or shout out the answers.

Read the entire article by Siva priya Santhanam, Ph.D., CCC-SLP,  assistant professor at the Dept. of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado at https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/ideas-to-make-your-synchronous-online-classes-more-fun/.

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Save the Date! LACOL 2020 Mini-Workshop (June 15) based on the book “Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes”

Webinar: Small Teaching Online with author Flower Darby
Date and Time: June 15, 11:00am – 12:30pm EST
Location: Zoom
Registration: REGISTER BEFORE MAY 18th!

Small teaching is a phrase coined by Professor James M. Lang to describe an incremental approach to improving instruction. In 2019, instructional designer Flower Darby and Lang teamed up to apply small teaching principles to the online realm.  The result of their collaboration is an essential volume for any educator, “Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes“.

As a highlight of the LACOL 2020 virtual workshop,  Darby will lead an online mini-workshop, exploring small steps with big impacts for students.

The book recommendation is excellent – a lot of useful suggestions which would take years to figure out.

-Dr. Natalia Toporikova, Washington and Lee University, biology professor and online data science instructor, summer 2019, 2020

Establishing presence and social learning through multi-modal engagements and reflective meta-cognition are effective techniques for *any* class, both face-to-face and through the internet.  Communicating the underlying what, why and how of learning is especially important for online learning success.  And, like any important new skills, acquiring these capabilities takes planning and practice.

See also:

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“Liberal Arts Teaching Online in Zoom” Online Webinar: Tuesday, March 17 and Thursday, March 19

Join a live LACOL webinar and hands-on practice with five experienced liberal arts teachers from Swarthmore College, Vassar College, Williams College, and Washington and Lee University.  This team regularly collaborates to deliver online/hybrid classes for the liberal arts.

Many liberal arts colleges are asking faculty to consider how they may temporarily move their teaching online as part of emergency preparedness in the face of COVID-19 or other disruptions to regular classroom teaching.  Tips and guides are circulating, and faculty get lots of support from their local IT and teaching and learning centers.

This interactive Zoom session will highlight five liberal arts colleagues (including our very own Moataz Khalifa, Assistant Professor and Director of Data Education, and Assistant Professor of Biology, Natalia Toporikova!) to explore the ways they’ve learned to teach effectively online while maintaining a liberal arts approach that emphasizes personal interactions and critical thinking. Bring your ideas and questions!

Webinar Hosts
Webinar Hosts

Two live sessions: 

  • Tuesday, March 17, 2020 – 1:00pm-2:00pm EST
  • Thursday, March 19, 2020 – 11:00am-12:00pm EST

Recordings will be shared afterwards.

Webinar Agenda:

  • Min 00 – 10: Welcome and Self-Introductions
    • Learning goals for this session
    • A little background about the LACOL summer online class
  • Min 10 – 35: Hands-on practice in Zoom 
    • Encouraging Student Participation
    • Sharing Screens / Remote Screen Control
    • Using the Chat panel for conversations
    • Breakouts – great for small group work and discussion
  • Min 35 – 45: Group reflections on keeping a liberal arts approach online that emphasizes personal interactions and critical thinking
  • Min 45 – 55: Open Discussion / Q&A

Sign Up: https://forms.gle/HxRbWe5cvMubcZzA7 
Additional Resources: http://bit.ly/lacol-teach-online

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Resources from Stephen Lind’s “Designing and Assessing Presentation Assignments”

Our second Pedagogy and (not) Pizza session, “Designing and Assessing Presentation Assignments” was led by Stephen Lind, Assistant Professor of Business Administration and author of “A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schulz“.

a person trying to communicate to another person but the message is jumbled upWe want our students to have effective communication skills, but, truthfully, designing and assessing these activities in class can be incredibly challenging. So, we want to again offer our heartfelt thanks to Stephen for sharing essential questions and criteria to consider when designing unique speaking assignments, a turn-key model that faculty can build on, and an assessment tool to give student feedback.

Lastly, in case you missed it, here’s a link to all of the super helpful workshop materials (must sign in with W&L credentials) in Box.

Is there a topic or issue you’d like CARPE and Academic Technologies to address in Pedagogy and (not) Pizza? Let us know! 

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When’s the Last Time You Cleaned Your Keyboard and Mouse? ?

“Yay, it’s flu season!”

—No one, ever

Sanitize your keyboard and evict that nasty grime and bacteria – stat!

https://www.totaljobs.com/insidejob/workplace-hygiene-6-office-germ-hotspots/
Ewwwww, right???

Using disinfectant wipes to clean your keyboard and mouse — along with other measures like keeping your distance from sick people and thoroughly washing your hands before eating and after using the toilet — can help to prevent the spread of colds and flu.

Protect yourself and do your part to help prevent the spread of any viruses!

Keep an eye out for packs of disinfectant wipes in classrooms. Over Feb Break, we took the liberty of wiping down keyboards and mice and are making wipes available so you can continue to sanitize these devices before you use them.

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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

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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).