Creative Connections 2022 Recap

On Thursday, January 6th 70 faculty and staff gathered on campus and online to celebrate excellence and innovation in teaching at Elizabethtown College. The event kicked off with a discussion on “Mindful Scaffolding,” an original framework for course design developed by Crystal Donlan, Instructional Designer and Online Learning Specialist.

Presenters shared their insights, perspectives and teaching tips in panel presentations, workshops, roundtable discussions and poster sessions. The program featured presentations from full-time professors, instructors, and college staff members. Click here to view the program.

Throughout the day, the studio team collected resources and handouts from the presenters and archived them here. You can also view three presentation videos we’ve uploaded to the archive folder.

Let’s continue the conversation. If you’d like to learn more about the content that was shared at Creative Connections 2022, reach out to us at studio@etown.edu.

Using Discussion Forums for Active Learning Across Modalities

Because discussion helps students process information, it remains important to learning across all academic disciplines and delivery modalities. With the goal of getting students to practice using the concepts they are learning through the course material, designing a discussion requires skills different from giving a lecture. Online forums embedded within the course LMS are an accessible way to facilitate class discussion, regardless if your course is face to face, online, or hybrid/hy-flex. Not only does an online discussion engage students with course material before coming to class in person, it also helps them reflect on material they have learned while also giving them time to absorb content and articulate responses.

Discussion-based teaching focuses on active learning principles and prioritizes discourse rather than passivity. Through an active learning approach to discussion, important concepts and skills are reinforced and explored through the community of inquiry. This interchange provides students with opportunities to think about, talk about, and figure out course material through guided practice and scholarly exchange.

Some additional benefits of online discussion for learning is that it increases students’ interest, comfort level, and sense of belonging. Through engaging in discussion, students get different perspectives on the topic. Good questions and thoughtful answers can get students to think deeply and make connections; this empowers learners and fosters greater agency and autonomy. The online discussion forum approach to engagement also helps students who might otherwise struggle to speak up in a face-to-face class because it provides them an opportunity to concentrate and formulate responses before interacting; this “buffer” allows learners to reflect on the topic and to think about the material in critical ways.

Providing open-ended prompts for discussion that elicit critical reflection, communicating clear expectations on both assignment and assessment, and allowing the community of inquiry to unfold organically are vital aspects of the mindful scaffolding approach to safeguarding the learning environment across modalities. A student’s ability to synthesize, to question, to engage, to utilize concepts, and to hypothesize can be optimized through these high-engagement/low-stakes learning opportunities.

If you would like additional guidance on designing effective and engaging discussion activities, please reach out to the Teaching and Learning Design Studio – and check out these helpful resources:

The Art and Science of Successful Online Discussions

Constructing Effective Online Discussions

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 1

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 2

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 3

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 4

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 5

Quick Tips: Updating Your Syllabus in Canvas

Many of you probably had a syllabus uploaded into Canvas before the semester date changes were announced.  It’s quick and easy to replace that syllabus with a new one. To do so:

Pop back into the syllabus page, click the Syllabus button in the upper left, and then click Edit.

edit location for syllabus in canvas

Once you do that, there is an option to Replace.

Be sure to communicate to students that you have changed the syllabus — it is easy for students to download the syllabus and some may not think to go back into the Canvas location and check for changes.

Book Review: RESCUING SOCRATES by Roosevelt Montás

Periodically, we like to share more about what are reading in the Studio. If you’d like to find a good book, you can peruse our lending library. We are routinely refreshing the lending library. Bookmark the page and let us know if you can’t find a title you are looking for. This book review is on a title that we don’t have in our library yet, but it is one that we think you will really like.

Roosevelt Montás, a professor in American Studies at Columbia University, recounts his time as an undergraduate at Columbia University in his book titled Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. The book focuses on those initial opportunities he had to read and discuss great books like The Confessions by St. Augustine and Homer’s The Illiad. Each chapter in this concise autobiography explores the timeless lessons found in the work of Freud, Socrates Gandhi and the aforementioned St. Augustine. With powerful imagery, readers join Montás on a journey relived as he unfolds his experiences as a Dominican immigrant in New York City, a candidate in the Higher Education Opportunity Program of New York, a graduate student and a college professor.

Embedded in Montás’s personal stories of academic setbacks and success is a serious and pointed conversation about the challenging questions facing higher education in our deconstructionist, post-postmodern era. Montás’s guidance is steeped in his experience as an immigrant in the American collegiate system as well as his profound love for the humanities and a crystal clear sense of the power found in education. In distinguishing this power he believes our understanding of education is, perhaps, misplaced. Teaching isn’t, in his words, “putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes.” Instead, Montás suggests “Education takes for granted that sight is there but it isn’t turned the right way or looking where it ought to look and tries to redirect appropriately.” Students in all contexts can “see,” and we have a tremendous honor and opportunity in educational settings to shed light on new perspectives and introduce students to new directions. 

In Rescuing Socrates, Montás outlines the importance of a general education frameworks that equip students to first understand the world as it is in order that they may navigate it with confidence and improve it.

If you’d like to read more, you can find Rescuing Socrates on Amazon or Audible.  

Culture of Coaching Blog Series Post #3: Questions to Ask When Coaching

Dr. Katie Caprino, Assistant Professor of Education and Teaching & Learning Design Fellow
You can contact Dr. Caprino at caprinok@etown.edu. 

In my earlier blog posts “What is Coaching?” and “Connections between Design Thinking and Coaching,” I provided an introduction to coaching and some ideas about the links between design thinking and coaching.

In this blog post, I will share some questions, prompts, or moves that may help coaches and coachees as they engage in a coaching cycle informed by design thinking. I offer a few questions that align with each element of design thinking. (And even if you do not take a coaching cycle from start to finish, you may find these questions helpful when engaging in meaningful conversations around campus.)

Empathy. During the empathy stage, your goal is to learn about your partner. Your goals here are to build trust and get to know more about your partner as a human. This stage may take more than one session, as the relationship you build here will set the foundation for the work you and your partner do together.

Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you engage in empathy building:

  • Meet for coffee, a walk, or a meal.
  • Share your roles at the College.
  • Ask about their hobbies, learn about their favorite books / shows / movies, and their dream vacation.
  • Ask open-ended questions.
  • Listen carefully.
  • Inquiry about best communication methods (e.g., face-to-face, Zoom, text, email)
  • Schedule a teaching observation (if it makes sense) or share artifacts that may be helpful during coaching cycle.

If you would like additional resources, this piece from EdTech Team has some great ideas about this trust-building stage. Researcher Brené Brown has a great digital short on the idea of empathy.

Define. In this stage, you want to set a coaching focus. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

  • Share why coaching cycle was attractive.
  • Reflect on noticings and/or wonderings of teaching observation or other artifacts.
  • Discuss the area of focus and goals or the coaching cycle. Avoid a deficit or correction-based perspective. Colleagues may want to further develop an effective practice, too.
  • Frame focus in the form of a clear question.
  • Consider timeframe of coaching cycle.

Iterate. You want to review resources during the iterate phase. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

  • Share resources (e.g., articles, websites, mentor texts) with one another.
  • Discuss what stands out in these resources.

Prototype. This is the part of the coaching cycle in which you decide on a plan.  Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

Make a plan of action using the resources shared during the iterate stage. This could be co-designing a lesson with one another, drafting up a conference proposal, or role play an advising session.

Test. The plan is enacted in the test phase. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

  • Try out the teaching strategy.
  • Submit a grant or conference proposal.
  • Have the advising meeting.

Then …

  • Reflect
  • Commend what went well
  • Set goals for further action
  • Decide to continue coaching cycle or end here.

Please stay tuned for additional resources on the Studio’s webpage to help guide you through coaching conversations! A special thank you to Matt Skillen, who has helped my thinking on this project, and Christine Walsh, a fellow literacy teacher educator at Slippery Rock University, who was instrumental in helping me frame some of the shared questions and prompts.

Culture of Coaching Blog Series Post #2: Connections between Design Thinking and Coaching

Dr. Katie Caprino, Assistant Professor of Education and Teaching & Learning Design Fellow
You can contact Dr. Caprino at caprinok@etown.edu. 

Honestly, I had not heard of design thinking before I arrived at Elizabethtown College. I was introduced to the idea at a design challenge workshop during one of my first few years at the College. I must admit my team did not have the “winning” design, but the experience led me to think about design thinking and incorporate it into my work in a multitude of ways. I introduced the concept in my creativity methods course and did a SCARP project in which a student researcher and I thought about how design thinking functioned in contemporary picture books.

But as I was completing my instructional coaching endorsement, I began to find connections between design thinking and coaching.  I shared my ideas with a literacy colleague Dr. Christine Walsh at Slippery Rock University, and we had some intriguing conversations. In this blog post, I’ll share the results of these conversations and ways design thinking elements can help us as we think about a culture of coaching at Elizabethtown College.

Empathize. When designing, empathy is the starting point. Knowing the users for whom you are creating is key. The same is true with coaching. As we think about engaging in coaching relationships, we must build relationships with those we coach and those who coach us. Have a cup of coffee. Take a walk. Chat about your work at the College but also about yourselves as humans. Share hobbies, interests, and favorite restaurants. These relationships are central to coaching partnerships, which may flip (i.e., the coachee may become a coach in another cycle), and are a key component of what makes our campus community special.

Define. A problem-solving framework, design thinking looks to define the problem. We can think more broadly about this in terms of coaching on our campus. We can certainly work with our coach or coachee to articulate an area of growth in a myriad areas (e.g., advising, teaching, scholarship, conference presentations, work-life understandings, etc.), but we can also think about how to help one another intensify a strength or more deeply engage with an area of strength. Sometimes this is an area that is identifiable right from the beginning of the coaching cycle; other times an observation of teaching practice or analysis of other artifacts (e.g., conference proposals) may be helpful.

Ideate. This is the brainstorming component of design thinking. In this step, many ideas are thrown out and tossed around. This is The Sticky Note Part. The coach may bring in resources (e.g., teaching articles, videos, or book chapters; sample conference proposals; or a list of a few strategies). Time is then spent discussing the ideas and an area of focus is decided upon. It is important not to overwhelm the coachee with too many ideas. A narrow focus is key here. 

Prototype. This is where the models are created and analyzed in design thinking. When applying this step of design thinking to coaching, you can think about coming up with the plan for addressing the narrow focus from the last step. Here, you may plan for how the coachee will implement one of the agreed-upon strategies in their classroom. Sometimes, the coach may come to the coachee’s classroom and demonstrate a lesson strategy. If a coachee is receiving assistance on submitting to conferences, here is where the draft of the proposal may be composed and reviewed.

Test. This is where the test drive happens. The coachee may teach the lesson with the new strategy or submit a conference proposal for the first time. This is the step where all of the defining, ideating, and prototyping pays off.

Will it always be perfect? Of course not! Design thinking and coaching are recursive practices. Although demonstrated here in a linear process, there may be some messiness. You will, for example, focus on empathy throughout – not just at the beginning. And you may have to return to the defining stage as you move throughout your coaching-coachee relationship. And that is okay. You’re designing!

Stay tuned for the next post in the Culture of Coaching Blog Series: Questions to Post When Coaching.

A special thank you to my literacy colleague Dr. Christine Walsh at Slippery Rock University for engaging in meaningful conversations and writing with me about the connections between design thinking and coaching. 

Culture of Coaching Blog Series Post #1: What is Coaching? 

Dr. Katie Caprino, Assistant Professor of Education & Teaching & Learning Design Fellow
You can contact Katie at caprinok@etown.edu.

One of the recent projects out of our Design Fellows Program is about creating a culture of coaching on campus. Whereas the project focuses on facilitating a faculty coaching program and there are already plans to pilot the program with new faculty members, the opportunities for coaching on our campus can extend beyond faculty coaching. For instance, in what ways can coaching be used when advising students? How can coaching be used to help campus community members advance in their careers? How can we help our students learn about coaching so they can embody it in their future professional roles?

Knowing more about what coaching is and is not may be a good place for us to start. Aguilar suggests “a coach helps build the capacity of others by facilitating their learning” (p. 19).

According to Aguilar in The Art of Coaching, coaching is not a way to ensure a particular program is enacted, it is not a way to fix people, it is not a way to provide therapy, and it is not consulting (p. 19).

The Center for Corporate and Professional Development at Kent State University suggested ways in which coaches differ from mentors. Mentoring-mentee relationships may be for a long period of time. The mentee sets the agenda and often asks the mentor questions. There are shifting and changing outcomes (Kent State University, 2021).

The coach-coachee relationship is a bit different. Often, it is a short-term relationship in which a coach with a specific expertise is partnered with a coachee. These partners co-construct the agenda to best meet the coachee’s specific and measurable performance goal. The coach asks specific questions, and the coachee makes decisions about next steps (Kent State University, 2021).

You may seek out a coach for a specific reason. Perhaps a colleague has a lot of conference experience, and you want to know more about how to submit conference proposals. Perhaps you want to enhance the way you incorporate asynchronous elements into your face-to-face classes, and you have heard that a colleague is an expert in this area.

Or maybe you have expertise in a particular area and you want to be a coach. You might have a unique pedagogical approach that you want to share with your colleagues. You may be able to create a warm, nurturing classroom environment, and you want to share how you do it.

The opportunities for a culture of coaching are limitless.

We would love to hear more about what you think about a culture of coaching here at Etown, and stay tuned for the next blog in the series: Coaching through a Design Thinking Lens.

References

Agular, E. (2013). The art of coaching. San Francisco: Wiley.

Kent State University. (2021). Know the difference between coaching and mentoring. Retrieved from https://www.kent.edu/yourtrainingpartner/know-difference-between-coaching-and-mentoring

Want to See Better Writing from Your Students? Try This!

Tara Moore, Director of the First Year Writing Program, mooret@etown.edu

You expect students to bring their best writing game to your coursework, but they might need a compelling nudge.

Students sometimes fail to transfer the great writing skills from EN100 to your classes.  Back in EN100 your students learned process writing skills—that just means writing in stages.

Process writing gives students time to rethink their approach to every aspect of an essay.  Believe me, you want them to think through that paper more than once!  You’ll see better results if you can arrange your class so that students have to start work far in advance of the deadline.

Your upper-level students also learned research skills, including citation styles and how to use the handbook required for all EN100 and FYS sections.

Do missing words, wonky paragraphs, and terribly vague intro paragraphs make you question your existence during long bouts of grading?  If so, your students need encouragement to put more energy into revisions.  The EN100 program taught flexible revisions strategies. If you remind students to use these, you should see better writing.

Want to see better writing in your classes? Try these steps:

Assign Drafts

Require submissions of early stages of writing. Provide feedback on drafts if you can. If you can’t add another evaluation like that to your workload, try assigning drafts anyway. You can award points for a submission and then tell students to turn their attention to revision.

Peer review assignments tend to improve submission outcomes.  You can require students to conduct the peer review as homework, or they can do it in class.  Peer reviews work best if students trade essays ahead of time and spend class time talking through how to improve the drafts.  Give them targeted items to review for the most useful results.

Require students to incorporate the feedback you gave them on prior submissions.  You can do this by including a “summarize the feedback you received” assignment in Canvas. Make the assignment worth points.  The sad truth is that students need enticement to read your feedback.

Clarify Expectations

Exhausted by the work of deciphering fuzzy arguments? Tell student to write for lazy readers. Yes, we’re paid to read to the end of the essay, but students won’t always have that luxury.  Most readers resent hazy arguments and winding sentences. Students need to do the work of connecting all the dots in their document—that way the reader doesn’t have to.

It can help to talk about your response to a piece of writing as a reader.  Try this: “As a reader, I had to read the first paragraph three times to understand the purpose there.”  That’s a more understandable comment then the next-to-useless marginal note of “awkward!”

We know faculty want to see mechanically flawless writing. Research shows that an over-emphasis on mechanics disproportionally affects students from underrepresented backgrounds.  Be thoughtful about how you project your authority over a student’s writing.

All Etown students have access to grammar technology.  Tell students you expect them to use Editor or Spellcheck in Word.  Encourage—or require—reading the essay aloud before submitting it.  When you do see mechanical errors, consider how much grammar feedback that particular student can hear in that moment. One grammar tip at a time is probably plenty.

Most importantly, remind students to apply what they learned in EN100 to your course projects.  Tell them that writing-in-stages, responsible source use, and revision skills matter to you. They learned it already, but they need to hear it reinforced from you before they can master these skills.

Want tips about how to add a few simple, time-tested writing activities to improve the writing you grade?  Be in touch!

What is Microsoft Stream?

Join the Teaching and Learning Design Studio for a demonstration of Microsoft Stream, the video recording, storage, and streaming product that is part of Office 365. This 30-minute session will demonstrate how to upload a video and how to make a screen recording in Stream. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using Stream and we will have time for questions.

Microsoft Stream Demonstration
October 14 12:00-12:30  Nicarry 234
October 20 3:30-4:00  Nicarry 234

Celebrate World Teachers’ Day with Professional Development

Today we celebrate teachers around the globe, and acknowledge their contributions to improving the quality of life for learners everywhere. I am proud to be a teacher, and to help other teachers grow their skills to nurture the learning ecosystems we serve.

Introduced by UNESCO in 1994, World Teachers’ Day emphasizes not only the impact teachers make on the educational community, but also the issues affecting teachers as we endeavor to continue our good works.  The theme “Teachers at the Heart of Education Recovery” has been appropriately designated for this year’s observance; this theme focuses on the broad work we are doing to deliver quality learning experiences and to evolve teaching perspectives even through disruptive adversity.

With this idea in mind, the Etown Teaching and Learning Design Studio proudly announces the availability of a second in a series of fully online professional development courses designed to enrich your practice as a valued member of our faculty. Teaching Presence Across Modalities aims to help you feel more comfortable and confident in establishing your teaching presence across multiple modes of instructional delivery; designed by a learning scientist, this free course offers up-to-date practical knowledge and instructional techniques to utilize in your daily practice and gives you access to resources you can revisit and grow as you move forward in your teaching. This professional development experience will remain open through November 30; the first course in this series, Giving Feedback in the Online Environment, is still open for your participation until October 31.

Now is the perfect time to invest in yourself the way you invest in our students!

Happy World Teachers’ Day! Keep learning. ??❤️