Faculty Focus» Online Seminars

Universal Design: Five Steps to Make Your Course Accessible

Mary Bart — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:53:11 +0000

Get Answers to the Question: How can I make my course more accessible?

Universal Design: Five Steps to Make Your Course Accessible

The principles and practices of universal design can help eliminate barriers to learning by improving accessibility.

Online Seminar • Wednesday, July 31, 2013 • 1:00 p.m. Eastern • $349

Accessibility is not just about disability. Course accessibility is about increasing learning for any and all students. It is about inclusion and equality. Ultimately, it is about student success.

All courses can be accessible, and most instructors can improve access to their curricula simply by examining their assumptions and making slight modifications to methods and practices. This will improve outcomes for everyone. And that is the rationale behind universal design, the methodology by which instructors systematically increase the accessibility of their teaching.

Adopting universal design principles is easier than you might think. It doesn’t take large investments of time or tedious research. A few simple guidelines can help you evaluate your courses and pedagogy to ensure that all your students have the opportunity to perform optimally.

You can learn these universal design guidelines and how to apply them to your courses by attending Universal Design: Five Steps to Make Your Course Accessible, a Magna Online Seminar led by Elizabeth Harrison, PhD. Harrison is the director of the Office of Learning Resources (OLR) at the University of Dayton as well as the associate director of the Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center.

After participating in this seminar you will be able to:

Systematically evaluate courses to identify potential barriers to student learning or demonstration of learning
Identify two or three assumptions that could be barriers to learning
Determine what kind of learners might be challenged by those assumptions
Recognize three or four simple changes to make teaching more accessible
Understand how to implement those changes for immediate improvement

Lectures, exams, group work—you can make just about any course component more accessible once you know how to evaluate it.

Benefits of Attending

Participants will learn how to improve the accessibility of their courses and, correspondingly, the success of their students. All attendees will learn that:

Some assumptions about students and their learning can undermine the learning of all students, and especially students with disabilities
Small changes can eliminate large barriers to learning

Seminar participants will not only learn about the value of universal design and the need to improve accessibility; but they will finish with actual tools and tactics they can employ immediately. Specifically, seminar participants will take away:

Current universal design guidelines
A variety of protocols and strategies for incorporating guiding principles into courses

Cost to Attend and What’s Included

With our Online Seminar Package, you get access to the live event; plus on-demand access for 30 days, a copy of the recording on CD, the seminar transcript, and all the handouts and supplemental materials. All for $349.

Plus, you are welcome to invite as many people to the seminar as you wish. Many schools fill a meeting room, and then continue the conversation after the seminar concludes. For those who can’t make the live event, the on-demand and CD formats are great options for ensuring everyone gets a chance to participate in this important learning opportunity.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal website for unlimited access by the entire campus community

Intended Audience

Accessibility is an issue for everyone in higher education, and it clearly applies to all instructors at all types of postsecondary institutions.

The following professionals would particularly benefit from this seminar:

Faculty
Instructional designers
Faculty developers
Disability service providers
Learning center professionals
Administrators charged with or concerned about monitoring or improving accessibility

Register for Universal Design: Five Steps to Make Your Course Accessible and learn what you can do to create a more equitable learning environment for all students.

Efficient and Effective Feedback in the Online Classroom

Mary Bart — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:18:43 +0000

Learn how to Give Online Students Better Feedback in Less Time

Efficient and Effective Feedback in the Online Classroom

Detailed, specific feedback enhances student learning. It also helps boost morale, promote engagement, and encourage faculty-student connection. Unfortunately, it often consumes an inordinate amount of faculty time.

Online Seminar • Wednesday, July 24, 2013 • 1:00 pm Eastern • $349

B. Jean Mandernach, Ph.D., research professor and director of the Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching at Grand Canyon University, has developed a set of feedback strategies that reduces the burden on faculty, while ensuring a high level of engagement that contributes to students’ growth and learning. She shares those strategies in the upcoming seminar Efficient and Effective Feedback in the Online Classroom.

During this one-hour presentation, Dr. Mandernach illustrates how a combination of technology, time management, and teaching technique can result in a far less time-consuming feedback process that nevertheless produces strong gains in students’ cognitive understanding as well as in their sense of connection to the course and the instructor.

Topics covered

Efficient and Effective Feedback in the Online Classroom will introduce you to a set of tools and practices designed to help you create better feedback for your online students in far less time. Topics covered in this one-hour presentation include:

Using emergent technologies to streamline and even automate elements of feedback
Enhancing feedback’s impact through the use of both one-to-one and one-to-many methods
Employing priority-based time management strategies
Taking advantage of “feedforward” techniques to decrease the need for summative feedback
Creating banks of common feedback statements that can be drawn on for future assessments

Taken together, these innovative approaches will help you pare your workload, rebalance your priorities, and maintain a positive environment for teaching and learning.

Key Takeaways

This seminar will help you develop and deliver thoughtful, impactful feedback that:

Increases cognitive understanding of class material
Promotes student engagement
Boosts motivation and morale
Strengthens student-faculty connections

And you’ll learn to do it in less time, with less repetitive effort, and with greater satisfaction. In addition, you’ll come away from this seminar with a set of tools to help you more efficiently manage the feedback process. Those include:

Time-saving ways to use technology
Prioritization strategies to balance demands on your time
Alternate feedback approaches that enhance learning while reducing instructor workload
Productivity-boosting ways to repurpose existing feedback statements

Cost to Attend and What’s Included

Intended Audience

The insights provided in Efficient and Effective Feedback in the Online Classroom will be valuable for higher ed professionals at any institution, two-year or four-year, public or private.

We especially recommend it for:
Online faculty. By streamlining the feedback process, faculty can take greater control of their workloads and better allocate their time among pedagogical priorities. This seminar will be equally helpful for new faculty members, veterans, and adjuncts.

Online course developers. Building the seminar’s efficient feedback methods into course design can benefit every online instructor.

Faculty development professionals. Sharing these time-saving tools with faculty can help them prioritize their work responsibilities, free up time for professional development, and increase their job satisfaction.

Administrators of online programs. Implementing Dr. Mandernach’s recommendations at the program level can create efficiencies institution wide and produce measurable increases in productivity.

Effective feedback is a critical component of the learning process – and for online students especially, it also serves an important role in keeping them motivated and engaged. This online seminar will help you give better feedback in less time.

Creating Faculty Learning Communities: 16 Recommendations

Mary Bart — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:53:53 +0000

Faculty Learning Communities Work to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Creating Faculty Learning Communities: 16 Recommendations

Faculty Learning Communities go beyond the common faculty development opportunities. These small, multidisciplinary groups bring about important teaching and learning enhancements and can have a profound effect on the culture of an institution.

Online Seminar • Tuesday, June 11, 2013 • 1:00 pm Eastern • $349

The work of instruction at many institutions of higher learning is a largely solitary endeavor. Teachers design their own courses, select their own texts, and teach their classes with few opportunities for collaborating other educators.

With Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs), faculty have the opportunity to work in a small, multidisciplinary groups for an in-depth and intensive exploration of an important issue or topic in teaching and learning. Studies show that faculty members who engage in Faculty Learning Communities see:

Improved student learning and engagement
Increased attainment of tenure
Greater civic involvement by their fellow faculty members

If you are thinking about starting a Faculty Learning Community, the online seminar Creating Faculty Learning Communities: 16 Recommendations explains how to successfully design and implement FLCs in your institution. The seminar will be led by Milton D. Cox, PhD, Founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching, and University Assessment at Miami University, Ohio, and co-editor of the book, Building Faculty Learning Communities.

Topics Covered

Creating Faculty Learning Communities: 16 Recommendations offers a comprehensive overview of the practical considerations involved in establishing and operating a successful FLC. Get answers to questions such as:

What social considerations make this a community, not just a committee?
How can you obtain and maintain member commitment?
How can your FLC assess the three key areas of impact?
How can your FLC maintain professional standards with an evidence-based approach?
How can a blended meeting structure enhance your community?
How can you tailor FLC plans to meet the specific needs of your group or institution?

Intended Audience

Creating Faculty Learning Communities: 16 Recommendations is valuable for not only faculty members but also for the successful learning communities that grow in all corners of higher education institutions. Anyone with an interest in faculty development will find this online seminar helpful. Specific personnel to invite include:

Faculty (regardless of discipline and rank)
Academic staff
Directors
Central administrators
Teaching and Learning Center directors and staff

Cost to Attend and What’s Included

Because of the effectiveness of Faculty Learning Communities, thousands of colleges and universities have made them an integral part of their faculty development plans. Take advantage of an excellent opportunity to explore FLCs. Register today for this enlightening online seminar led by one of the most respected voices on the topic.

A Model for Teaching Large Blended Classes

Mary Bart — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:56:03 +0000

Understanding the benefits of blended learning

A Model for Teaching Large Blended Classes

Blended courses, when executed skillfully, can create a better learning experience for students while also meeting the needs of the institution for scalability and academic rigor.

The challenge of designing and teaching a blended class is deciding what content pieces are best delivered in a live classroom versus those that can be delivered more effectively using technology. If you simply add new media and technologies at random to a traditional classroom format without understanding the unique properties of each, you can easily end up with confused and disengaged students and unhappy instructors.

Besides the challenges inherent in blended learning, there are external constraints as well. For example, student populations are expanding, while budgets are shrinking; therefore, effective blended curricula must take into account a need for both scalability and low cost — all the while ensuring a positive learning experience.

Even so, research shows that the skilled blending of these two different pedagogies yields measurably improved outcomes: increased engagement, higher retention, and accelerated mastery, to name a few.

In the online seminar A Model for Teaching Large Blended Classes, you will gain the skills you need to adapt the blended learning model to your own courses. This seminar goes beyond discussing theory and focuses on demonstrating how blending has worked in classroom settings.

Watch a brief clip from the program:

Topics covered

During this seminar, Jill Schiefelbein, an experienced online educator, demonstrates and explains her successful work with blended course design so that you can see how to apply it in your classroom. You will:

Evaluate a successful, scalable blended course model
Assess an existing business communication course as a case study
Review a checklist to use for the development of a blended course
Receive a checklist for faculty development in blended learning
Help students understand the blended model to maximize positive outcomes

Benefits of blended learning

Research reveals a wealth of studies demonstrating the benefits of blended learning, including:

Making the best use of limited classroom resources and space
Spurring increased student engagement, collaboration, and participation
Fully addressing the needs of all three key constituencies—students, faculty, and administrators
Increasing student success, satisfaction, and retention
Earning better course evaluations
Gaining valuable feedback for improvement via analytics

Key takeaways

This seminar emphasizes practical strategies that are grounded in results. When the session is finished you will have the tools you need to apply the blended learning model to your teaching. These include:

Specific techniques for using both teaching channels effectively
A clear understanding of “scalability” and how to achieve it
A path for selecting head faculty for blended courses
Rubrics to help faculty manage TA/FA relations
Outlines for building your own versions at your institution
A “next steps” guide to assist in applying the lessons from the seminar
Sample documents, screenshots, and checklists

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Who will benefit

If your institution is like most, you will be accommodating more students but will have fewer resources in coming years. The blended model may well be an important part of the solution. Therefore, virtually anyone involved in teaching, instructional design, or administration can benefit from this online seminar. We suggest inviting the following audience:

Faculty
Instructors
Instructional designers
TAs
Department chairs

How Recent Copyright Court Cases Affect Distance Education

Mary Bart — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:05:57 +0000

Learn how to establish policies to assure copyright compliance

How Recent Copyright Court Cases Affect Distance Education

Distance learning continues to transform academia and copyright law is one of the few higher ed issues that’s evolving just as quickly. But have your digital classroom practices outgrown the limits of the law?

There was a time when most of us assumed that the words “fair use” were all we needed to know about copyright law. Those days are gone. Recent court cases have resulted in a new understanding of complex concepts such as “transformative use.”

Learn how to bring your copyright policy into compliance with current case law in How Recent Copyright Court Cases Affect Distance Education, a Magna Online Seminar led by Linda Enghagen, an attorney and a professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Enghagen has published widely on copyright law and is well known for her ability to explain legal concepts in clear, straightforward terms.

In this seminar, you’ll learn the answers to real-life questions, such as whether it’s legal to digitize books for students with disabilities and what it means to “repurpose” a copyright-protected work. Through a review of best practices in fair use, including distribution of course material and assignment design, this seminar shows you how to establish and implement policies to assure copyright compliance.

Watch a brief clip from the program:

Topics Covered

After participating in How Recent Copyright Court Cases Affect Distance Education, you can be confident about distributing materials and assignments in your program’s distance courses. You’ll come away with practical information you can employ right away to simplify course design and prevent potential legal complications.

In short, the seminar will help you:

Develop a working understanding of the transformative use doctrine
Gain insights on the common ground between transformative uses and fair use
Learn practical strategies for employing the transformative use doctrine in course design and delivery
Develop a working knowledge of best practices in fair use
Understand best practices for developing course content that meets current copyright compliance standards

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Intended Audience

Whether you’re new to the complexities of copyright or a seasoned practitioner, if your institution uses an online learning management system, you need to be up to date on the ins and outs of copyright compliance. Making sure your policies are in line with recent court decisions supports distance education in online and blended courses and reduces the risk of future complications.

How Recent Copyright Court Cases Affect Distance Education is suitable for participants at all levels. Individuals in the following positions will find it particularly helpful:

Distance education administrators
Faculty
Instructional designers
Librarians

You won’t find a more comprehensive or accessible way to get the information you need in order to protect your program and avoid potential penalties.

Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Civic Engagement

Mary Bart — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:53:45 +0000

Learn How Civic Engagement Enhances Learning in Every Subject

Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Civic Engagement

Instructors are finding that when students get to anchor their classroom activities in a real-life experiences, learning and engagement improves.

We are all hearing a lot these days about how colleges and universities must get serious about educating future generations of citizens who are committed to tackling society’s most pressing problems. And today’s students do want to make a difference in the world—indeed, they feel personally responsible for doing so.

But the question is, with so much to teach and so little time, “How can classrooms take on the burden of yet one more social challenge?”

There is substantial evidence that there is a positive relationship between civic engagement and student success. Students who are actively engaged with peers in addressing important issues are more likely to stay in school, earn degrees, pursue postsecondary education, and become actively engaged citizens in the future.

Civic engagement is educationally effective because students who actively apply their knowledge to real-world situations learn more academic content while also developing higher-order skills. In addition, civic engagement increases students’ interpersonal effectiveness, their ability to collaborate across diverse perspectives, and their sense of self-efficacy to make a positive difference in the world.

During the online seminar Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Civic Engagement Barbara Jacoby, Ph.D. shows you how high-quality courses that incorporate civic knowledge and skills actually improve learning. This is true of all subject matter, even the “hard disciplines” like mathematics, science, and engineering.

Topics Covered

Dr. Jacoby covers a range of pertinent and practical topics:

How students learn more effectively through civic engagement
How you can incorporate civic engagement material across the broad scope of curriculum
Important considerations in course design that involve civic learning and engagement
Using your particular discipline’s knowledge base to address social issues
Engaging pedagogies that impart important civic, career, and life skills
The role of critical thinking, collaboration, and creative problem-solving
Actual examples of existing courses that involve civic learning and engagement
Preparing students to be engaged citizens, scholars, and leaders in their communities, their professions, and the world
The latest news from Washington on civic engagement

You will find the content compelling and useful, full of practical tools for better teaching.

Civic engagement isn’t a frivolous embellishment added to soften hard subjects. You will learn how to skillfully integrate civic engagement with your core content, so that the learning and retention of the core subject matter actually improves. Far from being a burden, civic engagement woven into your curriculum enhances the learning process.

Benefits of Watching

There are ultimately several benefits from this seminar for you (and your students):

Civic engagement and civic literacy enhance learning in all disciplines
Integrating current issues and events increases the relevancy of course content
Critical reflection helps students grapple with the social questions inherent in a given discipline
Students learn to use the discipline’s knowledge base to address critical social issues
Implementation of engaging pedagogies fosters a more effective learning environment

Key Takeaways

Participants will come away from this online seminar with:

Tools for assessing the level of civic learning and engagement in existing curricula
Steps for integrating civic learning and engagement into a course
Pedagogical techniques to help students perform critical reflection and active learning to achieve desired learning outcomes
Knowledge of how to include ongoing courses and programs such as study abroad, learning communities, and internships that will enhance learning

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Intended Audience

We recommend Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Civic Engagement for faculty and administrators from all types of learning institutions. Civic engagement has its greatest impact when it is woven across branches of learning. Specific position titles include:

Faculty in all disciplines
Department chairs
Deans/associate deans/assistant deans
Directors/assistant directors of centers for teaching and learning
Directors/assistant directors/coordinators of centers for civic engagement or service-learning

Far from being fluff or padding, civic engagement programs build better communities and also improve educational outcomes in every discipline — from the humanities to STEM courses. We invite you to order your copy of Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Civic Engagement and see how civic engagement can enrich your courses.

Legal Issues for Faculty: How Not to Get Sued

Mary Bart — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:10:18 +0000

The college classroom has become a legal minefield

Legal Issues for Faculty: How Not to Get Sued

Getting sued shouldn’t be a rite of passage like earning a Ph.D. or making tenure. Yet even well-intentioned and highly ethical instructors can unwittingly expose themselves to legal liability when they follow outdated policies or fail to stay apprised of changing laws, rules, and regulations.

No institution is immune; it can happen anywhere, and lawsuits can involve most anything. The University of California at Berkeley was sued over its Code of Conduct. A Western Nebraska Community College professor was accused of inappropriate assignments, and an Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor was accused of bullying. And the issue at the University of Oregon? Gender bias.

Even sending out grades over email can lead to legal trouble.

If it sounds like campus has become a legal minefield, that’s because it has. It’s time to get proactive and register for Legal Issues for Faculty: How Not to Get Sued, an online seminar led by Deborah Gonzalez, Esq., founder of Law2sm, and Rob Jenkins, associate professor at Georgia Perimeter College.

While it is impossible to prevent all lawsuits, you can learn how to sidestep many of them and safeguard yourself and your institution by staying abreast of the most pressing issues facing campuses today. Fortunately, you don’t have to pore over court cases and law journals to find out what those issues are.

After watching this seminar, you will:

Have a working knowledge of the relevant laws pertaining to higher education
Recognize the limits of academic freedom and free speech
Be conversant in FERPA, ADA, IRB, and other important acronyms
Understand how to comply with FERPA and ADA guidelines
Understand the concept of educational malpractice
Recognize the potential repercussions of behavior toward students in and out of the classroom
Understand the legal ramifications of assessment and evaluation
Understand the proper uses and limitations of technology and social media in the classroom and on campus
Know how to avoid involving yourself or your institution in career-damaging, reputation-destroying, and expensive litigation

Key Takeaways

Laws, behaviors, and expectations change over time. Strategies and policies that were prudent and safe 10 years ago—maybe even five years ago—might expose you to lawsuits today. It is imperative that you understand the current legal landscape. This seminar will update you on pertinent laws and help you recognize the potential repercussions of certain behaviors, all with one goal in mind: to help you avoid getting sued. The seminar will include time for Q&A so we encourage you to bring any questions you may have and the presenters will answer them.

You will finish the seminar:

With a solid awareness of current legal issues in higher education
Ready to make necessary changes to policies and immediate changes to practices so you can avoid lawsuits

Intended Audience

Any faculty member can find herself or himself in legal hot water. Any administrator can invite a lawsuit targeting himself and his institution. It doesn’t matter if your school is large or small, public or private, two-year or four-year—everyone is at risk of lawsuits. That means just about anyone on campus can benefit from learning more about current legal risks and ways to avoid them, including:

Faculty members
Staff members (especially those who work directly with students)
Department chairs
Upper-level administrators

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Motivating Students: From Apathetic to Inspired

Mary Bart — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:56:17 +0000

Get strategies to help improve student motivation and engagement

Motivating Students: From Apathetic to Inspired

Modern learners have a different mind-set about education, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn. They just go about it differently. Join us to learn what teaching strategies and tools resonate with today’s students.

In a perfect world, all of your students would take your classes because they wanted to, not because they had to. They would arrive early with readings done and assignments completed. They would contribute to discussions and pose compelling questions. They would be completely present; never dozing off, peeking at text messages, or surfing the web during class.

But in the real world, there are students who don’t seem to make much of an effort to prepare, participate, or even show up. Their apathy is palpable, and it shows in their work and in your evaluations.

Take the mystery out of student motivation

Educational psychologists have identified reliable and replicable ways to overcome student apathy and disinterest, and you can learn all about them in Motivating Students: From Apathetic to Inspired. This one-hour video program explains how even small changes to your course design and instructional methodology can better engage students and foster accountability. You will explore evidence-based strategies to help you create a learning environment that increases student motivation, interest, and success.

Any instructor can learn how to elicit better student behavior. You just need the right information and the right tools. Get both in Motivating Students: From Apathetic to Inspired.

Led by Christy Price, EdD, a professor of psychology at Dalton State College, this seminar explains the practical steps you can take to:

Increase student participation
Apply educational psychology discoveries to your own teaching methods
Assess whether current course designs and assessments align with research findings
Improve student preparedness
Incorporate new instructional tools and methods that better motivate Millennial learners
Boost student attendance

While nothing guarantees that you’ll never face another blank stare from a student in the second row, you can minimize student apathy by making some high-impact changes to your teaching style and tools.

The recording of this seminar is now available on CD. You also will receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Who will benefit

Whether you work at a two-year, four-year, public, or private institution, this seminar is invaluable to any instructor in any discipline. Student support professionals and administrators will also find the information relevant.

Blended Learning Toolkit: Design, Deliver, Assess

Mary Bart — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:41:07 +0000

Learn best practices in blended learning course design

Blended Learning Toolkit: Design, Deliver, Assess

More and more faculty are “taking the plunge” into blended learning; delivering anywhere between 30 and 80 percent of the course content online. It’s a successful instructional model that’s proven popular among faculty and students alike.

If you’re wondering whether your courses could evolve into blended ones – and more important, how you’d go about it – we urge you to spend an hour in a special online seminar presented by Thomas B. Cavanagh, PhD.

In Blended Learning Toolkit: Design, Deliver, Assess, Dr. Cavanagh helps you determine the opportunities for online learning in your classes, and outline a methodology for developing them. You’ll learn:

Which course elements are most suitable to bring online
How much to bring online
Sound strategic planning for course design and delivery
How to establish data collection and assessment protocols

Dr. Cavanagh also shares course models in algebra and composition, and introduce you to an online “Blended Learning Toolkit” you can rely on for guidance throughout the process of creating, delivering and fine-tuning your blended learning courses. Funded by a Next Generation Learning Challenge Wave 1 grant, the Toolkit is a collaboration between the University of Central Florida and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

At the conclusion of the hour, you’ll not only have greater confidence about making the move to blended learning, but a clear understanding of the right way to approach it, the best practices for content delivery, and the most meaningful methods of assessment and improvement.

Topics covered

Adding online elements to traditional coursework can be an exhilarating, career-broadening process. That is, unless you get in over your head … in which case the experience can be decidedly less positive, for everyone involved.

Blended Learning Toolkit: Design, Deliver, Assess provides critical insights on blended learning, delivered by one of higher education’s leading authorities on the subject so you can make a smooth entry into the blended classroom.

In a content-rich 60 minutes, the presenter:

Addresses perennial questions about what—and how much—should be online
Provides strategies for course design and delivery
Shares course models in algebra and composition
Examines assessment and data collection protocols
Introduces you to an online Blended Learning Toolkit to help you throughout the course creation process

You’ll come away with the tools — and the confidence — to begin integrating online elements into your coursework. Don’t miss this important look at best practices in blended learning.

The recording of this seminar is now available on CD. You also will receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Intended audience

Blended Learning Toolkit: Design, Deliver, Assess is essential for any faculty member seeking to introduce online elements to coursework. It will also be of interest to instructional designers, instructional technologists and distance learning administrators.

Gamification: Applying Game Principles to Your Teaching

Mary Bart — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:45:18 +0000

Discover what games can teach us about learning

Gamification: Applying Game Principles to Your Teaching

If you have heard about game-based learning but haven’t identified best practices for implementing it, you might be missing a unique opportunity to engage your students.

“Edutainment” products have long tried to harness the “fun” quotient of games and video games for teaching. However, many educators struggle to employ the concepts of gamification in an educational setting, and they are finding out it can pose more distraction than discovery.

The principles that underpin successful games (display progress, maximize competition, calibrate difficulty carefully, provide diversions and employ narrative elements) can be used to transform student learning. You can use these principles in all types of classes to create an educational experience that contains the best of both worlds: a game-based overlay without the technical distractions.

Learn the fundamentals of game-based learning by ordering Gamification: Applying Game Principles to Your Teaching. Led by Kevin Yee, PhD, Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning Excellence at the University of South Florida, this one-hour session teaches you to use the concepts involved in successful games while providing practical ideas for translating those principles to your classroom or learning management system.

Topics covered

This online seminar addresses practical ways you can apply gaming theory to enhance the learning experience you provide to your students. By the end of the session you will be able to:

Identify the five principles of gamification
Develop strategies to translate these concepts into action in a face-to-face class, a learning management system (LMS), or an online class
Adjust curricular designs to take full advantage of gamification elements
Wrap the gamification elements around a central location such as an LMS
Locate resources to assist you

Games are not just play. Gamification: Applying Game Principles to Your Teaching will explain how the concepts that underpin successful games can transform a college class even without actual digital games.

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Intended audience

Gamification’s unique approach to teaching will help faculty at two-year and four-year higher education institutions conceive of learning in a completely new way. We suggest inviting the following members of your faculty:

Professors
Associate and assistant professors
Lecturers and instructors
Graduate teaching assistants

Press start

Game-based learning helps teachers engage students by transforming the educational environment and puts students on a path to mastery. Order Gamification: Applying Game Principles to Your Teaching today.

Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course

Mary Bart — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:28:47 +0000

Learn instructional design strategies for teaching a capstone course

Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course

They spend four years taking the courses they need to earn a diploma. But are your students ready to put into action what they learned?

Capstone courses are a powerful tool to ensure that students synthesize all the disparate materials they’ve studied so that they can launch into new endeavors and tackle complex problems in graduate school, their careers and life.

The online seminar, Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course, will walk you through a six-step process so that your capstone courses offer your students an invaluable integrative experience right before graduation.

This seminar is led by Barbara Jacoby, PhD. Dr. Jacoby teaches a high-impact capstone course at the University of Maryland, College Park and, as capstone courses have become increasingly popular at all types of colleges and universities, she has advised faculty around the country about how to develop a capstone course to meet their students’ needs.

Watch a brief clip from the seminar

Learning goals

Help your students make the most of everything they’ve learned in and out of the classroom with Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course, a 60-minute Magna Online Seminar.

You’ll learn how to:

Identify and articulate desired learning outcomes for a capstone course
Select a course model to enable students to achieve learning outcomes
Develop guidelines for student projects
Design opportunities and engage students in critical reflection
Determine assessment strategies and criteria
Showcase student achievements
Tackle administrative and financial issues related to implementing capstone courses

In addition, you will receive questions for further discussion and self-assessment, blank versions of worksheets, and other materials to help sustain the seminar’s value as you forge ahead with your own capstone courses.

This seminar is now available on CD. The recording includes the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Intended audience

Capstone courses are as relevant to technical colleges as they are to large universities, and this seminar will offer value to faculty in all disciplines as well as to department chairs, deans, provosts, and directors of centers for teaching and learning.

A senior experience that ties it all together

Capstone courses can cement the value of your students’ educational investments, and this benefits both students and academic institutions. Learn how to do capstones the right way right away by ordering Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course today.

The Flipped Approach to a Learner-Centered Class

Mary Bart — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:15:25 +0000

Getting started with the flipped classroom

The Flipped Approach to a Learner-Centered Class

When you deliver foundational content outside the classroom and then use class time to clarify concepts and help students apply what they’ve learned – that’s a flipped classroom.

Flipping the learning experience, however, is about more than pre-class lectures. Effective flips involve two key elements.

First, you need to structure lesson plans to shift focus from content delivery to student engagement.

The flip has most commonly been defined as a classroom where students watch prerecorded lectures outside of class and then complete homework during class time. However, the flip can mean so much more than this.

In many learning environments in higher education, the instructor directs the energy toward his or her lecture. Planning typically starts with the question “What am I going to talk about?” In a flipped environment, this structure is reversed. The instructor directs the energy toward his or her students. Planning starts with the question “What do the students need to do?” This fundamental shift changes the whole dynamic of the learning environment.

Watch a brief clip from the seminar:

Second, you need to use your classroom skills effectively to help students transform inert content into mastered material.

By flipping the focus of the learning environment from “teacher centered” to “learner centered,” you create an environment that engages students, enhances learning, and creates an exciting classroom atmosphere. You move from being the “sage on the stage” to being a “guide on the side.” Many educators are quick to realize that the “flip” is really just a different way to talk about student-centered learning.

However, no matter what you call the approach, moving from a lecture-based class to a flipped class requires a new set of skills. In order to do it well, you need to shift the way you design your class and implement your teaching strategies to ensure that the learning environment is successful. You can have the most creative assignments, the latest technology, and the most organized plan, but unless you have the skills to implement that plan, the flipped learning environment fails.

The flip is more than just a fad. It’s reinvigorating learning (and teaching) in thousands of classrooms. Discover how The Flipped Approach to a Learner-Centered Class can help make learning more fun and more effective for everyone involved. Order a copy of this helpful seminar.

Topics Covered

In this online workshop you will learn:

An expanded definition of what it means to flip a learning environment
How to analyze a flipped lesson plan to help your students engage in higher-level learning
To identify the skills you need to develop so you can create a successful flipped experience for you and your students

A Powerful Learning Experience

Led by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D., director of graduate teaching programs at North Carolina State University, this seminar will give you practical guidance on the planning and skill-building required to successfully flip a classroom. You will:

Participate in a flipped learning experience modeled for you on video – including a discussion of what worked and what can be improved
Collaboratively analyze each piece of a simplified lesson plan to recognize flippable moments
Discover ways to flip your existing lesson plan(s)
Identify the skills you need to develop to effectively manage the classroom part of the experience
Generate ways to engage students through effective questioning and discussion strategies
Receive a list of additional resources and articles to continue your professional development in designing effective learning environments

Key Takeaways

The greatest value of any educational experience lies in what you take away and actually use. This online seminar uses a collaborative environment to show you:

How to structure a lesson plan as a flipped learning experience
How to bring life to old lesson plans through flipping
A selection of flipped techniques to apply to your own classes
How to assess your skills to make the most of a flipped lesson plan
How to introduce students to the flipped environment on the first day of class
Recommended professional development opportunities for you and for others in your department who are interested in flipping

This seminar is now available on-demand or on CD. Whichever format you choose, you’ll also receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Who Will Benefit

This seminar is for anyone who wants practical guidance on how to flip their own classes.

New and experienced faculty
Faculty developers
Adjunct faculty and instructors
Advanced graduate students

Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking

Mary Bart — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:39:50 +0000

Get Course Design Strategies for Teaching Large Classes

Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking

How do we ever find time to teach students how to think when there is so much information they need to know? It’s a common conundrum in entry-level general education courses that cover a wide swath of disciplinary material.

Maybe the answer to better student learning is to start from your desired destination and work backward. In other words, stop trying to cover all that content and start focusing on the kind of thinking you really want to see in your students. That’s the idea behind Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking.

Applying Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s concept of “backward design” to general education courses shifts course design from disciplinary content to disciplinary thinking. Content becomes a raw material, a tool for exploring the key ways of constructing knowledge that constitute disciplinary modes of thinking, rather than an end in itself. Assessments then focus on applying course content to authentic questions and problems within the discipline. Students will apply their knowledge, not just memorize it, and instructors will know whether students have mastered disciplinary concepts.

Watch a brief clip from the seminar

Learning goals
Explore this revolutionary approach to general education instruction in Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking, a 60-minute Magna Online Seminar.

This seminar explains how to:

Use a backward design process to develop or revise a course
Identify ways of thinking and constructing knowledge that are appropriate for a disciplinary general education course
Refocus course design—including classroom activities, assignments, and assessments—on disciplinary thinking rather than on coverage

There really isn’t anything backward about backward design. In fact, it is a powerful tool that can help you clarify your learning goals, bring your assignments and exams into alignment with these goals, and better use classroom activities to cultivate the student learning that you value most.

Going beyond coverage
Your presenters for this seminar are David Voelker, Ph.D., an associate professor of humanistic studies and history at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, and Joel Sipress, Ph.D., a professor of history and chair of the interdisciplinary Department of Social Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin–Superior. Their essay “The End of the History Survey Course: The Rise and Fall of the Coverage Model,” which appeared in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of American History, won the 2012 Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning Award.

During the seminar, Voelker and Sipress not only explore what backward design is but use case studies to show how it transforms courses and improves student learning. Participants get to walk through the backward design process to see how resetting learning goals and modifying in-class activities and assessments can enable them to push beyond content and into disciplinary thinking—regardless of the discipline.

Takeaways
Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking also includes an outline of the backward design process and a set of self-assessment questions to help faculty evaluate current backward design strategies, teach disciplinary thinking, and align classroom activities, assessments, and learning goals.

Voelker and Sipress also share a sample learning goals matrix, classroom activities, and assessments, all of which are geared toward promoting disciplinary thinking.

Who will benefit
These are issues salient to any undergraduate higher education setting where students must meet general education requirements. Those who will benefit from participating in this seminar include:

Instructors
Instructional designers
Department heads
Anyone concerned with improving student learning

This seminar is now available on-demand or on CD. Whichever format you choose, you’ll also receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Order today
You don’t have to get through all the content before you can start teaching disciplinary thinking. Backward design takes you straight where you want to go with student learning. Order Beyond Coverage: Backward Design for Disciplinary Thinking today and learn how to put it to work in your courses.

Perfecting the Blend: Designing Blended Course Interactions

Mary Bart — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:04:56 +0000

Learn how to Enhance Student Engagement in Blended Courses

Perfecting the Blend: Designing Blended Course Interactions

It takes one set of skills to engage students in a traditional classroom setting. It takes another set to make the most of an online learning environment. How can one faculty member make the most of a blended course that combines elements of both?

Ideally, a blended course will merge the strengths of each teaching-learning format seamlessly, creating multiple opportunities for student involvement and interaction in different settings. Achieving this ideal, however, requires conscious and deliberate planning.

It also requires updated knowledge of the best blended course design strategies and interaction principles.

Discover the newest, research-based techniques for improving blended courses in Perfecting the Blend: Designing Blended Course Interactions, a live online seminar featuring Dr. Kelvin Thompson and Dr. Susan Wegmann.

Watch a brief clip from the seminar

Topics covered
This online seminar covers everything you need to know in order to maximize student engagement in a blended class, including:

Designing interactions that support seamlessly integrated blended courses
Marshaling students’ reasons for contributing to course interactions
Increasing student engagement in the classroom and online
Understanding why you must address interaction during the course design phase
Fostering student-student and teacher-student interaction
Implementing optimal blended design strategies
Overcoming design and implementation challenges
Creating ideal interaction opportunities in both teaching formats
Collecting in-depth data for evaluation purposes

The presenters also draw upon and introduce the SCOPe process for evaluating blended learning engagement and includes sample course design documents to support improvements at your school, while giving you the opportunity to participate in illustrative interactive activities and ask questions.

Presenters
In a field as new as blended coursework, it’s hard to find specialists with years of proven experience. For this professional development event, we’ve located two of the best.

Dr. Kelvin Thompson, assistant director of the University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning, has collaborated on the design of hundreds of blended courses during his career. He developed the BlendKit Course open courseware as part of UCF’s Blended Learning Toolkit, and his research agenda focuses on how interaction affects learner engagement.

Dr. Susan Wegmann, associate professor at UCF, focuses her research on online asynchronous communication and is currently writing an online book that harnesses Web 2.0 technology for added interaction. She has extensive experience designing effective interactions in face-to-face and online contexts.

Who will benefit
Perfecting the Blend: Designing Blended Course Interactions is appropriate for all levels of faculty members—teaching assistants, instructors, lecturers, adjuncts, and tenure-track and tenured professors—regardless of their current amount of experience with blended learning.

It is also recommended for instructional designers, faculty developers, and instructional/educational technologists.

This seminar is now available on-demand or on CD. Whichever format you choose, you’ll also receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Blended course designs have the potential to yield tremendous interactive benefits … but only if you know how to design and implement them effectively. Make the most of your blended courses by ordering a copy of this professional development event today.

Generate Deeper Learning through Digital Storytelling

Mary Bart — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:31:37 +0000

Digital storytelling is a powerful learning experience for students. This seminar uses examples to demonstrate the essential elements of teaching digital storytelling and how it can be applied to different fields. Your presenter will show you the steps for developing and implementing a digital storytelling lesson plan, as well as how to assess the outcomes of student storytelling.

Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students

Mary Bart — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:52:49 +0000

Infusing Lecture Courses with Active Learning Strategies

Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students

If you’re growing tired of lecturing, imagine how your students feel. After all, you aren’t the only instructor they have. Your students would probably welcome a change of pace as much as you would.

Every semester you’re faced with a daunting task. You have to deliver an entire course of material to a new group of students of varying abilities and academic backgrounds. They have to meet your expectations to earn satisfactory grades, and you have to meet theirs to earn positive evaluations. It’s a two-way street, and there’s a lot riding on what happens in the classroom. How can your students learn all that you expect them to learn if you’re not the one telling them what they need to know?

The reality is, you don’t have to rely so heavily on the lecture to deliver course material. No one is saying to get rid of lectures altogether. Rather, the idea is to infuse your lectures with active-learning strategies. And when you break up the monotony with student-focused exercises, activities, and questions, your students respond with increased participation and better comprehension.

The list of options for breaking up a lecture is long and varied. Learn easy ways to incorporate active learning into your courses by attending Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students.

Dr. Alice Cassidy leads this hour-long seminar that will give you the inspiration and ideas you need to refresh your course delivery. An expert on active and participatory learning, Cassidy uses real-world problems and examples, narrative, and visual tools to drive home the value and ease of turning students into learning partners.

After watching Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students, you will be prepared to:

Turn readings into active student engagement tools
Immediately incorporate student feedback into course materials to better reflect the needs of each class
Turn student questions into whole-class learning opportunities
Improve learning by leveraging student presentations, field trips, and other class activities

Infusing active learning doesn’t require a total course redesign. In Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students, Cassidy delivers approaches that you can adapt and adopt right away. You’ll quickly realize that you don’t have to work more to help students learn more.

This seminar is now available on-demand or on CD. Whichever format you choose, you’ll also receive the complete transcript and all supplemental materials.

Lectures are still a valuable pedagogical tool, but sometimes lectures are more effective when you use them a little less often and intersperse them with some other tools and techniques. Even slightly shifting the balance of classes can lead to better outcomes for students and, ultimately, better evaluations for you.

Who will benefit

University, college, and other post-secondary instructors
Educational and faculty developers

We know that you don’t need a lecture about the value of active learning. What you do need are simple, accessible, and proven approaches that are adaptable to your teaching style and don’t require major revisions to your courses. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in Lecture Alternatives: Four Strategies to Engage Students.

How to Implement Brain-Based Learning Strategies in Your Courses

Mary Bart — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:46:05 +0000

If you think brain science isn’t part of your teaching job description, think again. Teachers deal with the neurochemistry behind student learning processes whether they want to or not. In this interactive presentation participants will gain basic knowledge of brain function with respect to learning. They will see how current teaching strategies address some of the neuroanatomical processes and how fundamental knowledge of brain structure can improve teaching strategies.

Avoid Legal Pitfalls in Faculty Evaluation, Promotion & Tenure

Mary Bart — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:43:27 +0000

Accidental discrimination, incorrect processes and legal retaliation can cause administrators to feel as much pressure as the faculty member up for evaluation. Learn what you can and cannot do during faculty evaluations, what the consequences may be following a negative evaluation and what academic freedom really means.

Managing Instructor Presence in the Online Classroom

Mary Bart — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 21:28:27 +0000

Teaching is a knowledge business – but it’s also a relationship business. To teach students, you have to reach them. That can be a big challenge in the online classroom. So how do you project yourself, and develop the teacher-student connections that facilitate learning? Dr. Lawrence Ragan and Dr. Kimberly Eke, two of the most respected figures in distance learning, will share strategies for doing just that.

Nine Essential Traits of the Effective Professor

Mary Bart — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:01:44 +0000

This 60-minute seminar will not only tell you what today’s students believe are the most essential qualities for effective teaching, but it will also prepare you to make simple and sometimes subtle changes to incorporate or develop practices and traits that resonate with students. The result? Improved academic outcomes and better course evaluations.