Update on Fall 2020 Semester: Collaborative for Teaching Innovation and Faculty Forum
Dear Faculty and Staff of Academic Affairs,
Thank you to all those that participated in the Faculty “QuickStart Your Course Session” on Friday July 31st. It was great to see so many of you interacting and sharing your concerns and needs in preparation for the new academic year. My deepest thanks go to the Collaborative for Teaching Innovation leadership team (Dr. Carol Bunch-Davis, Dr. David Baca, Katie Slatton, and Laurissa Noack) and to Martha Lopez for a fantastic organization and engaging discussions. You input has helped identify areas of concern and interest that will guide our team in developing presentations/workshops that will be offered following the Faculty Forum (Aug 18, 9-11AM).
A quick overview of the inputs you all provided showed that the overwhelming majority of the comments focused on student engagement and using technology. The CTI team is thus planning on offering short 15-minute sessions, led by Quality Matters faculty, and that each of you can join to practice using a number of tools (e.g. using Zoom polls, iClickers, etc). Each faculty member will be able to participate in several such sessions back-to-back. After those sessions, we are planning to offer a 20-minute presentation from Daisey McCloud on stress management for faculty and students with a 10-minute Q & A session at the end. The CTI team will then offer closing comments to the workshop session.
It is my pleasure to announce the Faculty Liaisons who will work with other faculty and the office of Academic Affairs in support of a) faculty success in developing distance education solutions and b) student success in their learning experience. The first group is the Quality Matters Faculty who will offer support in online/distance education best practices to the rest of campus. The second group is the Faculty CTI Steering Committee who will support faculty relationships and dialogue about teaching across the institution, and foster teaching excellence in the service of student success.
Their names appear below. Please join me in thanking them for their commitment to your success as well as that of our students.
Quality Matters Faculty | Faculty CTI Steering Committee |
---|---|
Dr. Kathryn Falvo | Dr. Philip Brown |
Julie Garza Horne | Kelli Fertitta |
Adam Haney | Dr. Jens Figlus |
Amy Luna | Amy Luna |
Dr. Paul Potier | Dr. Adelaide Pangemanan |
Dr. Lin Qui | Dr. Ashley Ross |
Dr. Ashley Ross | Dr. Ching-Yun Suen |
Laura White |
The Collaborative for Teaching Innovation will host a Peer Practice Group for Zoom Features on Monday, August 17 from 10:00-11:00 AM. You will find the Zoom link below. This session provides:
- An overview of the eCampus Teaching Community of Practice which includes how-to videos and other technology guidance as well as campus, COVID and technology resources
- Peer practice sessions on Zoom features that enhance student engagement. These concurrent 15-minute sessions allow you to practice using tools including using document cameras, whiteboards, break out rooms, share screen and polls, among others with the guidance and support of Quality Matters Faculty Liaisons.
The second opportunity on Tuesday, August 18 from 11:00AM-12:30PM, immediately follows the Faculty Forum. It will offer:
- A presentation and discussion on Mental Health & Work/Life Balance led by the Office of Counseling Services
- Presentations and Demonstrations of Virtual Student Engagement practices including classroom community-building activities, using iClickers, and a demonstration of the new Early Alert system.
Please also know that Martha Lopez has updated the Keep Teaching eCampus open-ended site to include links to provide all faculty with the support they need and offer a collaborative space between TAMUG faculty, teaching assistants, Learning Commons, and IT staff. To access, go to https://ecampus.tamu.edu/, log in using your NetID and password (same as Howdy), and select "TAMUG Keep Teaching - Community of Practice" under your Organizations list. If you want to ask the community of faculty about good practices in teaching and learning, post your question in the "Ask our community" section. Alternatively, feel free to sign up in the Expert Directory if you want to share your knowledge with others.
As we prepare the Faculty Forum, please feel free to send any question to Cari Bishop-Smith you would like me to address during the Forum regarding the start of the semester or support the CTI team or other units could provide. Additionally, I would like to encourage you to start practicing early with the technology tools that you plan to use in your classroom. Our IT team has done an extraordinary work without break since the spring. They keep updating the Keep Teaching: Galveston page to focus on online teaching. In addition, resources to use classroom technologies can be found on the Department of Information Technology Teaching and Learning page HERE. Please understand that these professionals are under a lot of pressure to get all of our classrooms equipped to deliver content remotely and support the entire campus needs to function in both physical and virtual spaces simultaneously. Their small team is extremely spread thin so please plan ahead if you think you will need their help. We need them at their best and they need us to provide as much heads up on the services we need them to support.
I strongly encourage you to go in your Howdy portal and look at the roster of students. There you should see the proportion of students who opted to log onto your classes remotely (for the face to face classes). This will give you a good sense of how to support your classroom and to help students physically distance in the space. Do also know that all classrooms will have QR codes installed on desks for students to scan once they join settle in the room. This voluntary effort will help our campus support contact tracing in the event of any positive COVID-19 case among the students. Student Affairs will answer questions on the use of QR codes at the Faculty Forum.
Much work went on to prepare for this fall and it is now upon us. Our students are registering in greater numbers than we initially thought, our classes are being prepared for teaching face to face in as safe conditions as possible, we are all learning to function in a physically distant but socially connected way, and we are adapting to a situation that keeps evolving weekly, if not daily.
I am deeply grateful to all the staff of Academic Affairs and the rest of campus for working incessantly throughout the summer to bring in the new academic year as efficiently and successfully as we could have dreamed of. I am similarly grateful to all the Faculty for engaging all summer in our discussions and providing input on how to meet our mission of education and research, and of course for carrying that mission in spite of huge uncertainty and anxiety.
A heartful thank you to all of you for the community you are building to respond to the massive disruption the COVID pandemic has brought to our personal and professional lives.
I feel that we will be as ready as we will ever be to take on the challenge of the fall as it presents itself. Let the team in Academic Affairs know how we can help you do your work safely and efficiently.
Peace
Patrick