Every semester has a different vibe – and balancing what I’d like to offer to faculty with what the market will bear has been a learning curve. We have at least five large campus initiatives going on right now: ConnectEd, Teaching International, Evaluating the new Gen-ed prototypes, analyzing the viability of offering online courses on campus, and Women’s History Month. As much as possible, I try to weave offerings in to support these initiatives, but I also like to bring new things to campus as well… So it requires listening and watching to see what’s needed and what’s happening. And in the end to edit what’s possible using what’s likely as the measuring stick.
These are the projects that are emerging this semester:
- Fast Friends procedure with CAS 100 (Isaac Catt) and ESL 15 (Sheri Yoder)
- Course blog projects: COMM 205 (Eicher-Catt), ENGL 202 (Moore), blogs in research (Eicher-Catt)
- PASSHE virtual conference – Transforming the Teaching & Learning Environment – Feb 9-20. A 2-week virtual conference. Faculty can gather to watch sessions and/or watch from any location with an Internet connection.
- Grading Strategies cohort forming – exploring assessment strategies for the college classroom
- New technologies: Plickers! – Thanks to Walt Arnold for showing me another cool tool! Canvas demo. This list will grow as the session approaches
- We Listen – faculty workshop and ConnectEd activity – Developed and supported by Shivaani Selvaraj (PS Harrisburg) and Heather Hughes (ETS), We Listen is a program to build community through personal storytelling. In pairs, participants go through a reflective process and then create a video answering the question, “Can you please tell a story about how who you are impacts your daily life on the campus?” After the stories are gathered, there is a “listening event” for the campus community to hear the various stories from the campus. This program is incredibly flexible and has the potential to have a huge impact on campus life.
