In this session the academic misconduct trends faculty are seeing online and in person with their students are discussed. Additionally, there is a discussion on how to identify and address these common violations while maintaining a productive instructor/student relationship.  View

In this seminar, college faculty gains insight into how to respond to disruptive behavior in and outside the classroom and how to deal with students in crisis. Participants learn a behavioral-intervention protocol for students with erratic, suicidal or bizarre symptoms that indicate possible injury to themselves or to others.  View

This colloquium focuses on the issues of Academic Integrity and the Cheating Culture on college campuses.  View

In almost every course we teach, there's a potential for controversial subjects to come up in discussions. The resulting tension may challenge student beliefs and contribute to learning, but must be managed in order to keep the discourse civil and respectful to all. This workshop addresses how to convey the meaning of respect to students. Specific instructional strategies are shared, including case-based methods that can be used to challenge ideas in any discipline and context. The workshop also explores concepts of academic freedom, and how the Carolinian Creed can function to support instruction.  View

What can faculty and other instructors do to promote academic integrity at the University of South Carolina? Including the University's Honor Code in your written syllabus, and articulating potential consequences for violations are the first steps. This examines current issues of cheating and plagiarism on campus, including strategies used by students. The workshop discusses how to prevent academic dishonesty, as well as how to confront students who may have engaged in cheating behavior. The University's Honor Code, which describes the procedures to resolve academic dishonesty and possible sanctions is reviewed. By preventing cheating, we encourage learning and make our teaching more enjoyable.  View

Engaging in conflict is challenging whether you are an experienced instructor or new to your role. A likely strategy is to ignore the behavior due to our own discomfort, concern over retaliation or fear that our intervention may cause more harm or disruption. Through case study examples this workshop explores Gerald Amada’s research from Coping with Misconduct in the College Classroom and provides participants with tangible strategies to disruptive behavior in a confident and fair manner.  View

"Teaching is a gift. The importance and relevance of content will be intuitively obvious to students. Teach the class you'd like to take." Such assumptions are mistaken and can make it difficult to teach effectively. This workshop discusses these and other assumptions and explains how to get on the right track for teaching excellence.  View

Creating an environment of integrity within the classroom truly takes a village. Faculty, administrators, and students all play a role in maintaining an ethical campus community. This workshop explores preventative tools to address classroom roadblocks.  View

News of threatening and tragic events involving college students and campuses may lead us to wonder how we would respond in a similar situation. Clearly, response to an active shooter is one of the most dynamic situations that anyone might ever face, and would be dictated by the specific circumstances of the encounter. This seminar is designed to provide guidance to individuals on what to do in a shooting incident, how to be prepared, how to think safely, and how to recognize a potential problem, specifically in campus and classroom contexts.  View

Clearly articulating classroom expectations helps to set the foundation for a mutually beneficial course. Research shows that persistence and retention is connected to student's sense of belonging. Furthermore, students who engage in quality interactions with faculty are retained at a higher rate (Astin 1977, 1993).

As a faculty member, it is important to assist in developing this sense of belonging and aid in students persistence and retention. This workshop covers pedagogical strategies and ways to negotiate positive norms within your classroom to assist you in developing a meaningful academic environment.  View

Are you prepared to handle a disruptive student in your classroom? Verbal Judo is a process of using one's words to prevent, de-escalate, or end an attempted disruption. Whether in the classroom, office, or even at home, Verbal Judo can prepare you for every verbal conflict and help prevent verbal disruption and maintain safety.  View

Find out how Blackboard can actually save you time in not only making assignments, but also in helping you grade students' work quickly and accurately, giving them immediate feedback and letting them see where they stand in your class. Did you know that you can use your existing Word or text files with a test generator to speed up the process of creating questions for assessments? Have you ever thought that there must be more flexible ways to easily change questions? Have you wondered how to add images to questions and answer choices, and how to create a variety of question types? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this session will be valuable for you. Learn multiple strategies for harnessing the power of Blackboard to create assignments and assessments that efficiently and effectively measure student learning.  View

One of the major recent reforms in education involves pausing within a lecture to ask conceptual questions during class and receiving equally important feedback from students in a timely manner. By doing this students have opportunities to work with new material and faculty can collect immediate student feedback. Backed by evidence of tremendous learning benefits, this reform has spread to teaching medium-size and large classes in almost all disciplines. In this colloquium participants learned productive ways to use the classroom response systems from one of the creators of the iClicker™ - specifically, how to integrate peer instruction and formative assessment into the lecture to increase student engagement, interest, and learning.  View

Online educators are always searching for ways to re-create the diversity and richness of face-to-face interactions in the virtual classroom. Faculty in USC's College of Nursing use Adobe Connect to achieve this goal. It enables faculty to bring in guest speakers, produce software tutorials, facilitate small group projects, conduct student presentations, and engage in role play exercises. All of this, of course, requires a bit of creativity and willingness to experiment. In this workshop, faculty share what's been done with Adobe Connect to deliver graduate and undergraduate courses, how it affects the learning outcomes, and what students think about it.  View

Are your students good digital citizens? Digital citizens write in words, sounds and images and harness the power of data visualization. They understand that computers are not simply devices, but indeed tools for thought. Yet most of our practices in higher education have not addressed these fundamental changes in any deep or systematic way. In this presentation, Dr. Campbell proposes some reasons for this gap, as well as some possible directions for change. He seeks to awaken our digital imaginations, to help us move beyond the tools to the larger meaning and significance of the digital revolution. His presentation culminates in a portrait of the digital citizens we must empower our students to become.  View

Building community among students, whether online or in traditional courses, is essential. However, building community between the instructor and the students is important as well. This session provides ideas of how to build community using Blackboard tools such as wiki, blog, discussion board, and more.  View

Classroom response systems, sometimes known as "clickers", have become popular and are being used across disciplines. The technology allows polling of students with real-time feedback available to the professor. However, the technology by itself does not increase student learning. It is well understood that students learn more effectively when they take an active role in the classroom as opposed to the traditional passive mode of note taking. This session will describe the process of "Peer Instruction" - a teaching method developed by Eric Mazur at Harvard that promotes active learning. Peer Instruction involves discussions among students during lecture in response to questions posed by the professor. The lecture is then adapted to the responses of the students. This approach creates a more active classroom and an improved student experience.  View

Are you teaching a class with a larger number of students? Maybe you've taught a class with 30 students before and now your class has 60. Or 400? Technology can, when used wisely, enhance larger classes by providing mechanisms for dialog and discussion, individual discovery, and meaningful and interactive relationships with students. This session addresses these issues and more through a panel discussion with recipients of the 2010 Improving Larger Classes with Technology Teaching Excellence Grants Program. Each panelist describes the problem she or he faced in the larger class, the technologies that were explored, what was learned in the process and how to improve student learning by creating greater student access and engagement through technology-assisted teaching materials.  View

Do you want to move to electronic presentations for lectures? Have you struggled with making professional quality PowerPoint presentations? Are you looking for a few new ideas on how to present content using PowerPoint? Join us for a discussion on a variety of topics, including; basic suggestions for PowerPoint lecture presentations, use of "Slide Master" for consistent slide formatting, innovative ideas for content beyond bullet point lists; and introduction to PowerPoint drawing and animation tools.  View

Did you know that you can use your existing Word files to create tests and surveys? Learn how to use a test generator to speed up test creation. Also, learn how to work with test pools and existing tests to create new tests. We will also discuss how to add images to test questions and answer choices, and how to create a variety of question types including those in which students submit files. Learning these simple strategies will aid in the creation of tests and exams, and help make them more effective at measuring student learning.  View 

Social networking is increasingly prevalent in education, with uses varying from engaging students in learning to community building. The growing demand for global competence and international communication and collaboration in today's world makes "tweeting" in the classroom all the more important. As educators, we recognize that our students need to continue to build community even beyond the four walls of the classroom. Empirical studies have found benefits to tweeting in the classroom, but how should we effectively use this tool? In this workshop, Dr. Anderson, recognized internationally with a knighthood for her innovations, describes a microblogging project designed to build community in language teaching and discusses its implementation and its benefits.  View

Do your students do group work for papers, projects or class presentations? Do they conduct surveys or use spreadsheets? Are you looking for ideas for remote help sessions or office hours? Several Google tools may be of use in your teaching. Experienced and novice Google tool users are invited to join this discussion as we explore these tools that just might energize you and your students.  View

 

How can the recording of classroom activities and making that recording available electronically enhance learning? Lecture capture can take many forms, from a simple audio recording to a multi-windowed presentation. Regardless of the format, the goal of lecture capture is to meet the needs of students, and to offer tools to enhance learning. In this session, experienced faculty members lead a discussion about using lecture capture in USC classrooms.  View

Have you heard of "death by PowerPoint", "PowerPoint fatigue", or "PowerPoint-induced sleep?" PowerPoint, if used poorly, can impede teaching and learning. In this seminar, participants examine the pedagogical values of PowerPoint and explore teaching situations which can benefit from the use of this presentation software. The seminar includes a discussion of current practices, experiences, and success (or horror) stories about using this software as a teaching tool. PowerPoint tips, teaching techniques, and an instrument for evaluating its use in the classroom are shared.  View

 

Are you aware of the data collection, privacy policies, and security risks of the technologies you are using in the classroom? This workshop will examine common privacy and data concerns, and how participants can inform themselves and their students of the risks.  View

Have you been wondering how to chime the bell that class has begun in a distributed learning course? Are you worried that students in an online course aren’t paying attention or participating as much as they should? This workshop will cover how to assist your students in connecting with you and their peers, focusing on how to get a rich quality of discussion and participation from everyone in an online course. Sher Downing leads participants through a series of exercises and examples to help grow their facilitation skills in a virtual environment. View

Are you never quite sure which technology tool to use for your specific teaching needs? Do you have questions about whether you should use a wiki, blog, discussion board, Adobe Connect, Jing or other tools? In this session you'll learn more about which of these technology tools will best help your students achieve learning outcomes.  View

Teaching courses with content that students may not perceive as directly applicable to their chosen profession or field of study is always challenging. It is even more challenging when the course has to be delivered online without any face to face contact. It requires creativity, determination and patience to engage students in the learning activities and change their attitudes. This session discusses the implementation of authentic learning strategies in an applied technology in healthcare course, the process of evaluative data collection and the dissemination of results and best practices.  View

Quality Matters is a faculty-centered review process that is designed to assess the quality of online and blended courses. The Quality Matters Rubric is a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards provided to help you evaluate course design. The Center for Teaching Excellence has adopted the rubric as a guide to best practices. This session presents an overview of the rubric, including an explanation of how the standards relate to each other and how they are applied to an online class. The session also shows how to use the rubric to support course design, development, and delivery, providing examples and suggestions.  View

How do you transform from being a novice at Blackboard and a first-time online instructor, to a 'pro' who enjoys teaching online and wants to do more? This session presents four key components of an online course, and discusses the importance of these to achieving a successful experience for both the instructor and the students. The components discussed are: course structure, varied materials and activities, personal and frequent communication, and prompt feedback. Examples of each component is shared, as well as student assessment results from the presenter's fully online course that confirm what works.  View

This workshop explores the appropriate steps for organizing your online course. Online course components are effectively organized using modules to appropriately divide the content into educational units. Modules can be organized into weekly units, by content, or a variety of other ways. Participants discuss strategies for designing appropriate organizational techniques to ensure student learning and optimal learning outcomes in online courses or in using online course components in a traditional classroom course.  View

Why do some students and instructors enjoy online courses and feel connected to each other while others struggle to make sense of them? Research suggests that our satisfaction with online teaching and learning depends upon our "social presence," i.e. a degree to which we can project our personalities and be perceived as real people in digital environments. But how important is it in the learning process and does it affect student academic performance? This presentation examines the role of social presence in promoting class participation, collaborative learning, academic achievement and satisfaction with learning.  View

Do you teach or plan to teach high enrollment classes with online components or in a pure online environment? In this workshop you learn about tips and techniques to make your course run more smoothly. Also, learn how to reduce email overload and strategies to provide regular feedback to large numbers of students. Help your students be successful online learners while not becoming a 24-7 instructor.  View

The diversity in USC classrooms is rapidly increasing to include students from a range of countries and linguistic backgrounds. With all of the benefits that come from having a global classroom, there are challenges that are presented by this shift. As students try to succeed in a language that they do not natively speak and in a country where the cultural differences can be confusing and overwhelming, these challenges often come to light in the classroom. This session will give you 10 key tips for ensuring that your international students successfully learn the material and meet your expectations in the classroom.

The Horizon 2017 report encourages faculties at colleges and universities to adopt effective instructional strategies that their K- 12 colleagues have adopted and used. A portion of these approaches include culturally- relevant and culturally- responsive teaching. Although effective instructors incorporate these practices in multiple formats and within diverse contexts, participating faculty members and graduate teaching assistants must consider behaviors and issues to which they might be applied. In this interactive workshop, the presenter engages participants in a “lived experience” that serve as a basis for reflection.  View

Active learning is a student-centered approach in which planned activities are used to engage the student as an active participant in their learning. Techniques such as guided questioning, think-pair-share, one-minute paper and other such exercises improve student retention of material and can enhance the traditional lecture format. However, active learning strategies can be difficult for new teaching assistants to implement because they require preparation and skills in guiding and moderating the learning activity. This workshop examines the planning system necessary to incorporate such activities and attendees will actively participate in numerous active learning techniques applicable to a wide range of classroom settings. View this video to learn helpful tips on what you can do, how to do it, and why active learning in the classroom is important to student learning.  View

If you have heard some of the recent buzz about “flipped learning” and want to learn more—this workshop is for you. Obstacles to learning abound, particularly technology distractions, unprepared students, disengaged students, multiple levels of content mastery among students in the same course, and students missing class. Flipped learning is a method for incorporating active learning into the classroom to combat these obstacles. Most importantly this method of teaching leverages technology to enhance classroom human interaction and creates opportunities for active engagement in learning. In this workshop, Janet Hudson offers a sound rationale for flipped and active learning and practical strategies for getting started. She also discusses the challenges associated with this method and explores strategies for addressing them. View

Active learning is a student-centered approach to teaching in which pre-planned activities are used to engage the student as an active participant in their own learning. Techniques such as “one-minute paper”, concept mapping, “gallery walk”, and numerous others have been shown to improve student learning and retention of the material in addition to enhancing the presentation format of a course. However, active learning strategies can be difficult for instructors to implement because they require specific planning, skill in guiding the learning activity, and an understanding of best practices for incorporating the activities as a worthwhile assessment.

In this workshop, participants examine the three key student learning benchmarks integrated into active learning techniques, explore the planning system necessary to incorporate such activities into the class, including how to best design the activity to allow for assessment of learning. To illustrate the methodology, attendees actively participate in several active learning techniques applicable to a wide range of classroom settings. Participants learn helpful tips on what you can do, how to do it, and why active learning in the classroom is important to student learning.   View

The seminar provides an overview of techniques used by an engineering professor who has been teaching at the University of South Carolina for the last 27 years. Some of the topics covered in the seminar include: how to rouse the students' curiosity and interest in the subject matter and how to engage the students so that most of the learning will take place in the classroom.  View

When you consider teaching an online course, questions can overwhelm you. How will I do this? Will I be able to do that? What about assignments and tests? Where do you begin when you are new to online teaching but experienced in the classroom? Quality online courses are not simply electronic versions of traditional face-to-face courses that are posted and forgotten. This session explores a range of factors to consider when translating your courses to an online format—factors that will both ensure academic rigor and enhance student learning.  View

Are you a faculty member, instructor, or graduate student teaching at USC? Would accent reduction help you communicate more effectively with your students and colleagues? Join us for a two hour session designed to assist non-native speakers of English in accent reduction.  View

The responsibilities of a GTA/IA typically include grading student work. However, grading objectively involves certain strategies and considerations, of which TAs are often not informed by their course professor. Grading should be recognized and treated as a type of constructive feedback to students. In this workshop, how to provide this feedback, along with grading different types of assessment styles, use of rubrics, and common student complaints, will be discussed.  View

Teaching and conducting research have been called "contested spaces" that compete for faculty and graduate students' time and effort. However, emergent findings from an NSF-funded study suggest that engagement in certain types of teaching can actually increase the level of one's research skills. So, how can faculty and graduate students alike harness the power of teaching to improve their capabilities as researchers? How do you unlock the door between teaching and research? In this workshop, Dr. David Feldon from the University of Virginia and Dr. Briana Timmerman from the USC Honors College share exciting findings and provide specific recommendations to help faculty and graduate students leverage their teaching to increase their research productivity.  View

In almost every course we teach, there is a potential for controversial subjects to be part of the classroom discussion. Tension in the discussion may help challenge student beliefs and contribute to learning, but must be managed such that disrespect of opinions does not make learning difficult for everyone. This workshop addresses how to convey the meaning of respect to students.  View

Reducing instances of academic dishonesty before they happen can make your life easier. What can Teaching Assistants do to promote academic integrity in their classes? This workshop examines current issues of cheating and plagiarism on campus, including strategies used by students.  View

Active learning is a student-centered approach in which planned activities are used to engage the student as an active participant in their learning. However, active learning strategies can be difficult for new teaching assistants to implement because they require preparation and skills in guiding and moderating the learning activity. This workshop examines the planning system necessary to incorporate such activities.  View

Research tells us that when students write frequently in a course, they learn more and feel more engaged with the material. Yet for instructors, knowing how to effectively respond to, and evaluate student papers can be a challenge. This workshop presents several strategies for effectively responding to student writing, drawn from current research and best practices in the field.  View

The best way to get good teaching evaluations from students is to be a good teacher. Good teaching involves both content mastery and interpersonal rapport. Jed Lyons will share responses from veteran faculty about how to maintain rigor in course content in such a way that the students are educated as well as engaged. Required and suggested methods for student feedback on instruction will also be discussed.  View

Abundant research demonstrates that learning takes place when the student's mind actively engages in the material. The major problem is determining how to increase that activity. Within the discipline of human memory, learning, and cognition exists a vast body of literature dealing specifically with this issue. Participants will leave this workshop with an understanding of the basic concepts in human learning, how to present information so that students most effectively encode it into long-term memory, and how to help students know when they know.  View

Critical reflection is the powerful process of making meaning out of a purposeful combination of experiences and academic content. Reflection is critical when it is carefully and intentionally designed to generate learning by applying theory to practice, examining causality and raising questions. It can deepen learning by challenging a priori assumptions, resisting simplistic conclusions, and comparing different perspectives. Critical reflection can also document student learning by producing evidence of learning for assessment. This workshop will cover the concept and practice of critical reflection and examples of how it can enrich learning across disciplines.  View

Good teaching is more than just presenting information. We want students to engage and get excited about what they are learning. Like an actor on stage, an instructor with a strong, dynamic voice in the classroom communicates information in an engaging way that excites students to learn. In this interactive workshop, learn practical exercises in order to better your breathing, projection and vocal dynamics.  View

Are you a graduate student instructor? Do you work closely with graduate student instructors? Do you ever wonder about the unique challenges and advantages a GSI has in the classroom? In this open discussion workshop we will examine recently developed protocols for peer observation and self observation to help GSI improve as developing instructors. View

Low student satisfaction or poor performance in a course or activity may be misinterpreted as lack of knowledge or ability, when it is actually difficulty with a particular style of learning. This presentation addresses five leading learning-style frameworks: Gardner's Multiple Intelligences; the Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles (ILS); Fleming and Mills' VARK model; Kolb's Learning Styles Model and Experiential Learning Theory (ELT); and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You will learn how these models vary in their utility, validity, and reliability, making some more fruitful than others, and what common ground they share, suggesting a partial integration of the frameworks. The styles that emerge from the synthesis have practical implications for teaching and learning, and you will leave with a list of activities, learning aids, study techniques, and assignments that facilitate learning for each style.  View

"Teaching is a gift. The importance and relevance of content will be intuitively obvious to students. Teach the class you'd like to take." Such assumptions are mistaken and can make it difficult to teach effectively. Join us to discuss these and other assumptions and get on the right track for teaching excellence.  View

The seminar provides an overview of techniques used by an engineering professor who has been teaching at the University of South Carolina for the last 27 years. Some of the topics covered in the seminar include: how to rouse the students' curiosity and interest in the subject matter and how to engage the students in the classroom so that most of the learning will take place in the classroom.  View

What can instructors do to facilitate learning when they encounter students who seem uninterested and even apathetic toward course content and assignments? Part of the responsibility for learning belongs to students, but as faculty, we can find new ways to motivate, inspire, and maybe even cajole students to learn. This workshop demonstrates and explains how instructors can make classroom learning, perhaps one of the most artificial learning settings, a more meaningful experience for students.  View

Do you want to move to electronic presentations for lectures? Have you struggled with making professional quality PowerPoint presentations? Are you looking for a few new ideas on how to present content using PowerPoint? Join us for a discussion on a variety of topics, including basic suggestions for PowerPoint lecture presentations, innovative ideas for content beyond bullet point lists and an introduction to PowerPoint drawing and animation tools.  View

News of threatening and tragic events involving college students and campuses may lead us to wonder how we would respond in a similar situation. Clearly, response to an active shooter is one of the most dynamic situations that anyone might ever face, and would be dictated by the specific circumstances of the encounter. This seminar is designed to provide guidance to individuals on what to do in a shooting incident, how to be prepared, how to think safely, and how to recognize a potential problem, specifically in campus and classroom contexts.  View

What makes a teacher excellent? Why do some of us inspire students to work hard, while others inspire students to skip class? This seminar will engage the 2012 winners of the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award in a panel discussion about good teaching. Through this interdisciplinary conversation, attendees will explore varied approaches for engaging and motivating students. The intent is to learn as much from the differences in our teaching practices as from the similarities.  View

Teaching portfolios are commonly used by graduate students to demonstrate teaching effectiveness. In a competitive academic job market, portfolios can be as valuable as a good resume. Learn how to recognize important activities and to make connections between teaching, research and service to establish career definition and to represent yourself successfully for the unique needs of academic employers. Participants are invited to bring personal examples of their work for discussion and modified application.  View

In a global information environment, is answer-finding still the best approach for students to learn? The ability to think critically, applying strategies across situations, is more important than ever before. Teaching critical thinking requires students to explore topics that may not be clearly defined. Such activities require continual synthesis (inductive) and analysis (deductive) practice using many variables. Successful instruction in this context requires association between hierarchal learning theory and instructional practice. Come join the discussion relating theory to practice in teaching critical thinking.  View

Did you know that you can use your existing Word files to create tests and surveys? Learn how to use a test generator to speed up test creation. Also, learn how to work with test pools and existing tests to create new tests. We will also discuss how to add images to test questions and answer choices, and how to create a variety of question types including those in which students submit files. Learning these simple strategies will aid in the creation of tests and exams, and help make them more effective at measuring student learning.  View

Your undergraduate experiences have prepared you for the advanced coursework and research requirements of graduate school. However, most graduate students haven't had any teaching experience before being thrust into the unfamiliar and demanding role of teaching assistant (TA). The teaching environment poses many challenges inside and outside the classroom, and to succeed, you'll want to consider developing a pro-active mentality. In this session, we discuss the common challenges and responsibilities that TAs encounter each semester, and talk about ways you can take a more progressive, active approach.  View

In terms of classroom conduct, no two classes are ever the same. The material may be identical, but class dynamics change from one section to another, making it difficult to engage students using strategies that may have worked flawlessly just an hour prior. Learning how to build a relationship with students, and adapt to these differences, is key in successfully reaching course goals. Discussion will include understanding class dynamics, working with, not against, technology in the classroom, and balancing authority and approachability.  View 

Teaching Assistants and Instructors confront a variety of issues, from the day-to-day necessities of teaching to making decisions about pedagogical approaches and course goals. This workshop will discuss methods for engaging students in the classroom, reaching course goals and learning outcomes, and presenting course material to make it relevant to students' lives. The workshop will also address balancing teaching with scholarship and other academic demands. Developing a "teaching portfolio" for graduate students preparing for the job market will also be discussed.  View

This workshop will provide practical advice and techniques for Teaching Assistants, instructors, and others on preparing syllabi, selecting course texts and supplemental materials, developing engaging lectures and classroom discussions, reaching course goals and learning outcomes as well as obtaining excellent student evaluations. The workshop will also provide guidance in handling specific student-related issues including scheduling office hours, interacting with students as a graduate student in an era of social networking and other issues specific to graduate student teachers.  View

Teaching Assistants confront a variety of issues, from the day-to-day necessities of teaching to making decisions about pedagogical approaches and course goals. This presentation gives an overview of the lecture planning process and discusses methods for engaging students in the classroom, and presenting course material to make it relevant to students' lives. The facilitator also addresses balancing teaching with scholarship and other academic demands.  View

Are you prepared to handle a disruptive student in your classroom? Verbal Judo is a process of using one's words to prevent, de-escalate, or end an attempted disruption. Verbal Judo can prepare you for every verbal conflict and help prevent verbal disruption and maintain safety. In a classroom situation, this could involve techniques such as remaining under emotional control during disagreements, avoiding language that expresses personal feelings during conflicts, employing empathy to stay engaged with people while maintaining self-control, and safely taking action when words fail. All who teach are invited to this introduction to Verbal Judo for classroom situations.  View

Robert Duke explains that changes in the functional capacities of learners are visible manifestations of changes in the physical structure of the brain.  View

Integrative learning is about students making connections across their experiences (whether in or outside the classroom) that result in deeper and longer lasting learning. Instructors can help students make connections between their experiences and the concepts they are studying in class by taking just a few minutes of class time to engage students in active learning or by designing major assignments to require students to integrate their work and experiences across the semester. This session is designed to share a variety of examples so that attendees can consider what might work best in their areas. Categories include brief problem solving and reflection activities to do in-class, students as teachers, and students learning through self-assessment (e.g., e-portfolios).  View

Both industry practitioners and academia agree on the importance of retail managers being educated and informed regarding current issues in risk management. In fact, our industry partners have articulated a general need for more instruction in this area. The new undergraduate retailing course Loss Prevention for Retailers (RETL 330), developed in collaboration with various industry partners, incorporates integrative learning processes, providing students with important experiences and skills they need to be prepared for and competitive in the retailing industry. The collaborative process used to develop this course is significant because it can easily be adopted by numerous departments across the USC campuses in their efforts to update and enhance the curriculum.  View

Critical reflection is the powerful process of making meaning out of a purposeful combination of experiences and academic content. Reflection is critical when it is carefully and intentionally designed to generate learning by applying theory to practice, examining causality, and raising questions. It can deepen learning by challenging a priori assumptions, resisting simplistic conclusions, and comparing different perspectives. Critical reflection can also document student learning by producing evidence of learning for assessment. This workshop will cover the concept and practice of critical reflection and examples of how it can enrich learning across disciplines.  View

Having trouble providing clear, understandable feedback to your students? In this interactive session, we'll discuss specific approaches to teacher feedback, how to refine clarity of thinking about feedback, and how to to improve communication and understanding among our students. This session will include specific examples of instructional activities and assessment techniques that can help you enhance student learning through out-of-class experiences. View

Whether one looks at higher education research, the development of instruments like the National Survey of Student Engagement, or the sessions offered at disciplinary conferences, it is clear that over the last decade student engagement, academic and civic, has become a topic of increasing importance. What are the implications of such engagement for curricular design and classroom practice? What resources do faculty need - and most often lack - to help them help their students successfully embrace a more active approach to learning? How can such active learning also pave the way for a more engaged citizenry, a generation ready and able to to address public problems? Questions like these lie at the core of what more and more academic thinkers are calling our new educational model: "the engaged campus."  View

Don't you wish you could really show the students more: the complex systems, the interactions and the world? If only they could actually see what you are talking about. But how? In K-12 classrooms they might take the coveted fieldtrip. But how do we do this in a college setting without disrupting students' schedules and imposing additional stress and administrative work to the already full curricula? This seminar shows you ways to get your students out of the classroom and involved in the real and complex systems they study with a combined observation and journal technique. The exercise is applicable to many disciplines and diverse areas of study, and can be easily incorporated into local, readily accessible destinations. This method can serve as the foundation for dynamic class discussions, small group activities or solo reflections, and has been well received by student participants. You'll learn how to introduce the complex systems simply, with zest and using what's at hand.  View

 

Active learning is a student-centered approach in which planned activities are used to engage the student as an active participant in their learning. Techniques such as guided questioning, think-pair-share, one-minute paper and other such exercises improve student retention of material and can enhance the traditional lecture format. However, active learning strategies can be difficult for new teaching assistants to implement because they require preparation and skills in guiding and moderating the learning activity. This workshop examines the planning system necessary to incorporate such activities and attendees will actively participate in numerous active learning techniques applicable to a wide range of classroom settings. View this video to learn helpful tips on what you can do, how to do it, and why active learning in the classroom is important to student learning.  View

Low student satisfaction or poor performance in a course or activity may be misinterpreted as lack of knowledge or ability, when it is actually difficulty with a particular style of learning. This presentation addresses five leading learning-style frameworks: Gardner's Multiple Intelligences; the Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles (ILS); Fleming and Mills' VARK model; Kolb's Learning Styles Model and Experiential Learning Theory (ELT); and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You will learn how these models vary in their utility, validity, and reliability, making some more fruitful than others, and what common ground they share, suggesting a partial integration of the frameworks. The styles that emerge from the synthesis have practical implications for teaching and learning, and you will leave with a list of activities, learning aids, study techniques, and assignments that facilitate learning for each style.  View

If there was just one thing you would want your students to learn from your course, what would that be? This single question is the basis for identifying student-centered learning outcomes. Learning outcomes describe the measurable skills, abilities, knowledge or values that students should be able to do or demonstrate as a result of completing a program of study, a course or lesson. This seminar focuses on the common structure of learning outcomes, deriving instructional strategies and complimentary responsibilities of faculty and students in achieving learning outcomes. You know what you expect your students to learn. This seminar helps communicate these expectations to your students.  View

Robert Duke explains that changes in the functional capacities of learners are visible manifestations of changes in the physical structure of the brain.  View

Multiple-choice tests are the most widely used type of exams in large classes. Many textbooks come with test banks, but what do you do when you want to make your own test questions? How do you make sure your questions are testing what you want the students to know? This seminar reviews the principles of writing valid and reliable test items; explore how to use test-item analysis; and learn how to create tests that measure higher-order objectives. Applying these principles can make your exams more effective at measuring student learning.  View

Research tells us that when students write frequently in a course, they learn more and feel more engaged with the material. Yet for instructors, knowing how to effectively respond to, and evaluate student papers can be a challenge. This workshop presents several strategies for effectively responding to student writing, drawn from current research and best practices in the field. View

The purpose of this session is to generate and share ideas in relation to innovative assessment. "Assessment methods and requirements probably have a greater influence on how and what students learn than any other single factor. This influence may well be of greater importance than the impact of teaching materials" (Boud 1988). We know that students have to do assessments but imagine that you have to sell your assessments to the students, would they want to buy it? To explore this concept further we will consider the key factors for successful innovation and the associated risk while still meeting the intended learning outcomes. Different assessment tools and techniques are discussed.  View

After you have determined learning outcomes for your courses, what’s the next step? Learning outcomes have maximum value when combined with specific measureable methods of assessing student learning. For example, each learning outcome in a syllabus should relate to an item to be evaluated (e.g. test 20%, project 40%, etc.). Then each item should have an assessment method. This session highlights the breadth and scope of assessment practices that may be used to objectively measure learning.  View

If there was just one thing you would want your students to learn from your course, what would that be? This single question is the basis for identifying student-centered learning outcomes. Learning outcomes describe the measurable skills, abilities, knowledge or values that students should be able to do or demonstrate as a result of completing a program of study, a course or lesson. This seminar focuses on the common structure of learning outcomes, deriving instructional strategies and complimentary responsibilities of faculty and students in achieving learning outcomes. You know what you expect your students to learn. This seminar helps communicate these expectations to your students.  View

 

Are you a faculty member, instructor or graduate student teaching at USC? Would accent reduction help you communicate more effectively with your students and colleagues? This two hour session is designed to assist non-native speakers of English in accent reduction. The session includes a brief overview of the elements of pronunciation, including difficult sounds, stress, rhythm, and intonation. Specific practice techniques for addressing the most common pronunciation problems are shared, along with a list of resources available for further self-study.  View

When can we use copyrighted materials in our teaching? In this session, faculty will learn their rights and responsibilities under federal copyright law. In addition to discussing how to appropriately apply the Fair Use Exception when using or distributing copyrighted materials in the physical or virtual classroom, participants learn how to better educate students about their use of copyrighted materials.  View

Ravindra Pogaku's teaching strategy is to extract the hidden talents of budding students. In this workshop, he will share 35 years of thoughts on teaching and research and the exciting experiences he has had with students. The emphasis will be on how the bubbling enthusiasm of the students motivated him towards productive teaching and research in higher learning institutions.

 Good teaching is more than just presenting information. We want students to engage and get excited about what they are learning. Like an actor on stage, an instructor with a strong, dynamic voice in the classroom communicates information in an engaging way that excites students to learn. In this interactive workshop, learn practical exercises in order to better your breathing, projection and vocal dynamics. Learn how your voice can better reflect the passion for your discipline and, in turn, engender that passion in your students. Your classroom presence can go a long way toward keeping your students focused and attentive as well as keeping you energized throughout the semester.  View

News of threatening and tragic events involving college students and campuses may lead us to wonder how we would respond in a similar situation. Hear from the USC Division of Law Enforcement and Safety what to do to keep your students and yourself safe. Response to an active shooter should be dictated by the specific circumstances of the encounter. This seminar is designed to provide guidance on what to do in a shooting incident, how to be prepared, how to think safely and how to recognize a potential problem, specifically in campus and classroom contexts. This workshop addresses violent situations that may be disturbing to some participants.  View

The best way to get good teaching evaluations from students is to be a good teacher. Good teaching involves both content mastery and interpersonal rapport. Jed Lyons will share responses from veteran faculty about how to maintain rigor in course content in such a way that the students are educated as well as engaged. Required and suggested methods for student feedback on instruction will also be discussed.  View

The results of teaching evaluations can be used to improve teaching, and peer review is a common method of evaluating teaching. How do you ensure consistent peer review? What difference does it make? This seminar describes one model for peer review of teaching, discusses its implementation, and reviews lessons learned. The model was developed by faculty and administrators at USC Aiken, who drew on professional literature that incorporates best practices to ensure consistency among evaluators. Through a formal process, peer reviews contribute to the assessment of teaching effectiveness previously defined primarily by annual self-report and student teaching evaluations.  View

The responsibilities of a GTA/IA typically include grading student work. However, grading objectively involves certain strategies and considerations, of which TAs are often not informed by their course professor. When grading at any level, a TA needs to consider what their "grading philosophy" is for the course. Grading should be recognized and treated as a type of constructive feedback to students, with feedback types differing depending on the type of assessment. How to provide this feedback, along with grading different types of assessment styles, use of rubrics, and common student complaints, will also be discussed.  View

Participants in this colloquium gained a greater understanding of what constitutes an information literate person and how information literacy enhances student academic performance while equipping them for success after graduation. The colloquium offered a unique opportunity to dialogue with fellow faculty members, to explore possible curriculum initiatives within a supportive environment, to define barriers to increased integration of information literacy into the curriculum, and to devise strategies for overcoming barriers.  View

Active learning is a student-centered approach in which planned activities are used to engage the student as an active participant in their learning. Techniques such as guided questioning, think-pair-share, one-minute paper and other such exercises improve student retention of material and can enhance the traditional lecture format. However, active learning strategies can be difficult for new teaching assistants to implement because they require preparation and skills in guiding and moderating the learning activity. This workshop examines the planning system necessary to incorporate such activities and attendees will actively participate in numerous active learning techniques applicable to a wide range of classroom settings. View this video to learn helpful tips on what you can do, how to do it, and why active learning in the classroom is important to student learning. View

Many faculty and instructors in higher education have little training on effective pedagogies. Thus, the purpose of this workshop is to help participants learn about research-based teaching and instructional practices in higher education. View

In this time of instant gratification, short attention spans and communicating in 140 characters or less, it seems more and more difficult to engage today's students in the traditional classroom setting. Without having to transform into a technology-wiz, there are specific strategies that can engage students from the first class and help to sustain that engagement throughout the semester. The student who is engaged tends to attend class more regularly, participate more frequently in class and will be more motivated to complete course requirements. In addition, the student who is engaged in the learning process will do just that...learn. This workshop highlights specific strategies to engage students in small classrooms as well as in large lecture-hall style courses. Participants learn ways to enhance their teaching style to help promote greater student engagement. View

Research tells us that when students write frequently in a course, they learn more and feel more engaged with the material. Yet for instructors, knowing how to effectively respond to, and evaluate student papers can be a challenge: What's the difference between a "B" paper and a "C" paper? Should you correct every grammatical and stylistic problem? How important is the content of a paper versus the quality of the writing? In this workshop session, we will present several strategies for effectively responding to student writing, drawn from current research and best practices in the field. Session participants will then have opportunities to discuss examples of effective and ineffective feedback, and to be coached on evaluating student essays.  View

Abundant research demonstrates that learning takes place when the student's mind actively engages in the material. The major problem is determining how to increase that activity. Within the discipline of human memory, learning, and cognition exists a vast body of literature dealing specifically with this issue. Participants will leave this workshop with an understanding of the basic concepts in human learning, how to present information so that students most effectively encode it into long-term memory, and how to help students know when they know.  View

Critical reflection is the powerful process of making meaning out of a purposeful combination of experiences and academic content. Reflection is critical when it is carefully and intentionally designed to generate learning by applying theory to practice, examining causality, and raising questions. It can deepen learning by challenging a priori assumptions, resisting simplistic conclusions, and comparing different perspectives. Critical reflection can also document student learning by producing evidence of learning for assessment. This workshop will cover the concept and practice of critical reflection and examples of how it can enrich learning across disciplines.  View

The seminar provides an overview of techniques used by an engineering professor who has been teaching at the University of South Carolina for the last 27 years. Some of the topics covered in the seminar include: how to rouse the students' curiosity and interest in the subject matter and how to engage the students in the classroom so that most of the learning will take place in the classroom.  View

What can instructors do to facilitate learning when they encounter students who seem uninterested and even apathetic toward course content and assignments? Part of the responsibility for learning belongs to students, but as faculty, we can find new ways to motivate, inspire, and maybe even cajole students to learn. This workshop demonstrates and explains how instructors can make classroom learning, perhaps one of the most artificial learning settings, a more meaningful experience for students. The presenter uses theories of learning and motivation as a basis for creating strategies to increase student engagement in course content and class sessions.  View

 James S. Cutsinger, Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year, attributes much of his success in the classroom to his use of the Socratic method, and he focuses his presentation on this topic. His main aim in teaching is to exhibit and promote a method of intellectual inquiry. Questions are asked, proportions suggested, ideas plotted on spectrums in order to stimulate a specific manner of thinking, one that will persist when the details of a given course are forgotten. He finds that this pedagogy generates a certain intensity: students quickly sense that they are contributors to a larger dialogue, whose significance transcends deadlines and grades.  View

Over 700 students with disabilities have been identified at USC. It is more than likely that you will have one or more of these students in your classes. If you do, you should receive a letter from the Office of Student Disability Services that outlines the basic accommodations for each student. The question is, how can you handle these accommodations? This workshop discusses strategies for accommodating several common student issues: test proctoring (extra time or quiet space), note takers or copies of notes and absences. This session helps you prepare to respond effectively to these types of requests from students who have registered with the Office of Student Disability Services. You'll learn about the ways to work together to support students with disabilities in your class.  View

Are some of your students more creative than others? Is creative thinking a gift or can new thinking habits be developed if appropriate teaching habits are used? Teaching creative thinking requires students to explore topics to seek unique solutions. Such activities require a look beyond the normal variables used to solve problems. Successful instruction in this context draws associations between learning hierarchical philosophy and complimentary instructional practice.  View 

Participation in research activities is a high-impact, educational practice for undergraduates and is a definitive part of most graduate degree programs. Writing about research results involves reflection and contributes to integrative learning. However, faculty may find mentoring students' development as disciplinary writers challenging, particularly if students lack knowledge of, and comfort with, scholarly writing. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce and practice pedagogical techniques to increase student confidence as disciplinary writers. It is designed for faculty seeking to support and enhance their students' entry into written disciplinary dialogue. Participants will leave the workshop having practiced a number of techniques to support student writing, and knowing more about additional on- and off-campus resources available to support student writing.  View

In a global information environment, is answer-finding still the best approach for students to learn? The ability to think critically, applying strategies across situations, is more important than ever before. Teaching critical thinking requires students to explore topics that may not be clearly defined. Such activities require continual synthesis (inductive) and analysis (deductive) practice using many variables. Students ask questions to find answers. Successful instruction in this context requires association between hierarchal learning theory and instructional practice. Come view the discussion relating theory to practice in teaching critical thinking.  View 

In this seminar, the facilitator and attendees pool their wisdom and share their experience when it comes to playing ringmaster in a large lecture course, whether for a crowd numbering 80 or one of 300. David Miller starts off with a brief PowerPoint presentation and accompanying set of pithy maxims based on his own experience in English 283, a course that typically enrolls 150 non-majors and that has proven over the years to be a graveyard for instructor evaluations. Miller talks about strategies he employed to bring his ratings back from the dead (without pretending that student evaluations measure anyone's learning but his own), and explains the thinking behind those strategies. This presentation serves as the lead-in to a collective brainstorming session in which the group devises brilliant and infallible solutions to each and every one of the challenges facing instructors who are foolish or unlucky enough to end up running a three-ring circus.  View