Six recipients received the Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation which honors exceptional faculty at USC who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to best teaching practices and a record of developing innovative strategies to enhance student learning.
As a way of recognizing instructors who go the extra mile, challenge and inspire students, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) launched the Thank a Teacher Program in the fall of 2022.
Panopto is a single platform for instructors to create and manage their video content. After an extensive trial and testing period in December of 2021, UofSC purchased full licensing for Panopto. On August 10, 2022, it was made available for all UofSC instructors. Panopto is a very robust system for creating videos, editing them, and providing the instructors with the ability to store the videos and to link the videos directly into their Blackboard core.
The Quality Standards for Online Courses (QSOC) were developed to provide UofSC faculty, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and support staff a new set of quality standards for the design, revision, and review of online courses. As a result of the new standards, faculty and instructional designers have access to an instrument that can be used as a starting point when designing and revising quality online courses.
Five Graduate Teaching and Instructional Assistants (GTA/IAs) awarded grants for the development of instructional materials, modules, cross-curriculum assessments, online learning innovations, or other resources that will enhance the quality and depth of undergraduate student learning at the University of South Carolina.
3 Faculty awarded grants for the revision or development of exemplary courses to integrate virtual environments technology (virtual reality, augmented reality, and/or 360-degree video)
Grants for the development or revision of exemplary undergraduate online courses for Winter Session 2023.
The Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation honors UofSC's most exceptional faculty who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to best teaching practices and an ongoing record of developing innovative strategies to enhance student learning in their courses. 5 recipients received this year's award and are to be commended for their accomplishments.
UofSC is now a member of the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). The OLC is a collaborative community of higher education representatives dedicated to improving best practices for quality online learning and programs.
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression," British writer Andrew Grant said. That same mantra should be followed when revamping or developing your syllabus as this is the first document that your students interact with. The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has numerous resources available to ensure our instructors have everything they need to create a strong syllabus.
With face-to-face interaction strongly discouraged, how would one go about spreading the joy of music? This is a challenge J. Daniel Jenkins, associate professor of music theory, had to address swiftly. In the fall of 2020, Jenkins taught online for the first time in a graduate course called "Public Music Theory." The main purpose of the course was to engage the public with music theoretical knowledge. The online structure of the class created a barrier to public and student engagement. While teaching online can cause different problems to arise, Jenkins advises educators to have patience and flexibility. While being thrown into online teaching can be a stressful situation, finding ways to keep your students motivated and engaged is rewarding.
Abhijit Guha is an associate professor of Marketing in the Darla Moore School of Business. He teaches a large MKTG 351 course (300-400 students). Abhijit took the challenge of teaching virtually during the pandemic head-on and thrived.
Tina Marie Devlin is an adjunct faculty member in the Arnold School of Public Health. Tina implemented many strategies during the pandemic to engage students. Her learning modules included Blackboard Collaborate Ultra lectures, short videos, journal articles, discussion board assignments, a midterm exam and a virtual group project.
In response to an increasing need for faculty in the medical schools to network and engage in reflective teaching practices, CTE developed the Reflective Teaching Practices for Medical Educators (RTPforME) program. In a cohort model, RTPforME consists of live, interactive webinars, asynchronous modules, one-on-one consultations with an instructional designer, and a final teaching project. Participants are provided with a Cohort Leader, an experienced instructional designer who coaches them through the program.
The goals of this program are to prepare faculty to teach exemplary online, blended or hybrid courses and to build their capacity in the areas of pedagogy, course design, course development, distributed delivery, and online course administration. By providing a self-paced series of micro-courses with a capstone project in a cohort model, the program is designed to maximize flexibility for participants.
Ten faculty members have been awarded Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Curriculum Grants to develop new courses that focus on historically marginalized populations, are intersectional, and/or expand curricular capacity for inclusive excellence.
All told, the rapid change of courses to different teaching and learning formats during COVID-19 created challenges across the education landscape. This article explores three pedagogical principles and frameworks for the design, development, and delivery of online courses.
The University of South Carolina rallies behind its First-Generation students and supports various initiatives to ensure they excel not only in their academics, but in their personal and professional lives as well. Despite the many obstacles that present themselves, First Generation Students remain resilient in the face of the storm.
Lisa Rosof has made tremendous progress in designing engaging online courses. Today, Rosof has the knowledge and skills to start from scratch and design her own online courses. Her tenacity and determination, combined with her dedication to her students, have made all the difference in the world.
The Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation honors the University of South Carolina's most exceptional faculty who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to best teaching practices and an ongoing record of developing innovative strategies to enhance student learning in their courses. Six recipients received this year's award and are to be commended for their accomplishments.
For Summer 2020, Anne Gulick, Associate Professor, English Language and Literature, planned a fully asynchronous online version of her cross-listed course Women Writers (ENGL 437/WGST 437/ ENGL 743). This summer course is a great example of innovation and creativity in translating the learning experience that her students usually had in person to an online, asynchronous, accelerated learning environment.
In support of the development of innovative courses that explore issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, are community-engaged, and that are rooted in culturally responsive pedagogy and equity-mindedness, the Center for Teaching Excellence is offering Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Grants for the development of new courses that focus on historically marginalized populations, are intersectional, and/or expand curricular capacity for inclusive excellence.
Jacob Rivers taught in a 100% asynchronous instructional method for the first time. Using the resources at the Center for Teaching Excellence and support from CTE Instructional Designer, Gloria Washington, he designed, developed, and taught ENGL 101. When Washington first met with Rivers in a consultation for transitioning his ENGL 101 face-to-face course to a fully online format, he was hesitant about teaching online. Rivers enjoyed teaching face-to-face and felt he might lose his special connection with his students. Rivers and Washington met at least once a week through the entire design, development, and delivery process. With the design and development of ENGL 101, Rivers made sure that his course was as engaging and rigorous as his face-to-face version of the same course.
Two College of Arts and Sciences courses won awards at the annual Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL) Conference. ADEIL is a professional association for all those engaged in or interested in distance learning. With the guidance of instructional designers from CTE, award winners Hayden Smith and Charles Schumpert brought home victories.
Looking for a program that expands your knowledge in the realm of online learning and teaching, while also having the opportunity to network with other scholars? The Center for Teaching Excellence's (CTE) Carolina Online Learning and Teaching (COLT) Certificate of Completion program is designed to provide faculty with the foundations for teaching either in online, blended or hybrid formats. COLT help builds faculty members' capacity in areas of pedagogy, course design, course development, teaching, and online course administration.