Full Program
Wednesday, August 14
Session One – 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
101: Strategies to Maximize (International) Student Participation
Presenters: Erin Horan (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning) & Kim Westemeier (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: Butler Board Room
As stated in a 2018 report released by the Institute of International Education (IIE), “The United States remains the top host of international students globally.” As we welcome more international students onto campus and into our classrooms, we will need to continue to be mindful of the unique experiences all students bring, including their past educational experiences. For example, rather than tallying the amount of times each student speaks in class we will examine alternative approaches that define participation as multi-directional flows of communication and collaboration (student-to-student, -self, -Instructor, -content). In this session we will discuss strategies to effectively, efficiently, and inclusively assess participation of all students.
102: Leveraging Surveys with Qualtrics for Teaching, Research, and Learning
Presenter: Bill Harder (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 245
Qualtrics is a powerful and customizable survey platform that every member of the AU community has access to. This session introduces the basics of survey design and distribution via Qualtrics. Then, several ways to use Qualtrics in the classroom will be explored, including using Qualtrics to: gather original data to analyze with your students, demonstrate how to construct randomized experiments, collect student feedback throughout your course, and collect data for your own research.
Session Two – 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
201: The First-Year Writer as Witness Book: How The Sixth Extinction Might Come Up In Your Class
Presenters: Karen Knee (CAS-Environmental Science), Kelly Joyner (Writing Studies Program) & Adam Tamashasky (Writing Studies Program)
Location: MGC 245
Join a discussion on the book our incoming first-year students are reading this summer for the Writer as Witness program: Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction. As we try to teach students to understand the deeper complexities lurking behind issues, Kolbert’s well-researched, warmly accessible book provides a model of the kind of questions we want them to ask and the self-reflective research processes we try to instill. Faculty from multiple disciplines will talk about how the book has been used in the past and facilitate a discussion about how attendees might incorporate the book into their own classes.
Presenters: Rachel Borchardt (Library), Katie Hut (Library) & Olivia Ivey (Library)
Location: MGC 247
The library is phasing out institutional subscriptions to EndNote desktop in May 2020. This workshop is designed to introduce three citation management software programs – Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote Online – to those who are unfamiliar with these programs, as well as discuss future options for current EndNote desktop users. We will highlight basic features and differences of the programs, discuss transitioning an EndNote library, and offer small group training. Participants should bring a laptop or other primary research device. If you’re unable to attend, email endnotehelp-l@listserv.american.edu to set up an appointment with one of the library’s citation software support specialists.
203: Introduction to Blackboard
Presenters: Library Staff (Library)
Location: Anderson B-14
This workshop will explore how to set up a course in Blackboard, and will cover the features that are most commonly used, including adding items, assignments, discussions, and other features. We will also explore how to customize the menus and tools that faculty and students will most routinely use.
Luncheon – 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Do I Belong Here? Faculty and Students of Color Navigating The College Classroom
Presenter: Brian McGowan (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning / School of Education)
Location: Butler Board Room
Research has consistently highlighted the copious benefits associated with racial and ethnic diversity at both the student and faculty level. Despite these benefits, themes of exclusion and marginality continue to emerge from faculty members and students of color narratives. In this lunch session, the Center for Teaching, Research & Learning’s new Associate Director of Inclusive Pedagogy will describe issues and challenges that faculty of color face in the classroom. Implications for individuals aiming to better understand and improve these realities will be offered.
Session Three – 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
301: Student Team Projects – AGHHHHH!!!!
Presenter: Tommy White (KSB – Mangement)
Location: MGC 245
Employers consistently state the ability of recent graduates to work in teams successfully as one of the top three required attributes. Yet we professors (and, of course, students) struggle mightily with team assignments! Everything that can go wrong probably has. Help is on the way! In this lively discussion (who doesn’t have a team-gone-haywire anecdotal to share?), we will explore 3 – 4 techniques that have been used both successfully and failed miserably in the design and implementation of team projects and (hopefully) provide a pathway to more effective team projects. Let’s work together to get closer to the ever illusive, “perfect team project!”
302: Self-Created Videos: Enhancing the Learning Experience With Kaltura
Presenters: Library Staff
Location: Anderson B-14
This session introduces you to the video creation and streaming software Kaltura and Kaltura Capture, and will prepare you to record mini-lectures, video feedback, weekly summaries, presentations, and more. You will learn not only the technical aspects of the software, but also how to effectively integrate this technology into your class and how to use it as a teaching tool.
Session Four – 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
401: Let’s Talk: The Faculty Development Leadership Cohort (FDLC) on Diversity and Inclusion
Presenters: Jason Fabrikant (School of Professional & Extended Studies), Nikhat Ghouse (Library), Kiho Kim (CTRL / CAS-Environmental Science) & Steve Silvia (School of International Service)
Location: Butler Board Room
How do you teach in a way that’s inclusive? How do you engage students from different backgrounds and cultures and identities? How do you make sure that students see themselves in the syllabus and in the curriculum? In 2017 AU launched a new Faculty Development Leadership Cohort (FDLC) on Diversity and Inclusion to address these questions, and to train a group of AU faculty in facilitating workshops and discussions on issues of race and inclusion. Come hear what some of the members from the first two FDLC cohorts took away from their experience, and help us generate ideas on how to further spread knowledge, engagement, and skills among our faculty on how to be inclusive teachers and community members.
402: Using WordPress in the Classroom
Presenter: Kim Westemeier (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 245
Learn how WordPress can allow you to manage and maintain your online content through your very own public website or blog. Blogging can help engage students, facilitate discussions out of the classroom, and foster interest in your subject well after the semester is over. In this workshop, we will look at exciting examples of successful WordPress sites, discuss how to use blogs in the classroom, and provide tools to get started. If you’re interested in building your own website for a course or research purposes, then this is the workshop for you!
Thursday, August 15
Session One – 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
501: First Day and Beyond: Creating an Inclusive Classroom
Presenter: Elizabeth “Betsy” Cohn (School of International Service) & Leena Jayaswal (School of Communication)
Location: Butler Board Room
How do you draw all students in to engage with course content and fellow students? What language should you use on your syllabus and in class to be more inclusive? This workshop will explore concrete ways to set the tone for inclusion on the first day of class, as well as in course policies, assignments, class participation, readings, and your syllabus. Bring your ideas and questions as this will be an interactive workshop.
502: Integrating Mixed Methods Approaches into Your Teaching and Research with NVivo
Presenter: Bill Harder (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 245
NVivo 12 is a powerful mixed-methods analysis software platform available to all AU faculty, staff, and students. NVivo can perform analysis across numerous types of qualitative data, including: text, image, audio, video, and social media formats. This session will introduce the NVivo platform and highlight the features relevant to mixed methods research, including tools for network analysis, theme and sentiment auto-coding, and integration with SPSS. This session will also explore how to best integrate NVivo into explicitly mixed-methods research designs. Examples of integrating NVivo into faculty research and teaching will also be highlighted.
Presenter: Library Staff (Library)
Location: Anderson B-14
In this workshop, we will examine how to set up and manage your Blackboard Grade Center. We’ll explore assignments, grade schemas, grade weights, grading with categories, and other features built into Blackboard that will help you grade your students. We will also examine strategies and best practices when grading with the Blackboard Grade Center.
Session Two – 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
601: Getting to Work: How to Incorporate Anti-Racist Writing Pedagogy in Your Classroom
Presenters: Neisha-Anne Green (Academic Support and Access Center) & Marnie Twigg (Writing Studies Program)
Location: MGC 245
Building on strategies introduced at Asao Inoue’s workshops in February 2019, this interactive session supports participants as they revise course materials to include anti-racist writing assessment practices. Participants will work together with facilitators and each other to reimagine course materials with an eye for these practices. Participants will submit a writing assignment prompt, rubric, or other assessment-related materials of their choosing prior to the session. Facilitators will provide feedback on these materials, opportunities to workshop them in small groups with writing experts, and models for troubleshooting when things don’t go the way you plan.
602: Mentoring Undergraduate Research
Presenters: Aaron Boesenecker (School of International Service), Bill Harder (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning), Mary Mintz (Library), Mary Frances Giandrea (CAS-History), & Catherine Stoodley (CAS-Psychology)
Location: MGC 328
This session explores the role of faculty in mentoring undergraduate research. A roundtable of faculty from across the university will convene to share their experiences with guiding and shaping the undergraduate research experience. The session will touch on mentorship across a number of different types of projects: from individual course projects, to substantial research papers and theses, to integrating undergraduates into larger ongoing faculty research projects. Attendees are encouraged to come ready to share their own research mentorship experiences as time we be allotted for discussion with the audience.
603: Dare to Know: The Evolution of AU Honors
Presenters: Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (Honors Program / School of International Service)
Location: MGC 247
The AU Honors Program is undergoing some changes. A task force of faculty, staff, and students met for several months last Spring and into the summer, and has made a number of recommendations about the program going forward. Come and hear about the program’s evolution from the new Honors Director, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. We’ll cover proposed changes to the overall curriculum, enhancements to the overall Honors experience, and new efforts to deepen our intellectual community — as well as looking at ways for faculty to get connected to the outstanding students in AU Honors.
Luncheon – 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Who are the AU Undergraduate Students? Implications for Teaching and Learning
Presenters: Fanta Aw (Vice President of Campus Life and Inclusive Excellence), Jeff Brown (Dean of Students), Traci Callandrillo (AVP of Campus Life) & Amanda Taylor (AVP of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)
Location: Butler Board Room
This luncheon will provide insights into the AU undergraduate students, most of whom are Gen Z students. The session will discuss trends in student development and implications for teaching and learning.
Session Three – 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
701: Grading Strategies for Writing Assignments
Presenter: Erin Horan (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning) & Kim Westemeier (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 245
Writing assignments are a great way to assess students’ learning, but grading can be tedious and time consuming. In this workshop, led by the Center for Teaching, Research & Learning’s Instructional Designers Erin Horan and Kim Westemeier, we will discuss research-based strategies for effectively and efficiently grading your students’ writing assignments. After this workshop participants will be able to design assignments and utilize rubrics to effectively and efficiently grade writing assignments.
702: Applications of Classroom Technology for Active Learning
Presenter: Katie Kassof (Library)
Location: Kerwin 3
We often put a lot of focus on virtual learning spaces, but much of your interactive time with students is in a physical space: the classroom. Throughout the past few years, AU has modernized most of the classrooms so the installed technology can enable different pedagogical strategies. This workshop will explore what is available in classrooms around campus, offer ideas for different learning activities that take advantage of the installed technology, and look at options that you can bring into your classroom to facilitate active learning.
Session Four – 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
801: Student Team Projects – AGHHHH!!!
Presenter: Tommy White (KSB-Management)
Location: Butler Board Room
Employers consistently state the ability of recent graduates to work in teams successfully as one of the top three required attributes. Yet we professors (and, of course, students) struggle mightily with team assignments! Everything that can go wrong probably has. Help is on the way! In this lively discussion (who doesn’t have a team-gone-haywire anecdotal to share?) we will explore 3 – 4 techniques that have been used both successfully and failed miserably in the design and implementation of team projects and (hopefully) provide a pathway to more effective team projects. Let’s work together to get closer to the ever illusive, “perfect team project!”
802: IRB and SoTL: Ethics Related to Researching Your Teaching
Presenters: Erin Horan (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning) & Gwendolyn Reece (Library)
Location: MGC 245
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SoTL, describes the process of systematically researching your teaching practices for continuous improvement. SoTL also includes sharing your findings with others through the typical avenues of conference presentations and scholarly, peer reviewed journals. As such, SoTL research requires the American University Institutional Review Board (IRB) is involved to ensure the ethical treatment of human subjects. Join us for this session on what SoTL is and what types of materials you will need to obtain IRB approval for your research project
Wednesday, August 21
Session One – 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
901: 10 Strategies for Adding Metacognition and Reflection into Your Course
Presenters: Cindy Bair Van Dam (AU Core / Writing Studies Program) & Alison Thomas (Writing Studies Program)
Location: MGC 245
Research and experience tell us that reflecting on what we’ve learned and how we’ve learned deepens the experience of learning itself. From Complex Problems and Habits of Mind to AUx and Capstones, the AU Core’s pedagogical emphasis is on metacognition. Whether we’re trying to help students make sense of difficult material, develop responsible research habits, or prepare them for future coursework, we want students to create a trail of bread crumbs so that they can retrace and replicate their learning processes. This session will offer practical strategies—in-class discussion activities, process logs, peer-to-peer learning, writing assignments, etc.—that will empower students to reflect on and articulate their learning processes in your course.
902: Bringing Data into the Classroom
Presenters: John R. Bracht (CAS-Biology), Derrick L. Cogburn (School of International Service and Kogod School of Business), Nathan Favero (SPA-Public Administration and Policy), Ryan T. Moore (SPA-Government) & Eric R. Schuler (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 247
Bringing data into the classroom provides students with hands-on experience in understanding how to work with data and use the results to answer real world questions. This panel will discuss different strategies and approaches that AU faculty are using across the campus to bring data into the classroom. The panelists will talk about different assignments, strategies (e.g., scaffolding assignments geared towards a term paper), and course practicums. We will also discuss what has worked in different classes and what were some challenges. The goal for this workshop is to explore different methods that may be used within your course.
903: Applications of Classroom Technology for Active Learning
Presenter: Katie Kassof (Library)
Location: Kerwin 3
We often put a lot of focus on virtual learning spaces, but much of your interactive time with students is in a physical space: the classroom. Throughout the past few years, AU has modernized most of the classrooms so the installed technology can enable different pedagogical strategies. This workshop will explore what is available in classrooms around campus, offer ideas for different learning activities that take advantage of the installed technology, and look at options that you can bring into your classroom to facilitate active learning.
Session Two – 11:00 AM – 12:15 AM
1001: Science Isn’t Scary!: Teaching Science to AU Core Students
Presenters: Adele Doperalski (CAS-Biology) & Sarah Marvar (CAS-Biology)
Location: MGC 245
To many outside of the science field, science can be intimidating. Here at AU students are required to take a Natural Scientific Inquiry course as part of the new AU core curriculum. This workshop will focus on strategies that will help engage those students beyond checking a box. During the course of the workshop, we will discuss active learning techniques, grading strategies, and assignments, among other things, that will help make science more accessible to non-major students.
1002: Critical Information Literacy: A Primer and Discussion
Presenters: Symphony Bruce (Library) & Hannah Park (Library)
Location: MGC 247
This workshop will introduce American University faculty to the concept of Critical Information Literacy (CIL) and invite a discussion of the ways power and privilege present themselves within scholarly communication. Presenters will begin by introducing the tenets of CIL as a frame of thinking and as a pedagogical practice. Because CIL works to unveil the power structures behind the creation and dissemination of information, the presenters will lead a discussion, asking participants to consider existing forms of oppression our students engage with, how this is reinforced in the classroom or in research practices, and ways to design the classroom experience to be a more democratic, collaborative, and transformative space.
1003: Introduction to Blackboard
Presenters: Library Staff
Location: Anderson B-14
This workshop will explore how to set up a course in Blackboard and will cover the features that are most commonly used, including adding items, assignments, discussions, and other features. We will also explore how to customize the menus and tools that faculty and students will most routinely use.
Luncheon – 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM: Meet the Center for Teaching, Research, & Learning Staff
Presenters: Bill Harder, Erin Horan, Kiho Kim, Brian McGowan, Anna Olsson, Eric R. Schuler, Lindsay Studer, Paul Vaughan, and Kim Westemeier (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 3rd floor Lobby
Come meet the staff of the Center for Teaching, Research & Learning and hear about our current and upcoming programs.
Session Three – 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
1101: Teaching with Social Media and Social Media Analytics
Presenters: Bill Harder (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning) & Jason Mollica (School of Communication)
Location: MGC 245
This session explores ways to integrate Twitter and other social media platforms into your courses as both tools to further student engagement and as sources of data for you and your students to analyze. First, we will consider pedagogically rich ways to integrate social media into your teaching. Then, we will explore how to obtain and utilize social media data and analytics related to the content of your course. Throughout the session the presenters will introduce a number of social media analysis tools including R, NVivo, Netlytic, Meltwater, Brandwatch, and Hootsuite.
1102: Showcase your Research Through an Online Exhibit
Presenters: Melissa Becher (Library), Gwendolyn Reece (Library), Meagan Snow (Library) & Kim Westemeier (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: MGC 247
Learn about three different platforms (EdSpace, WordPress, ESRI StoryMaps, and Omeka S) supported by the university that allow you to present your research to the world through online exhibits. This workshop showcases the capabilities of each platform and contemplates the circumstances in which you may want to use one or another. In addition, learn about Tropy, a free online tool, similar to Zotero, that helps you organize your research and archival images.
Session Four – 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED – 1201: Fostering a Collaborative Learning Environment
Presenter: Lara Schwartz (SPA-Government)
Location: MGC 245
In the best learning communities, students can learn as much from one another as from instructors. But how do we build learning spaces where students listen to and learn from one another? In this session, Lara Schwartz will present and discuss policies, exercises, and assessments that foster cooperation, listening, and shared responsibility for the learning process.
1202: Data Visualization in the Classroom and Research
Presenter: Eric R. Schuler (Center for Teaching, Research & Learning)
Location: Anderson B-14
Sometimes the best way to understand data is to visualize it. There are a variety of different visualizations that can be utilized in the classroom and in research. During this workshop we will discuss commonly used visualizations and criteria on what makes a good visualization. From there, software code (R and STATA) will be used to create the visualizations. We will build on the various plots to improve readability and clarity of the visualizations using a scaffolding approach.