Faculty Focus Live

Your teaching philosophy helps examine who are you as a teacher and examines what beliefs and values are at the heart of what you do. In this episode, Maryellen Weimer reflects with other instructors on stories and vulnerabilities that helped shape their personas and philosophies in the classroom. Resources Mentioned: Who Am I When I Teach? Understanding Teaching Persona Considering the Courage an...

Are some of your students struggling with online learning? Have you seen a decrease in motivation or engagement? If the answer is yes, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher or instructor. It might just mean there’s a missing piece, and today, we’re here to find that missing piece. The piece that recognizes that maybe one, two, a handful, or all of your students are struggling with onli...

Glenn Walton gives us 9 ½ ways to humanize your teaching in an online environment. From rubber chickens to sound boxes and a screaming monkey, it’s never a dull moment in his classes. 1. Use poll questions and chat box questions 2. Be predictably unpredictable 3. Be visually appealing 4. Be trendy 5. Explain your expectations 6. Be everywhere 7. Design your class to be more inviting and pleasant 8...

Online discussion boards. It’s something that’s come up a lot this past year as we’ve migrated to the online platform. One of the main questions is how do you get your online discussions to be more than just, “Hey Theresa! I agree with your statement, that’s a great point.”  In this episode,  we’ll go over a few things you can do with your online discussion board, from using responses to give narr...

In this episode, we sit down with Ken Alford to discuss how he's kept the storytelling element within his online classes and what you can do to help students see you as a person. "Share your story, and let them know that you know life happens to everybody. We’re all in this human drama together, and I think the more we can connect with each other, the better it is. I think anything we ca...

You became a beacon of light for your students and offered their lives some peace, stability, and encouragement. As we move forward, what techniques can you use to deal with stressors (small or big), and how can you implement trauma-informed pedagogy into your classes to help support students during a pandemic? Resources: Cultivate Resilience: Six Steps for Stress Inoculation Trauma-Informed Pedag...

Many have done quite remarkable things with both asynchronous and synchronous activities, and numerous instructors use a mix of both. In this episode, we’ll dive into specific techniques instructors are using that have the potential to build community, convey information, assess learning, and inject your personality. Resources mentioned in this episode: 20-Minute Mentor: How Do I Choose Between Sy...

In episode one, we'll be taking a dive into different classroom assessment techniques that you can begin using in your own courses, both online and face-to-face. From application cards to a pros and cons list and even a polling system, there are numerous techniques you can use to make sure your students are following along, engaged, and learning. Resources mentioned in this episode: "Eve...