Teaching, Fast and Slow: Using Peer Instruction for Active Learning

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes the "two systems" of thinking and how this leads to cognitive biases and heuristics. These biases and heuristics can lead students astray while they are trying to learn course material or taking tests. Providing more opportunities for formative assessment can help students improve their performance. Peer Instruction is a easy-to-adopt, evidence-based active learning pedagogy that focuses on formative assessment. This session will highlight some of Kahneman's insights and how to leverage Peer Instruction to shift the balance between the two systems of thinking for better student learning outcomes and more fun in the classroom.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Summarizing the cognitive biases related to the two systems theory of cognition,
• Understanding relevant literature relating to active learning and Peer Instruction, and
• Constructing ConcepTests for highlighting course misconceptions.

Establishing ownership of research and scholarship is a complex process. This session explores issues related to claiming Intellectual Property of research and scholarship, including student work. Through careful analysis of JMU's policies, participants will learn how to successfully navigate the process of claiming intellectual property and the resources available to help.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Identifying and understanding if they have created intellectual property through their research and scholarship 
• Knowing if and when they should file an intellectual property disclosure form.

Diversity, Sustainability, and Engagement, OH MY! Using Ethical Reasoning Education to Meet University Priorities

Is it possible to create educational experiences for students that include important ideas like diversity, sustainability, and ethical reasoning AND focuses on your content? It may take some creativity to figure out how to blend these high-priority ideas with each other, with disciplinary content or professional practice. Join faculty, Student Affairs colleagues, and university leaders to learn about how they've adopted ethical reasoning as a tool to meeting other university priorities and how it has become part of their teaching and work.  Then tell us about your experiences and spend some time individually or with others constructing your own learning outcome(s) that use ethical reasoning as a means to addressing sustainability, diversity or engagement objectives. No experience with ethical reasoning education is necessary.

Participants will make progress toward:

• identifying connections between their ethical reasoning education efforts and other university priorities,
• constructing learning outcomes that attends to university priorities, and
• learning about colleagues' efforts use ethical reasoning education as a tool to accomplish other university priorities.

This round table will explore the rationale for and methodologies behind intentional selfdevelopment, its place in higher education curricula, as well as in the university. The importance of intentional self-development cannot be over emphasized as a primary vehicle for societal change and individual growth. While we currently face global changes that once were fodder for bad dreams, we struggle to create change that may allow us to occupy the planet comfortably for, perhaps, a few more decades. While cultural, economic, environmental, and social change are critical to improving conditions, the central impetus for all these changes, and the most enduring, is individual change.

Participants will make progress toward

• Exploring the usefullness of and need for intentional self-developing,
• Determining in what educational settings intentional self-development is most valuable, and
• Outlining basics plans for projects that support intentional self-development.

The problem, your problem: Too many personal names in PubMed & the digital wilderness are indistinguishable. Author searches in Google Web go awry and stuff you wrote shows up in somebody else's Google Scholar profile. Public identity management rests largely in your own hands, aided and abetted by the library science community. In this workshop you will come to understand how Linked Data and name registries, if used consistently and aggressively, will cement your scholarship to your public identity, and might even boost your impact ratings. We will walk you through the process of creating a Linked Data identifier and share some guerilla methods of how to associate it with your journal articles, emails, faculty web pages, and how you can help your JMU library manage your public identity in Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo by adding your name to the Library of Congress national authority file. And by the way, your students need to start practicing smart identity, too.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Understanding how name registries, using Linked Data principles, can positively impact academic publishing,
• Learning from hands-on experience how to actively forge these bonds using publication bylines, faculty web pages and other familiar venues, and
• Exploring resources from the JMU Library hat can assist in these issues.

This workshop asks to what extent syllabi can communicate values of diversity and inclusion and set the stage for truly inclusive courses. Based on the answers to these questions, the facilitators will ask participants to review their own syllabi and change them to better reflect and foster inclusive teaching practices. To do so, they will use elements of a rubric that guides faculty through a reflection on how inclusive their syllabus and teaching is.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Identifying what diversity and inclusion means, or can mean, for classes that they teach, 
• Analyzing to what extent their own syllabi communicate inclusive practices, 
• Using a rubric designed to self-evaluate the way in which a course supports inclusion (or not), and
• Creating changes to their syllabi that support inclusive teaching and learning.

Some pedagogical strategies work well together and some do not.  This workshop will introduce participants to a model being developed utilizing the lens of communicaton theory that will allow the exploration of pedagogical strategies with the intent of increasing student learning.  Facilitators will present the unbalanced equation of teaching and learning model, first discussing various ways instructors might structureeffective learning experiences, and then request participant input in hopes of creating an intellectual discussion of various ways instructors might help students bridge the chasm of student motivation.

Participants will make progress toward understanding how the current landscape fits within the teaching/learning model.

Learn what goes on behind the screen of the Canvas grading defaults, how they perpetuate unfair assessment practices and denigrate learning. Participants will critique Canvas grading defaults, discuss workarounds, and provide suggestions for designing fair grading practices.

Participants will make progress toward understanding the impact of Canvas grading defaults on student grades.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Becoming familiar with restorative justice principles and their applicability to the classroom setting, 
• Identifying ways to create a community environment in the classroom, and
• Learning techniques that can establish a calmer, more focused classroom.

"A pig never fattened up because it was weighed." Likewise, assessment alone does not improve student learning. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the JMU learning initiative where department faculty work with CARS (the Center for Assessment and Research Studies) and CFI (Center for Faculty Innovation) in a collaborative process to improve learning in a program. The facilitators will explain how a pilot program, Computer Information Systems, selected a program learning outcome, developed a rubric to measure the outcome, and scaffolded learning interventions across 7 courses. They will describe some strategies that they used to get faculty involved in this large project. The workshop participants will be invited to consider how Learning Improvement by Design might be used to improve instruction in their program.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Connecting assessment to student learning,
• Constructing a rubric to measure student learning across a curriculum, and
• Practicing the integration of assessment and learning interventions.

This roundtable will consist of participants from The Digital Humanities and Social Sciences
Institute, which enables faculty to develop to use digital humanities theory and practice to
create class-based assignments. Roundtable participants will discuss what they learned from
the institute and and report on how they and their students fared with the assignments
produced during the institute. Those attending the institute will learn about the digital
humanities and how this emerging field it can be productively used in the development of
digital assignments across the disciplines.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Learning about digital humanities theory and practice, 
• Finding out about digital humanities projects and resources on campus, 
• Understanding how digital humanities can benefit their use of technology in the classroom, and
• Making connections with faculty and experts on campus who can facilitate digital humanities teaching and research.

What is interprofessional education (IPE)? Where is it occurring? Why develop IPE activities and classes? Using an engaged learning pedagogy, this roundtable will describe a 3-semester, cross-department IPE series using "knowledge bursts" and facilitated conversation. Participants will dialogue with and learn about and from each other and the faculty facilitators to explore the participant's questions, plans and challenges to engaging in IPE activities. We will note strategies to mitigate obstacles and share lessons learned based on our JMU experiences and IPE research.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Describing the potential benefits and barriers to IPE, and
• Establishing faculty contacts with whom to support and explore IPE initiatives.

It's the little things that make a difference to each of us, but especially to our students.  What we say, how we say it, and the ways that we move, may result in micro-messages of inclusion or exclusion by us as senders, receivers, and observers. Using the 58 Micro- Triggers documented by Janet Crenshaw Smith, we will each choose one that matters to us and consider it with our 7 universal fears and desires and the messages we unintentionally send that may create micro-inequities that exclude in the classroom and beyond.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Recognizing that both the small things AND the big things are important, 
• Exploring 7 universal fears, the corresponding 7 universal desires and the impact of a 1% performance bias, and
• Utilizing some of the 58 MicroTrigger phrases.

Do you have questions about how Corporate & Foundation Relations fundraising at JMU works?  Is fundraising outside of your comfort level? Or, maybe, you want to contribute to fundraising but aren’t sure where to start? We'll provide a brief overview of the unique components that contribute to our CFR private fundraising efforts and how it supports university research and collaborative relationships with corporations, businesses, industry and private foundations. We invite you to join the conversation to understand fundraising at JMU and how it benefits the entire university community.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Gaining a general understanding of Advancement and how Corporate and Foundation Relations fits,
• Identifying key components of CFR
• Exploring tools and resources available to campus partners to boost your interaction with CFR and their external partnerships.

Today, there is a wide-range of film available for educational purposes from professionally-made, full-length feature and documentary films to home-made short YouTube clips.  However, while faculty and students generally understand the wealth of information contained in a film, it is often difficult to find ways to teach film and to show students how to identify, retrieve and articulate this information. Using film in teaching can be more than the passive experience of 'just showing a movie' in class. Learning activities can show students how to be mindful of the act of watching and understanding film, of the compositional style of the film, of the difference between filmic data and written-up data, and of the choices made by film-makers in presenting their data. These activities quickly generate discussion and provide rich insights for course assignments. There are a variety of
resources at JMU for accessing films for your classes.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Learning about the range of film resources available to stream on-line through JMU and beyond, 
• Exploring how to integrate film into in-class and on-line course content,
• Creating film-based homework assignments on Canvas, and
• Understanding how to use film to generate class discussion to can increase students' sensitivity to detail and ability to focus and concentrate.

Recent research indicates that JMU students primarily use mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, smartphones) to access Canvas. The same research also indicated that faculty members primarily use computers (laptops and desktops) to access Canvas. When professors design course materials to be delivered in Canvas, they do so with the computer in mind. Unbeknownst to most professors, the functionality afforded in the Canvas app for mobile devices bears no resemblance whatsoever to functionality offered in the computer-based version of the application. The proposed workshop will review the learning theories that inform the design of technology-based instructional materials, provide the latest research and best practices in instructional design for technology-based instruction, examine the differences between the Canvas app for mobile devices and the Canvas application for computers, and describe how the Canvas app for mobile devices may be used most effectively.  

Participants will make progress toward:

• Describing the learning theories that inform the design of technology-based instructional materials,
• Describing the latest research on instructional design for technology-based instruction,
• Stating best practices in instructional design for technology-based instruction, 
• Enumerating the differences between the Canvas app for mobile devices and the Canvas application for computers, and
• Describing the best uses for the Canvas app for mobile devices.

"José Antonio Bowen is President of Goucher College. He taught at Stanford and Georgetown, and was Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. He has written over 100 scholarly articles and has appeared as a musician with Stan Getz, Bobby McFerrin, and others. He has written a symphony, music for Hubert Laws and Jerry Garcia, and is the author of Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology out of your College Classroom will Improve Student Learning."

"In his book Teaching Naked, Dr. Bowen states that while technology has fundamentally changed our relationship to knowledge, we need to redesign courses and classrooms to make them active learning environments where students have a reason to attend. His pedagogy explains that technology is most powerfully used outside of the classroom as a way to increase student preparation and engagement between classes and create more time for the in-class dialogue that makes the campus experience worth the extra money it will always cost to deliver. "

"Dr. Bowen's aim is to connect recent research to practical questions with the larger administrative challenges. Teaching Naked provides a strategy for using new technologies to keep courses, curriculum and campuses focused on more analysis of content and more contextualized learning."  Goucher College website.

According to The Institute for Civility in Government, civility is the ability to claim and care for your own identity, needs, and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process.  Being civil means disagreeing without disrespect, seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past your own preconceptions, and teaching others to do the same. Participants will learn how to integrate civility into empathy. Participants will then be guided through an exercise in empathy and civility by putting themselves in the world of members of various underrepresented and marginalized populations.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Defining Civility, Prejudice, Discrimination, Bigotry, Racism, Homonegativity/Homophobia, and White Privilege, 
• Exploring microaggressions,
• Analyzing how these terms impact the faculty role in fostering civility among colleagues, between faculty/staff and students, and among students.

This workshop will provide an overview of statistical methods commonly used in research articles and the main factors that affect the validity of these methods. This workshop will appeal to participants who have difficulty understanding the statistical techniques described in a research article, those who skim the methods or results section of a paper or publication, and those who wish to better assess the validity or limitations of the statistical claims in such articles. Participants are invited to share research articles and their questions of concern with the facilitator prior to the workshop.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Developing a list of items to look for when critically evaluating the quantitative portion of a scholarly article,
• Learning skills relevant to critically evaluating the results of statistical hypothesis tests and/orclaims,
• Reviewing basic univariate statistical methods, and
• Determining the appropriate univariate statistical method for a given context.

Fulbright grant awards are for seasoned scholarly sojourners as well as fresh, curious globalists who want to teach and/or research overseas. Typically, doing a Fulbright requires about 2-3 years of advanced planning. Participants with a current or future intention to apply for the Fulbright Program (Core Program or Fulbright Specialist) should join the JMU Faculty Fulbright Campus Representative to gather insightful tips and clarity for moving through application process. Participants will organize their efforts and begin writing the project statement of the application. Please bring a laptop for use during this workshop.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Gaining an understanding of the application process via website exploration,
• Creating an organizational plan to move forward with the application, and
• Writing more impactful a project statements.

This roundtable will explore the elements of dialogue and deliberation through a brainstorming and evaluation exercise. The basics of 'what is dialogue and deliberation and how does it relate to my research, service, and teaching interests?' will be covered. Directors of the Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue will then engage participants indialogue about developing professional development opportunities for faculty and staff interested in practicing dialogue and facilitation skills. Specifically, the group will explore the development of an Employee Affiliate program at JMU.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Articulating how dialogue and deliberation facilitation skills fit into their teaching, research, and service goals; 
• Shaping a professional development opportunity at JMU.

Nietzsche's madman proclaimed in the marketplace that truly revolutionary discoveries (such as the death of God) take time before their effects are felt. That is certainly true for recent findings in the decision sciences ie. behavioral economics, social psychology, neuroscience, etc. In the past three decades the comfortable notion that humans are rational agents who weigh evidence and consider arguments before deciding and acting has been uprooted. In its place emerges a less flattering image of intuition- driven, predictably irrational behaviors dominated by prejudices, biases, and simplistic heuristics. This is a big deal for educators! In this discussion-laced seminar we will review the emerging model of human decision-making and behavior with an ear to reshaping ethical reasoning (and every other) pedagogy. This workshop will not introduce the Eight Key Question ethical reasoning strategy or provide additional case studies.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Learning more about the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of decision-making science and ethical reasoning pedagogy, 
• Examining the major contributors and current literature in this growing field, 
• Exploring how The Madison Collaborative: Ethical Reasoning in Action fits into the larger landscape of behavioral sciences, and
• Developing strategies to incorporate their new understanding of decision-making into their pedagogy and research.

On July 1, 2014 JMU launched its second comprehensive campaign in an effort to raise funds to advance the entire university community.  Through its duration, this campaign will touch every aspect of JMU.  Administrators, faculty and staff will continue to play a crucial role in how we continue to shape the campaign.  Join us in discussing campaign priorities and how faculty can
be involved.  We’ll share a brief history of the campaign thus far and a roadmap of where we’re headed.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Understanding what a comprehensive campaign entails, 
• Communicating current campaign priorities and their influence on the greater JMU community, and
• Identifying opportunities to get involved with the campaign at the college or university level.

Technology provides new ways for students to receive first contact with material, enhanced opportunities to connect and create community, better ways to ensure that students are prepared forclass,and new options for the sequence of learning encounters and activities.  The Teaching Naked Cycle is a practical way to operationalize the latest science about learning.  We will break down a unit of content in the following steps:

• Email to prepare (personalize entry point)
• Content for first exposure (read/watch/do)
• Exam to evaluate (retrieval)
• Writing to reflect (elaborate, contextualize)
• Class to challenge (failure, complicate)

It's recommended (but not required) that participants bring a laptop or other wifi enabled device to this workshop.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Appreciating pedagogy – the art and science of teaching and learning 33 as a significant higher education endeavor, and
• Integrating knowledge of student development models in teaching philosophies and practice.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Finding Partnership in your Quest to Engage Alumni and Donors

Participants will make progress toward:

• Enhancing alumni and donor engagement strategies through collaborating with campus partners and University Advancement, and
• Identifying existing resources to support your alumni and donor relationships.

We might assume that a collaborative culture at JMU depends on our willingness to help each other, but it equally depends on our willingness to receive help, which many find more challenging. Workshop participants will bring a challenge that has them feeling stuck in their work or work environment, which they are willing to share one-on-one with a colleague they do not know. They can expect to leave with a plethora of ideas for solving it, as well as meaningful connections with other workshop participants and an activity, based on "feedforward" developed for leaders by Marshall Goldsmith, as an alternative to soliciting "feedback."

Participants will make progress towards:  

• Developing a positive experience soliciting ideas from colleagues to overcome a challenge,
• Creating a structure for overcoming challenges
• Understanding of how this practice can promote trust and reciprocity in our relationships at work and beyond.

Participants will address how digital assignments in WordPress and Pinterest have been used
in a science course to reinforce and enhance a challenging topic. The parameters of how
these were set up and used by the faculty and students will be explored. Examples of
student results will be shown. Participants will be encouraged to start a flow chart of how
these media can be used on a particular course topic.

Participants will make progress towards:

• Learning how to use WordPress and Pinterest in a online science assignment,
• Exploring ways that a challenging concept can be reinforced for students when using digital media, and
• Starting an idea flow chart for a digital assignment in a course.

This roundtable will include discussion with the Center for Faculty Innovation's Engaged Teacher-Scholar (ETS) leaders. ETS leaders will share their knowledge of the engaged teacher-scholar landscape at JMU, share tips and best practices for engaging with Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), discuss how to get involved in SoTL work at JMU, and present ideas about how to move SoTL efforts forward to publication, presentation, and dissemination.

Participants will make progress towards: 

• Learning about the goals and objectives of the ETS program,
• Exploring tips and best practices for how to get involved in SoTL and/or engaged scholarship in their units/colleges, and
• Developing strategies on how to move SoTL efforts forward to publication, presentation, and dissemination.

This workshop will introduce and participants to Knowledge Surveys and will allow them to create a basic knowledge Survey. Knowledge Survey can help determine what students think they know about a subject, and, when administered at strategic  times, can tell you how much the students think their knowledge improved from taking a course. Knowledge surveys can also be used to help shape the planning of the subject matter coverage in your course.

Participants will make progress towards:

• Understanding the role of Knowledge Surveys in class design,
• Examining Knowledge Survey data, and
• Creating items for a partial Knowledge Survey for their class.

Interested in collaborating with a girl's school in rural Kenya?  Or a regional university outside of Nairobi? Attendees will brainstorm and explore potential linkages between JMU and our Kenyan partners, including Nasaruni Academy for Maasai Girls. This is an active session with a brief presentation on the Kenyan entities, followed by the brainstorming time and actual planning and conceiving of real projects. Envision training future civil engineers in a developing world environment; imagine training future ESOL teachers in an elementary classroom of Maasai girls. Ignite a passion for social justice for the poor, the fragile environment of the Maasai Mara, or the shrinking habitats of white rhinos and velvetmonkeys. Come explore the possibilities.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Articulating collaborative opportunities in Kenya,
• Developing collaborative projects in rural Kenya, and
• Visioning future opportunities for JMU faculty and students in Kenya.

Getting It Done: Resources and Strategies for Making Writing Happen

Two WRTC faculty members will provide strategies for increasing and maintaining writing productivity including time management, digital tracking, and accountability tools. Resources specific to JMU's campus will also be discussed including offices, spaces, and tools faculty might engage to begin, continue, and finish scholarly writing projects. The workshop will allow participants to identify goals and challenges related to their personal writing productivity and to work with presenters and peers to increase writing productivity.

Participants will make progress towards:

• Learning about writing resources on campus,
• Gaining strategies for increasing scholarly productivity, and
• Considering personal writing and scholarship goals.

Participate in an ethical reasoning research and innovation learn-and-write workshop where you can spend time creating your application for a Madison Collaborative mini-grant and hear colleagues and students share summaries of their research or innovation ideas such as, "Can sales people learn ethical sensitivity?" "Can art encourage ethical reasoning?" and "How does employing the Eight Key Questions in a simulated disaster affect nursing students' attitudes toward ethical reasoning?"􀀁 Learn more about ethical reasoning assessment tools available for research. You can also meet one-on-one with a CARS or Madison Collaborative colleague to discuss and formulate your ideas.

Participants will make progress toward:

• Developing an ethical reasoning research or program innovation mini-grant application,
• Exploring ethical reasoning learning assessment tools that can be used in research, and
• Formulating ethical reasoning research or innovation ideas.