Workshops and breakout sessions
Workshops
Distinguished faculty across Temple who have completed our Provost’s Teaching Academy will be facilitating 60-minute, interactive workshops on day 1 of the conference. The workshop topics will build on the theme of the conference and on the topics presented by our keynote and plenary speakers. In the workshops, you will have the chance to take a deeper dive into select topics and apply what you have learned to your own courses.
Wednesday, January 11th, Workshops
11:00am - 12:00pm & 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Play In My Classroom: It’s Rigorous Business!
LaVonne Couch
Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Public Health
Temple University
About this Workshop
We know that children learn through play, yet we abandon play as we get older, believing that it no longer provides opportunities for learning. Studies show that the use of “play” in a university level course can facilitate the advancement of deep and rigorous student learning. In this session, you will experience the juxtaposition between play and rigor for yourself and develop strategies for incorporating play in your courses.
Teamwork That Works! Asset Mapping As A Tool For Equitable And Effective Student Teams
Karen Lin
Internal Medicine, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Temple University
Jill Allenbaugh
Internal Medicine, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Temple University
About this Workshop
Students come from a variety of backgrounds with unique lived experiences. However, when working in teams, they often fail to define their assets and needs. How do you leverage the diversity of your students’ strengths to help them build stronger teams, identify unfilled needs, and embrace the rigor of higher education? In this session, we will share the technique of asset mapping and how we implemented it in our course. You’ll have the opportunity to consider how asset mapping can benefit your students by creating more equitable and effective teams that work together towards better learning outcomes.
Walking The Tightrope: Balancing Flexibility With Structure In Course Design
Jay Lunden
Biology, College of Science and Technology
Temple University
About this Workshop
Over the past two years, we’ve labored to incorporate flexibility into our courses to meet the challenges of the day. Beyond being an equitable teaching practice, flexibility also offers students a pathway to build resilience and set themselves up for success as lifelong learners. However, too much flexibility can have the inverse effect and create frustration and confusion for both faculty and students alike. In this workshop, we’ll explore striking the right balance between flexibility and accountability to help our students (and us!) succeed today and in the future.
“I Speak, Therefore I Participate”: Rethinking Class Participation
David Pasbrig
Music Studies, Boyer College of Music and Dance
Temple University
About this Workshop
We try to provide space for everyone’s voice to be heard in the learning environment, and indeed usually require that our students participate–sometimes as a significant part of the final grade. But what does it mean to participate or be engaged in class? After experiencing the distance, yet online intimacy of the pandemic, are we assessing participation effectively? In this session, we’ll explore what it means to participate actively in class and whether we are assessing participation effectively.
Jumpstarting Student Motivation: Getting Your Students To Achieve Their Best
Laura Rauth
Nursing, College of Public Health
Temple University
About this Workshop
In thinking about the best methods to motivate our students, we often draw on what motivated us. Yet, when students are not motivated as we were, we may make assumptions about their work ethic or commitment to learning. Are there other explanations for our students’ perceived lack of motivation? How can we jumpstart our students’ motivation and investment in learning? In this workshop, we will reflect on Keynote speaker Johnson’s talk on motivation and engage you in strategizing effective methods to help students achieve their best.
Room: 223
Experiential Learning: Maximizing Course Content And Creating Impactful Outcomes
Rick Ridall
Sport and Recreation Management, School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management
Temple University
About this Workshop
Experiential learning is, in essence, a powerful opportunity for students to learn by doing. It provides students with opportunities to immerse themselves in “real world” applications and to critically reflect on that experience to create new knowledge. In this workshop, we’ll look at different types of experiential learning opportunities to see how they can stimulate academic inquiry and lead to the achievement of important course goals for our students. We’ll also explore best practices in designing experiential learning opportunities. You’ll leave with a host of ways you can incorporate experiential learning into your own courses.
Room: 200
Breakout Sessions
These peer-reviewed 45-minute interactive sessions generally include a “mini-lecture” format with activities and demonstrations of teaching methods, as well as guided discussions about the topic at hand. Choose one morning and one afternoon session to attend.
Thursday, January 12th, Morning Breakout Sessions
11:00am - 11:45am
Upgrade your Grading! 5 Innovative Practices to Improve Satisfaction in Grading
Aimee Dalenta, Education
Springfield Technical College
Matthew Connell, Business
University of Bridgeport
About this Breakout Session
Across all levels of education, high-stakes, extreme grading practices have become normalized. Despite the hyper-focus on professor accountability, the assignment of letter grades on student work is a relatively recent phenomenon. This presentation focuses on grading strategies that can be used in the college classroom to ease the stress of grading. The discussion will emphasize intentional assignments, meaningful feedback, and interactive grading ideas that empower students and de-stress the professor.
Room: 217D
Turning Academic Rigor on its Head! Academic Rigor that Promotes Affective Factors in Learning
Nichole Webster, English
Community College of Philadelphia
Massah Nuni, English
Community College of Philadelphia
About this Breakout Session
The purpose of the presentation is to provide faculty with strategies for building communities of diverse learners in their classroom while maintaining academic rigor. Research indicates student- centered strategies help maintain academic rigor for diverse learners by including student input and redefining rigor (Campbell et al., 2018).
Training Graduate Students in STEM to Lead Assessment Efforts
Natalie Chernets, Postdoctoral Affairs and Professional Development
Drexel University
Toni May (Sondergeld), Research
Drexel University
Michael J. Bouchard, Biomedical Science
Drexel University
Jed Shumsky, Academic Affairs
Drexel University
About this Breakout Session
We trained Biomedical graduate students in assessments to evaluate the student experience and outcomes before and during COVID-19 in our graduate programs. Since assessment and evaluation are continuous endeavors, providing trainees with tools to perform these activities will develop skills for those pursuing biomedical-science faculty careers.
Room 217C
Leap of Faith: “Structured Flexibility” for Maximum Engagement
Anne Frankel, Public Health
Temple University
Jamie Mansell, Undergraduate Studies
Temple University
Jennifer Ibrahim, Public Health
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
How can we excite and engage students, meet university policies, and adhere to accreditation or educational standards? Structured flexibility! In this interactive session, we will engage participants in strategies to showcase how to best meet students where they are and share real examples of how this can be done.
Beyond the Quiz and Exam: Achieving Rigor In Quantitative Courses
Eve Walters, Engineering
Temple University
Cory Budischak, Engineering
Temple University
Julie Drzymalski, Engineering
Temple University
Ruth Ochia, Engineering
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
Structuring equitable assessments in quantitative classes is challenging and suffers from the misconception that it lessens the expected challenges. This session addresses these issues, highlighting the need for a shift in perception of STEM assessments and illustrating how course competencies can be achieved through alternatives to the standard exam.
Room: 223
Level Up: Elevating Gameplay in the College Classroom
Sheryl Sawin, Intellectual Heritage
Temple University
Jim Getz, Intellectual Heritage
Temple University
Elizabeth Sunflower, Intellectual Heritage
Temple University
Rebekah Zhuraw, Intellectual Heritage
Temple University
Heather Levi, Anthropology
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
COVID-19 caused an unprecedented upheaval in education, disrupting traditional modes of teaching and learning around the globe. In this panel, five faculty members share how they incorporate tabletop and role-playing games into their courses to help cultivate belonging, increase engagement and build collective knowledge.
Thursday, January 12th, Afternoon Breakout Sessions
1:00pm - 1:45pm
Design Thinking in the Online Classroom Using Whiteboarding Tools
Keith Gutierrez, Business
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
Design Thinking activities in the classroom enable students to engage in creative problem-solving. Free digital whiteboarding tools enable students to be actively engaged, allowing all voices to be heard instead of the loudest voices in the room dominating the conversation. Features include sticky notes, voting, and timing activities.
Room: 217D
Expecting to Expand: Diving Deeper in Our Classroom Discourse
Charla Lorenzen, Arts and Humanities
Elizabethtown College
About this Breakout Session
Learn about and practice two specific approaches and several related classroom techniques for diving deeper in classroom discourse and infusing your future classes with new insights and energy, brought by all participants. You will never teach “that same old class” ever again and you will feel inspired by your students.
Missing the Forest for the Trees
Anne Russ, Health and Rehabilitation Science
Temple University
Jamie Mansell, Undergraduate Studies
Temple University
Ryan Tierney, Health and Rehabilitation Science
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
Picture it: you’ve spent several hours reviewing student’s work on an assignment, providing robust feedback for students to incorporate into their next product. Imagine your disappointment when students care more about the grade than the feedback. In this session, we will discuss ways to re-focus attention on the final product.
Transform Information Literacy Assignments with Open Educational Practices
Kristina De Voe, Libraries
Temple University
Caitlin Shanley, Libraries
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
In this session, presenters will offer ideas for moving beyond traditional research paper assignments to more open, renewable assignments in which students actively engage in knowledge creation. Find out how you can help motivate student understanding of how knowledge is produced, disseminated, and valued in our rapidly shifting information ecosystem.
Mentoring Matters! STEM Students Help Each Other Succeed
Christina Winterton, Biology
Villanova University
About this Breakout Session
Active learning has been shown to be an effective teaching strategy to improve course grades and retention in STEM courses. Using university statistics and student feedback, a new customized version of a peer mentoring program for General Biology was developed and implemented in Spring 2022. First generation students and those from underserved backgrounds who participated in peer mentoring showed significantly higher averages than their non-mentored counterparts, and all students who participated in peer mentoring had exam scores and a final average above the class average.
Room: 223
The Holistic Syllabus Tool: Promoting Inclusion through Curriculum Redesign and Faculty Reflection
Gillian Rai, Health and Rehabilitation Science
Temple University
Antonius Mikuriya, Health and Rehabilitation Science
Temple University
Kayzie Marie Burgos, Health and Rehabilitation Science
Temple University
About this Breakout Session
The Holistic Syllabus Tool was created as an approach to decolonizing the occupational therapy curriculum. It is designed to provide inclusive opportunity and access to the curriculum for underrepresented students and inform best pedagogical practice for diverse, equitable, and inclusive education.
Room: 200