Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion: A New Blog Series

Stephanie Fiore

As faculty and students, we may be deeply affected by what is happening in our country and across the globe. To help our students navigate these troubling times, many faculty are actively seeking ways to create more just educational opportunities and experiences. At the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, we have always had at the heart of our work a goal to help faculty create more equitable, accessible, and brave spaces of learning for our students, spaces that allow students to take risks and be their authentic selves. When we talk to faculty about inclusive teaching practices, we speak in the broadest and deepest sense: practices that help students from diverse backgrounds succeed; spaces that acknowledge and honor the cultures, experiences, voices, abilities, and realities of our students; strategies that democratize education, promote equity, and reduce oppression in learning environments; and moments of reflection in which we consider how our own identities influence our teaching practices.

We will be exploring these themes in our EDvice Exchange space through a bi-weekly blog series, Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion. This series will introduce pedagogical strategies that construct a classroom in which all students’ voices are heard, controversial topics are explored and managed, and students can find their path to success.

To start us off, I would like to offer some thoughts about this semester. We are encouraging faculty to think intentionally about how to make their pedagogy more agile, that is, able to adjust to changing circumstances and situations. The three Rs of Agile Pedagogy (as we’ve defined it) are Rigor, Responsiveness and Resilience. The second part – Responsiveness –  is incredibly important in creating a semester that doesn’t crumble when circumstances change, and that accounts for the stress and anxiety our students may be feeling due to racial unrest, ill effects from COVID-19, or marginalization and therefore vulnerability to bias, misunderstanding, or a missing sense of belonging in our classrooms. Sarah Cavanagh reminds us, for instance, that anxiety disrupts student performance by hijacking working memory’s capacity with worrying thoughts, leaving fewer cognitive resources to direct to the problem at hand (The Spark of Learning, p. 184). If we remember that students’ social and emotional lives influence their ability to connect and learn, we will be more responsive to their needs.

Thinking intentionally about how to address these needs can go a long way towards helping students succeed in your classroom. Here are some ideas to consider:

  • Create opportunities for students to connect with you and each other at the outset of the semester. Icebreakers, introductions and getting-to-know-you activities can help. Ask them to send you information they wish for you to know, including any barriers that might affect their learning or help you understand how to support them in class.
  • Maintain open communication channels with regular reminders (how to reach you via email, office hours, or a more anonymous channel).
  • Depending on the size of your class, host monthly individual or small group check-ins with students.
  • Clearly post university resources (e.g. Student Success Center, Wellness Resource Center, Tuttleman Counseling Services) so neither you nor students have to search too long for support.
  • Flexibility matters! Plan for alternative assessments (flexible deadlines, different modalities) to make sure your students have accessible ways to demonstrate their learning. Plan also for alternative activities in case a student cannot attend class.

Remembering that we are not just teaching content – we are teaching students – goes a long way towards helping us all adopt a responsive mindset.

Next topic in the Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion blog series:

September 14: Creating Brave and Inclusive Spaces for Challenging Discussions

Stephanie Fiore is Assistant Vice Provost at Temple University and Senior Director Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Trauma-informed Teaching: A Lens to View and Help All Students Succeed

Cliff Rouder & Linda Hasunuma

We and our students are experiencing a time of powerful social transformation amidst a global health crisis. The physical, social, and emotional toll that we all may be experiencing brings into focus the need for an awareness of trauma’s impact on learning. The Center for the Advancement of Teaching recently sponsored a three-part workshop on trauma-informed teaching in which Temple faculty and representatives with expertise in this area from Temple’s Wellness Resource Center, Office of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership (IDEAL), and Tuttleman Counseling Services helped us understand what trauma is, how it can impact student learning (and us), and the scope of our role to help students succeed. We have gathered key ideas and helpful information from these sessions in this blog post to guide you in creating spaces for learning that support student success. 

What is Trauma and Why Does It Matter? 

The classic/traditional definition is “psychologically distressing event involving “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence…” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 261).

It involves a sense of fear, helplessness, and horror. Childhood trauma occurs whenever both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with an external threat (van der Kolk, 1989). As instructors, it is always helpful to keep in mind that trauma can affect the students in our classroom and us, but in the time of a pandemic and an intense struggle for racial justice, this trauma can be exacerbated. 

While most people understand the effects that trauma can have on a person, they may not realize that trauma can also affect cognitive, social, behavioral, and physical functioning. Students, and you, bring all of these effects into the classroom with you.

© Amy K. Lynch and Kelly Mahler

How Might Trauma Manifest in the Classroom? 

An awareness of the ways in which trauma can manifest for students can serve us as educators in class and during office hours. These include, but are not limited to: 

  • Inappropriate interpersonal boundaries, such as demanding additional information and/or participation in processes. 
  • Emotional responses that are not typically acceptable as “professional behavior.”
  • Rigid thinking/cognitive inflexibility.
  • A loss of self-agency and coping strategies.

It is important, too, to be aware of the ways in which forces of oppression, such as anti-Black racism, can impact students:

  • Psychological Impact: attentional/focus difficulty, feelings of helplessness, chronic stress, apathy, hypervigilance to discrimination/oppression, and perfectionism/burnout.
  • Physiological Impact: somatization (e.g., headaches, rapid heartbeat), sleep difficulties, and disconnection.

What Steps Can I Take to Help All Students Succeed?

Faculty are not therapists or counselors, nor should they be. Within our scope of practice as faculty, however, here are several concrete strategies that you can employ: 

  • Be aware of and manage your own trauma response so that you don’t negatively impact the dynamics of your class. 
  • Be clear about your goals and maintain a routine and structure in a simplified and organized way in areas like your Canvas course design. 
  • Work intentionally to build trust:
    • Assess students’ needs before the semester begins to identify what learning challenges they may be facing. A simple (private) survey asking students their name and major, and if they’re comfortable, asking if there are things about their identity that would be helpful for you to know. In addition, asking them to share any barriers that might impact their learning can help you proactively meet their diverse needs.
      • Recognize ways in which our own biases (both explicit and implicit) are reflected in course content or policies and may activate a racial trauma response. Make changes accordingly. For more information about implicit bias, view this resource. 
      • Create a welcoming and supportive space where students can share and take risks to decrease the likelihood of feeling marginalized. 
      • We can also create that supportive space by setting expectations for engagement and accountability and working through strategies for meeting those expectations. Please see the section titled, “Setting Community Standards for Online Discussions” in this resource.
      • Acknowledging the impact of racism and racial stress is a critical step in creating a learning environment where students can feel heard and affirmed. One way we can do this is by addressing microaggressions (unintended things we and other students say or do that can be hurtful). 
      • Check in frequently about what’s working and what’s not; take the “temperature” of the class.
    • Offer options in your assignments and assessments as to how students demonstrate what they’ve learned. Choices support a sense of autonomy.
    • Take a team approach! Resources like Tuttleman Counseling Services, IDEAL, Disability Resources and Services, and the Wellness Resource Center can support your efforts to promote student well-being.
    •  
    • What are the Boundaries of my Role as Instructor?If a student’s behavior is proving detrimental to themselves or to the effective functioning of your class, you can speak to that student privately to empathetically express concern about the behaviors and attempt to find workable strategies to address those behaviors so they do not impact the functioning of your class. Faculty are often concerned about how to manage this type of conversation. Here is some helpful guidance to consider:  Validate student feelings “That sounds like a lot to be experiencing.” Start from a place of caring. Be compassionate as you frame the need for the discussion. Communicate that the intention of this discussion is to help rather than to punish. Appreciate the courage it took to share “Thank you for sharing this with me–I know it takes a lot of courage.” “Thank you for trusting me enough to share this experience.” If a student does share something as personal as past trauma with you, it’s likely because you have created an environment of trust and caring. So, kudos for that! You can first express appreciation that the student has shared this with you.  Refer to skills and supports  “What supports or resources have worked for you in the past?”“There are folks available who can help. Could I share some information with you?” If a student shares a traumatic experience specifically about sexual misconduct since they have been a student at Temple, let them know you must report that to the Title IX Coordinator, and that they can be a part of the reporting process. Learn more at sexualmisconduct.temple.edu. If a student shares a plan to harm themselves or others, please contact TUPD (215-204-1234) or 911. There are resources available for students in non-emergent crises, such as the Crisis Text Line, or hotlines for interpersonal violence and sexual violence.  Remember that the key to great teaching, no matter the challenge, is communication, empathy, flexibility, and the willingness to see our students as the complex, wonderful human beings they are.  We are deeply grateful to the facilitators of the trauma-informed teaching workshops:
      • Crystal Austin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Instruction, College of Education and Human Development
      • Hillary Black, LCSW, Assistant Coordinator of Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE), Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Valerie Dudley, Ph.D., Director of Multicultural Education, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Amy Lynch, Ph.D., OTR/L, Associate of Professor of Instruction, College of Public Health
      • Aisha Renee Moore, MSW, LCSW, Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE) Unit at Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Nu’Rodney Prad, M.S., Director of Student Engagement, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Jessica S. Reinhardt, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Practice, College of Education and Human Development
      • Liz Zadnik, M.A., Associate Director, Wellness Resource Center

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy & Design Specialist for the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Linda Hasunuma, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

CAT: Facilitating Connections Across Faculty For Continued Learning and Reflection

Abha Belorkar and Laurie Friedman

teaser of chart

As the fall semester begins, we wanted to share how Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) has impacted our teaching and learning, creating a space that fosters relationships among faculty across campus in our common goal of Temple’s mission: to educate a vibrant student body and create new knowledge through innovative teaching, research and other creative endeavors. Despite coming from different disciplines (math and social work) and having different levels of experience teaching (1 year and 1 decade), CAT’s diversity of programs affords us the opportunity to pick and choose how, and how often, we want to engage. 

Abha: Coming from a family composed mostly of teachers, I was fascinated from an early age by the positive impact of good teaching. Later, the opportunities to informally tutor my colleagues during undergraduate and graduate studies strengthened my desire to pursue a career in teaching. However, the guiding force in shaping my motivation for teaching came from the relationships I fortuitously formed with some teachers who have completely dedicated themselves to the art and science of teaching. I still did not have any formal teaching experience before I joined Temple, so there was (and is!) a lot of learning to be done.

Laurie: I had thought of pursuing a PhD since a professor had mentioned it to me my first year in graduate school, but wasn’t sure what I would focus on. Seven years later, I was supervising staff and facilitating trainings at a nonprofit and found I really enjoyed staff development and the relationships I formed with others. One of my employees encouraged me to guest speak in her class and afterwards, the professor encouraged me to think about teaching. At the same time, I was increasingly interested in studying our foster care system. Thus began my journey as an adjunct at Temple, coupled with doctoral education, to my current role as an associate professor of instruction. 

An Overview of CAT

Wright, Lohe and Little (2018) describe the different models of Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) that assist them in meeting their common goals of providing programs and services related to pedagogy. Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) falls within what is termed as the pedagogical/technological or distance education model. In this model, CAT is staffed by instructional designers, faculty consultants and educational specialists who jointly work towards their mission of fostering “evidence-based teaching so students learn, develop, and succeed.” 

On January 1, 2016,  the Instructional Support Center and the Teaching and Learning Center merged to form the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, formalizing the intricate connection between teaching and technology. Temple’s CAT also functions as a  hub “of pedagogical innovation, influenced by but not dependent on flashy digital technology,” as described by Lieberman (2018) who notes a national trend towards teaching centers serving to strengthen the relationships across university units. Temple’s CAT does just this, collaborating across the University’s 17 Schools and Colleges, the Digital Education Department, Wellness Resource Center, Disability Resources and Services Center, Tuttleman Counseling Services and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership.

 The 2018-2019 annual report notes that CAT reached faculty across Temple’s seven campuses with 940 faculty consultations. Faculty consultations offer personalized support, feedback, and encouragement to the faculty members. During the consultations, advisors collaborate with individual instructors to achieve their specific goals — they provide a fresh and independent perspective by drawing on their vast interdisciplinary knowledge and experience of pedagogical best practices, and by acting as active partners in brainstorming ideas for refinement of course objectives, assessments, as well as teaching and learning activities. The consultations also provide a highly effective means to interpret and discuss student feedback with a view to induce higher student engagement and performance as well as increased instructor satisfaction (Cook & Kaplan, 2011). It is especially noteworthy that all CAT consultations are strictly confidential conversations between the faculty and the advisors.

In the same academic year (2018-2019), 90 Teaching in Higher Education Certificates were issued by CAT and over 55 programs offered across a variety of subjects. 1,284 individuals visited exactly once and 1,446 individuals visited more than once, exemplifying the flexibility in choosing how often to engage in CAT’s program. An additional 350 individuals attended the Center’s regional two day conference on teaching excellence. 

Figure: Whatever be the level and type of interaction of faculty with CAT, there are opportunities to experience substantial growth and development.

How we engaged with CAT

Abha: It was during my interview process at CIS Temple that I first got to know of the Center for Advancement of Teaching and the programs and facilities it offers. The presence of these resources on campus has been an encouraging factor in my teaching journey.

The first resource I made use of was the teaching consultations. They have been a great platform to think aloud about my teaching. What I especially like about the idea of a consultation is how little of the instructor’s time it takes. The idea that one can get such personalized and meaningful feedback by simply investing an hour out of one’s schedule is exciting. It has also been really interesting to get insights and suggestions from more experienced faculty members who have very different approaches to teaching and advising and are helpful in their own unique ways.

This summer I completed the Teaching in Higher Education Certificate offered by CAT. It has been quite an instructive experience being introduced to the wide array of tools and techniques that teachers across the globe have been using for designing strong course objectives, interactive lectures, summative and formative assessments, feedback mechanisms, community-building activities, active and blended learning approaches, and so much more. An equally valuable factor in the program is the rich conversations that take place between an interdisciplinary community of teachers all of whom are committed to improving their teaching and creating more substantial and welcoming classroom experiences for their students.

Laurie: As an adjunct, I first engaged with CAT when I met with a faculty fellow who reviewed my SFFs and conducted a teaching observation to help me fulfill Bryn Mawr’s Teaching in Higher Ed Certificate requirements. I subsequently attended workshops, participated in faculty learning communities (i.e. Teaching Online) and book groups, and the Provost’s Teaching Academy. Last year, I had the privilege to join Temple as a faculty fellow, which led me to more opportunities to collaborate with CAT’s staff. In this role, I facilitated a book group related to online teaching, met with faculty for consultations and collated additional resources for their website. I also taught two sections of the Innovation, Technology, and Teaching in Higher Education, as part of their Teaching in Higher Education certificate. In fact, this is how Abha and I reunited this summer from our initial meeting in the fall semester during a consultation! Our subsequent conversations revealed the shared meaning CAT held for us in our roles at Temple.

Abha Belorkar is Assistant Professor at the College of Science and Technology: Computer and Information Sciences. Laurie Friedman is Associate Professor as well as Coordinator of Continuing Education and Professional Development for Temple’s School of Social Work. She also serves as Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. 

Teaching International Students Abroad

Stephanie Fiore

Dymaxion Projection World Map

This fall, some of the international students in your classes may be located abroad in their native countries because travel restrictions have prevented them from coming to campus. Your international students are an asset to your class, bringing important diversity of experiences, cultural perspectives and learning methods. They are also eager to participate in the classes at Temple University despite the situation that has prevented them from coming to Philadelphia. Thinking intentionally about the barriers they may face and the contributions they may add to class can help all your students gain from this complex situation. Communication with your international students is key in helping them overcome challenges these conditions may pose to their learning. Here are some issues you may encounter and suggested strategies to overcome them. 

Time Differences

If your students are in a different country or some US states, they may be in another time zone, sometimes as much as 13 hours different from Philadelphia time. This difference may hinder their ability to feel engaged in your class, especially if you hold synchronous class sessions that meet when it is the middle of the night for them. How can you help them participate and engage with your class community? 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Make sure you ask your students at the beginning of the semester if they are in a different time zone. We recommend administering a short ‘get to know you’ survey to the entire class in which you ask students where they are currently located. 
  • Solicit students’ ideas for how to participate effectively in class.
  • Record your synchronous Zoom classes to allow students to access your class content at a time that makes more sense for them. This strategy will also allow all of your students with technological access or illness issues to access your course content asynchronously.
  • Make sure to have all of your course materials (syllabus, assignments, required and additional reading) available in Canvas so that students can access them at any time.
  • If you are doing active learning activities during your class time, offer an alternative way to complete work for your students in a different time zone. This alternative may look different than the in-class work but should accomplish the same goals.
  • Consider time differences when setting deadlines for assignments or when setting up times for exams. If a specific deadline is important, make sure all of your students understand ahead of time how to plan, and check in individually with your international students to ensure deadlines make sense for them. 
  • If assigning group projects, determine if you can form a group of students who live in similar time zones in order to facilitate more seamless collaboration. If students in different time zones must work together, encourage them to use effective collaboration tools (such as Teams or Canvas Collaborations) in order to communicate without having to have in-person meetings.
  • If you have scheduled virtual office hours, provide alternatives that are convenient for students in different time zones, or provide an asynchronous way for them to reach you.

Inability to Access Technology

Internet connectivity and access to technology tools could be an issue for some students both in the US and abroad. Stable high-speed internet and access to equipment such as webcams or laptops may not be available to some students, which makes it difficult for them to participate fully in remote synchronous class sessions. For other students, the issue is not internet connectivity but internet restrictions. China, for example, has restricted access to websites and applications that include Zoom and all Google applications (including Gmail) that are widely used for teaching, as well as YouTube, Twitter, Dropbox, Skype and more.

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Remind students, especially new ones, to complete the TUID Photo Verification process in Portal Next Steps. Having a verified photo on file will allow IT Help Desk to provide expedient assistance. 
  • You can test to see if particular domains are blocked in China using a site like Comparitech. First, however, a simple conversation with your students to identify any barriers to learning they face can reveal sticking points and additional insights you might not otherwise have known. 
  • Zoom may not work in certain countries, which may make it impossible for students to attend your Zoom session and to watch your Zoom recordings. Teams, a collaboration software with similar capabilities, will also work in most countries and is available to the Temple community. However, remember that the most important thing, particularly during this time, is to make sure students can reach your course goals, not that they all reach those goals in the exact same way. Talk to your students with these issues and brainstorm together how to help them.
  • Some websites, social media, and streaming platforms are also blocked in other countries, and some sensitive content may also be blocked. Ask students to review class material and let you know which ones they cannot access. In some cases, you may be able to download content and post it directly to Canvas. Post videos to open directly in Canvas rather than requiring students to download videos.
  • If students need alternative methods for receiving and delivering materials and class assignments, consider whether email will help. ITS is working to migrate overseas students’ email accounts from Gmail to Outlook 365 in order to allow them access to email. Regardless, it is essential to communicate with them through your Canvas course announcements and messages.
  • Students with slow bandwidth or limited allowance of bandwidth are likely to experience slow logins, page loads and forced terminations. For synchronous online sessions, allow students to participate without video, which will increase their bandwidth, and remind them to be present through chat or voice participation. 
  • In certain cases, students may be able to join Zoom by phone if they are having connectivity issues. Be sure to provide the complete information for the Zoom session, including how to connect to your Zoom session by phone. Note that this may not be possible in some international sites, and the phone call may have a fee attached. Check with your students if calling into your class is a possibility.
  • Think about bandwidth when selecting course materials such as videos. Students with low or limited bandwidth, whether in the US or abroad, may not have easy access to this material, so consider alternative ways to deliver any essential video content (audio transcription, outline, key points). 
  • Check the technology needs for your assignments and assessments. For instance, if you use a proctoring solution that requires a webcam and a laptop, find out if your students have access to that equipment. If not, consider offering alternative assessments for those students or, better yet, provide alternatives for the entire class.

Sensitive Topics

Students may be in countries or communities where certain topics are not safe to discuss. Depending on the country, students may be reluctant to engage in conversation about topics that may be sensitive to their government or community for fear of retribution. 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • In the first week of class, invite students to review topics on the course syllabus and flag any topics that could potentially be sensitive. 
  • Remember that even writing to you about flagged content can prove unsafe, and students may also be reluctant to discuss any barriers publicly in class. Invite your students to speak with you privately (at a time that works for their time zone) to discuss any issues they might anticipate.  
  • Work with your students to find creative alternatives that allow students to engage with the class content without compromising their safety. You can still, of course, teach the content you were planning to teach in the class, but perhaps your student can write about less controversial topics that will not jeopardize their safety.

The essential key to helping your international students abroad or students in another time zone is communication. Talk to students and work together to find solutions. 

References:

Cox, Michelle. 2020. Guidance for Faculty: Getting and Staying Connected With Int’l Students. John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University. Retrieved from: https://knight.as.cornell.edu/guidance-faculty-getting-staying-connected-intl-students

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2020. Teaching International Students Remotely [Blog post].  (n.d). Retrieved from https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/teaching-international-students-remotely/

Stephanie Fiore, Ph.D., is Assistant Vice Provost at Temple University and Senior Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Dymaxion projection world map by Justin Kunimune published to Wikimedia Commons and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image resized and cropped.

Self Care for Faculty: Four Ways to Cope When Teaching in Hard Times

It has been a difficult challenge for faculty to convert their face-to-face courses to online instruction and begin preparing for a reality unlike any that have faced. An added burden is that faculty are doing so at a time of such strife, with a pandemic prompting an unprecedented global lockdown, and heightened frustration over injustice. The past few months have left many feeling anxious, stressed, and exhausted. As we look forward to the fall, here are four ways to cope:

1. Take care of yourself

You’ll know best what self-care looks like for you, but there are some steps that will benefit anyone. Get enough sleep. Make an effort to eat healthily. Go for walks, if you can find a route without too many other people. Take some time away from your laptop and phone (read a book, call a friend, meditate, bake something!); it’s important to unplug when you can.

2. Reach out to a colleague

One thing lost when campus closed has been regular contact with colleagues. Teaching can be lonely work in the best of times; it is really hard in isolation. A sense of community can help keep you afloat. Make the effort to get in touch with a fellow faculty member, see how they’re doing, and compare notes on how you’re weathering the crisis. 

3. Set clear work limits.

Remember to separate your work life from your personal life. End your day when you normally would. Don’t answer emails all day and night. Think about setting up a particular space in which to work and then walk away from it to play with the kids, walk the dog, or just kick back with Netflix. Working remotely does not mean working all the time!

4. Check in on your students.

It’s a good bet that your students may be feeling disconnected and worn-out too. Even a single email that expresses care for your students, and asks them how they’re doing, can signal to them that they’re not alone. Think about being flexible and responsive to their needs in whatever ways are possible. Show students that you care about them and that you understand that this disruption might have sent them for a loop.
 

Stories from the Online Teaching Trenches

Deborah Cai

Deborah Cai, Senior Associate Dean and Professor at the Lew Klein School of Media and Communications, shared this message with us. The original version was sent to the chairs and senior staff at Klein, but we thought it was so compelling that we asked her if we could use it for this blog post. Thanks to Deb for allowing us to share, and thanks to all those at Temple like her who are so thoughtful about the current situation.

I have spoken with a number of students over the past several days to see how they are doing. All of the students – from highly motivated to average – talked about being overwhelmed with the transition to online learning, to living with family members (who also need to use the computer and internet). Several students have had family members or friends either hospitalized or die from the virus. One student is home with her family of four; she is the only one who still has a job. Another just made it back to his home in another state from Philly just a few days ago—his parents had been traveling and he didn’t really have anywhere to go or a way to get there. Another said she can only get internet in a park down the street from her house (I sent her the link about Comcast offering free internet to low income students). And most of the students have five classes to manage—not just one or two. I’m sure you are hearing similar stories from your own students.

When I looked at my gradebook over the weekend, it seemed 13 students (out of 60) had not been turning in assignments. I wrote to those students. Over the next three days I heard from (or met with during virtual office hours) all of those students, every one of them grateful for someone checking on their welfare and every one of them talking about how difficult the transition has been. Some are getting back on their feet, others are figuring out which courses they should drop because they can’t keep up. But every one of the students talked about their struggle of having fallen way behind across their courses.

I want to share with you some of their concerns, which I hope you will pass on to your faculty:

  1. In the transition to online learning, some faculty have replaced substantive content with busywork assignments. The students expressed frustration because the increase in assignments has made time management even more difficult, especially when this increase in assignments is happening across three or four courses.
  2. Further, students said they feel like they are not learning anything from these busywork tasks. Several students said they are now doing more work, but they are learning less in some of their courses. One student commented that, out of five courses, he is only still learning substantive material in two. He did say those other three were classes mostly outside of their major—but not completely.
  3. The students really appreciated when faculty members have been flexible about when assignments are due, allowing for late submissions, and focusing more on whether the work gets done than meeting a hard deadline. Some of the students are scrambling to now catch up after a rough couple of weeks moving to online courses. They are especially appreciative when faculty extend deadlines without penalty and when their instructors have worked with them to find ways to help them catch up.
  4. Several students said that some faculty members are very slow to respond to emails, at a time when hearing from their instructors is more meaningful than ever. In a time of uncertainty and isolation, they asked if faculty could be urged to be responsive on email.
  5. Like most of you, I’m holding virtual office hours for my students. At first, two students came. Then three. And this week seven. Just to chat. Just happy to connect. Several have lamented losing the energy and motivation and encouragement they get from being in a classroom setting, hearing lectures by professors passionate about their subject, interacting with faculty and students regularly in the hall.

As we all know, right now is a tough time for many of our students. A focus on learning and on social support is more important than hours of work or deadlines right now.

Please be active in checking on whether each student is still active in their classes. While there are many students who have been active in virtual class engagement, there are also many students that have gone missing in action all together. The University has encouraged us to reach out to those students to make sure they are safe and not at risk. If you do not hear back from specific students after several attempts, please inform your chair and/or dean right away who those students are. Temple has a process in place for reaching out to them, and we would want to employ that process right away.

I want to add that, with all of the supposition that online learning will take over in the future because of the current transition to online due to the virus, talking to students paints a very different picture. The students I’ve been talking to said they are energized by the classroom, by being on campus, by being around others who are excited and motivated to learn and to teach. They can hardly wait to get back.

[Editor’s Note: If you have students missing in action, even after you have tried reaching out, or you are aware of students who are facing an immediate crisis, please contact the CARE Team. Instructors in need of assistance teaching online can schedule a consultation appointment with a member of the CAT team.]

Send us your Stories from the Online Teaching Trenches. We would love to hear about your experiences. Stories can be sent to cat@temple.edu.

True Grit!

Stephanie Fiore

[The following article first appeared in volume 50 of the Temple University Faculty Herald.]

What a wild ride the past weeks have been! The Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) was in the middle of providing support to Temple Japan and Temple Rome to move their instruction online when the call came from the Provost’s office with a simple message: “Get ready for main campus!” I’ll admit I didn’t sleep well that night, anticipating already the enormity of the task ahead, the challenges that our faculty and our team would face, and the very real responsibility to make sure we could provide an education for our students. Subsequent participation in university-wide committees tasked with making what seemed almost impossible actually happen introduced me to all of those people on the front lines responsible for health, student services, information technology, emergency management, human resources, communications, and so much more. Our university is a complex ecosystem and the number of decisions to be made on a daily basis were (and are) staggering.

But at the heart of this effort is academic continuity, and that means you, our faculty colleagues, who had to shift to an online learning environment in just a few weeks time. By extension, that meant us, the CAT team of 13 faculty developers, educational technology specialists, and operations experts, whose job it would be to guide that process and lend support. I am daily amazed at the genius, resilience, and patience of the CAT staff during this crisis. In one week’s time, we created the REMOTE: Resources for Emergency Online Teaching website, developed and launched workshops and webinars to assist faculty in thinking about how to teach online and how to accomplish their classroom tasks – such as discussion, lecture, and assessment – online, trained faculty on ed tech tools such as Zoom and Voicethread, and began an email campaign to direct faculty to resources and to push out even more advice and guidance on a regular basis. We also scheduled our staff so that they would be available for consultations with faculty from 8:00am until 10:00pm every weekday and from 10:00am until 2:00pm on Saturdays and Sundays. We went out to schools and colleges, as needed, to consult with groups of faculty challenged with teaching in special contexts. We joined Tyler faculty in thinking about how to conduct studio teaching online, CST faculty in deciding which assessments would work best online, Boyer faculty in brainstorming ways to teach music and dance online, Engineering to figure out how to allow students to complete their capstone projects, and so much more. We hoped that this suite of services would sustain, encourage, and support faculty to make the move to online teaching, support them when they felt worried and incapable of achieving this, and reassure them that they were doing everything they could. It might not be perfect online teaching, but it would do the trick.

Through all of this, we have seen remarkable creativity, thoughtfulness, and effort on the part of our faculty. From the faculty who never use technology in their classes and so had to learn from the ground up, to the faculty who figured out how to teach ceramics, labs, media production, or acting online, to the ones who had to figure out what to do about students in field experiences or student teaching assignments, faculty have shown their dedication to student learning, their own ability to learn and grow, and their true grit. I am astounded at what I have seen and so incredibly proud. You have made this happen, my friends, and you should pat yourselves on your exhausted backs.

As we move towards the Summer I online classes, we’ll be partnering with the Office of Digital Education (ODE) to provide Canvas course templates and other tools to give you a leg up in designing online courses from scratch. And, of course, the CAT will be here with even more information, training, and support as you take on this new task. Designing an online course in its entirety will give us a chance to take a moment to think about what worked and didn’t in this emergency situation and pivot accordingly. As always, the CAT will be there to help you pivot. Look for new webinars in April on designing and delivering an online course.

Thank you again for all of the hard work you have done to complete this semester. As you continue this unprecedented journey, think about joining us for a casual check-in session every Friday at noon Around the Virtual Faculty Water Cooler: Sharing Our Experiences with Online Teaching. I have met so many of you in these past weeks, and hope to meet the rest of you at the (virtual) CAT.

Stephanie Fiore is Assistant Vice Provost of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Wise Feedback: Using Constructive Feedback to Motivate Learners

Devshikha Bose

open books

How many of us have thought about giving useful feedback to our students and fallen short? Moreover, how many times have we given what we thought was extensive feedback, and seen no improvements in student performance? Or that some students were utilizing our feedback while others did not? How can we provide constructive feedback which will be useful to all learners in that it serves to both instruct as well as motivate students? One way might be to provide “wise feedback.”

What is Wise Feedback?

Wise feedback is targeted feedback which conveys high expectations, the instructor’s genuine belief that those expectations can be achieved by the student, and provides concrete information to help the student meet the expectations. Here, “wise” does not necessarily mean smarter or better. Instead, wise feedback refers to psychological interventions which are attuned to how people make sense of themselves, others, and social situations which may affect their learning.

How do I provide Wise Feedback?

“I am giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” or “The expectations in this course are high and I know you can do great work. The feedback here is designed to help you get there.” Using this framing when providing feedback to your students helps to build trust, signal belonging, and combine high standards with the assurance that people can reach them. Obviously, simple assurances and trust in the abilities of others are in themselves not sufficient to guarantee success. It is therefore essential to also include constructive criticism, clear pathways/specific directions, and guidance on how students can achieve success.

Who can benefit from Wise Feedback?

While all students can benefit from wise feedback, studies have shown that students from cultures which have traditionally suffered from race-based stigma, seem to get additional benefits from wise feedback (Cohen, Steele, & Ross, 1999; Yeager et al, 2014).

Communicating high expectations and providing students with the support to meet them is crucial. Students can thrive when they are challenged. But they need to understand the expectations, know how to meet them, and feel that the instructor believes in their capabilities.

References

Devshikha Bose is an Instructional Design Consultant at Boise State University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

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Put the Library Where Your Students Are Learning

Olivia Given Castello and Nicole DeSarno

The Course Navigation link to the Library

The library is a critical learning support for college students, but the challenge is to make students aware of all the library provides. Since many students are learning partially or fully online, Learning Management System (LMS) integration is a handy way to bring library resources and librarian help to your students where they learn: in your LMS course.

Integrating library resources into the LMS can make your students more successful by giving them easy library access. Linking to library content within a course has been shown to increase students’ use of materials. Including information about library services gives them access to learning support when and where they need it, in a way they can refer back to throughout the semester. This can be especially useful for connecting the library to distance students and hybrid online learners, many of whom seldom visit the library in person.

LMS platforms can connect automatically with systems used by academic libraries. Two common ones are Research Guides and Course Reserves. There are also simple best practices you can follow when linking to library resources that will improve your students’ connection to the library.

Research Guides

Research guides are librarian-authored web pages recommending library resources to help students get started on research for particular disciplines, courses, or assignments. At Temple University, research guides are automatically integrated into the LMS via the “Library” link, an item in the default Course Navigation menu located in the left-hand column of Canvas courses. When clicked, this link shows a matched guide from Temple Libraries’ Research Guides system. The guide shown varies depending on the Canvas course. In most courses, the Library link shows a generic guide that highlights commonly sought information and tools, such as building hours, book and article search, a chat widget for live librarian help, and an online scheduler for research appointments. 

In courses where a faculty member works with a librarian to create a course-specific research guide, that guide is shown. In our pilot study at Temple, we learned that students engaged most with the Library link when it showed a course-specific library research guide! 

Having library resources in the LMS helps students build research skills and get help, and automatic integrations like Temple’s Library link bring these resources to students without any extra work for the faculty member.

Beyond automatic integrations, faculty can also manually add smaller portions of research guides in other areas of a course. Once you identify a single box or page from a larger research guide that would help your students, you can manually embed it in the area of your course content where students will find it most useful. At Temple, this type of content can be added to Canvas as an “External Tool.”

Course Reserves

Another common library integration concerns course reserves: high demand materials related to a specific course that you can make available to students via your library. E-reserves are downloadable in the LMS, while physical reserves are available for short term lending at the library. 

At Temple, faculty members can add the Course Reserves tool, which is separate from the default Library link, to Canvas’ navigation menu in the course Settings. You then request items be placed on reserve from within the tool by adding new requests or importing Reserves items from a previous semester. Library staff see and process the requests, and arrange any necessary document scanning, purchasing, or other additional steps. Once processed, the active reserve items show in the Canvas course.

Persistent links to library e-resources

Academic libraries offer many types of content that you can integrate directly into the LMS as course materials: articles, ebooks, videos, databases, and more — but use persistent links, not the URL in the browser window. A persistent link (a.k.a. durable link, stable link, permalink) is a URL that connects directly to a specific full-text source in a library database or electronic subscription. Using the persistent, library-linked, URL ensures all students (on-campus and off) can access the source. These links are stable over time, and they also eliminate the need to worry about potential copyright issues since students will be directed through the institutional login page if necessary for access. Different databases offer varying options for getting a persistent link to an item, depending on their interface. 

At Temple, persistent links can be added to Canvas as an “External URL.” Intentionally linking to library e-resources is the way to make optimal use of your library’s collections. It also creates a bridge for students to library research support services, since many library e-resource platforms include embedded librarian help.

Want to get started connecting to the library in your LMS?

To explore options for integrating the library into your LMS course, contact your institution’s library staff. Librarians will consult with you on how to integrate library resources, and can let you know what automatic integrations are available on your campus.

At Temple University, start at our guide to embedding library resources in Canvas. It includes step-by-step instructions and short video tutorials on the options described here. Contact your subject librarian to discuss the best library resources for your class, request a course-specific library guide be created, or change what shows on the Library link in your course. Consider adding a librarian to your course in the Designer role. We are happy to help with library-related Canvas options. Have other questions? Need additional help? Email us at asktulibrary@temple.edu!

Olivia Given Castello and Nicole DeSarno are members of the Learning & Research Services unit of Temple University Libraries.

Award-Winning Teachers Offer Wisdom

David Gooblar

CAT Teaching Awards Luncheon 2020

It was at the end of a fascinating hour, an hour in which some of Temple University’s finest professors shared some of what made them such great teachers, that Stephanie Fiore, the Assistant Vice Provost of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, asked one final question. “What words of wisdom would you offer to other professors who want to improve their teaching?” 

The occasion was the Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s annual luncheon to celebrate Temple’s award-winning teachers. The guests of honor were the 2018-19 recipients of the Great Teacher Award and of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Awards for Distinguished Teaching. Also present were a number of Temple faculty and staff eager to hear what these excellent teachers had to say about their approach to helping students learn. 

The responses to that last question were instructive in their variety, underlining that there are a number of ways to become a great teacher. 

For Matt Wray, Associate Professor of Sociology, there’s an important distinction between teaching content and teaching students. “As graduate students, most of us were trained to teach content—theories, concepts, terminology, research methods and findings, and so on.” But just because a professor knows all of the content does not mean that students will learn it all. To focus on students “takes more time and patience and understanding. Above all, it takes sustained dialogue with students and active listening on our part to hear what it is students know, what they don’t know, what they want to know, and how they know that they know it.” 

Lawrence Kaplan, Professor of Medicine and an Associate Dean for Inter-Professional Education at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, also counseled a focus on students. But Kaplan was careful to note that he guarded against assuming that all students wanted to follow the same paths that he followed. “My responsibility in medical education is to help students become the best physician that they want to be—not to turn them into me.” He aims to “help each student’s individual self-discovery,” and admitted that he loved to see “the light bulb moment when they see how the details of what they are studying is applied in the care of patients.” 

But chasing such moments can lead professors to try to do too much, warned Nancy Morris, Professor of Media Studies and Production. Morris reminded professors that sometimes wanting students to know everything can come at the expense of depth. “I think in general we all want our students to grasp the full breadth of class themes, to be well-versed in all class topics, and to engage with a range of readings that provide different approaches to class topics. But attempts at breadth can be counter-productive.” The solution, Morris said, was often to take material out, “in order to make class time not feel rushed, to not have to sacrifice exploration for superficial ‘coverage,’ and to encourage students to delve into readings rather than (at best) skimming them.” 

For David Schuff, Professor of Management Information Systems, the question made him think of how he conceives of a course’s full progression. “I try to think of a class as having a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. That helps me focus on the content that is essential to the ‘story’ and eliminate the rest.” He’s found that thinking of a semester as a story—with a narrative pay-off—helps students stay engaged for the whole course. “Students can see how each piece of content in the class serves the end goal (i.e., what I want them to be able to do when they finish the course).” 

There was a lot of nodding, both in the audience and on the dais, as these professors gave their answers. Judith Litvin Daniels, Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education for Anatomy and Cell Biology, noted that such effective approaches to teaching weren’t magic bullets. “Becoming a good educator takes time,” Daniels reminded us. It takes years of trial and error, of paying attention to teaching as a discipline, to reach the heights of these award-winning professors. “If one has the passion and devotion to imparting knowledge, and if one is self-aware, then in time one grows into an accomplished educator.” 

If there’s one thing everyone at the event agreed upon, it’s that such commitment is worth it. As Wray noted, “it’s not an easy path, but the rewards are pretty great.”

David Gooblar is the Associate Director for Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and author of The Missing Course: Everything They Never Taught You About College Teaching (Harvard University Press 2019).