University Hall tower behind the Center for Computing and Information Science

Annual Spring Symposium: Spring 2022

Note: This page serves as an archive for a past event. 

2022 Annual Spring Teaching Symposium

Photo of Dr. Courtney Plotts presenting at a conference

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022 – 9:00am – 3:30pm

 

The Spring 2022 Teaching Symposium: Strategies, Practices, and Technologies for Interactive Teaching and Learning was co-hosted by Instructional Technology and Design Services (ITDS) and the Office of Faculty Advancement (OFA). This virtual faculty development event kicked off with keynote speaker Dr. Courtney Plotts, a school psychologist known for her work on effective culturally responsive teaching practices. It also included Montclair State faculty presentations, instructional technology workshops, and more.

Teaching and Culture, Community, and Considerations
Keynote and Workshop with Dr. Courtney Plotts

Are you overwhelmed by the facilitation of student interaction and content development for your course? Do you feel disconnected and overwhelmed by the process of creating culturally responsive environments? This interactive keynote and workshop will offer applicable strategies to increase interactions in learning spaces. Using the community of inquiry theory as the framework, we will explore the system of strategies that help build inclusive environments for diverse learners.

Dr. Courtney Plotts is a certified/licensed school psychologist who writes and speaks about culturally responsive teaching practices for face-to-face and online spaces. She has written two books on Latino and Black culture and online spaces. She is currently the National Chair of the Council For At-Risk Student Education and Professional Standards and has been recognized by the California State Legislature for A Bold Commitment to Change and Education. She offers workshops on topics related to building community, effective culturally responsive teaching, and best practices. Dr. Plotts’ work was highlighted in the book Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby.

Spring 2022 Teaching Symposium Agenda

List of Presenters

Wednesday, January 12th

Time Sessions
9:00 – 10:30 Teaching and Culture, Community, and Considerations
Keynote and Workshop with Dr. Courtney Plotts
10:30 – 11:15 Report on the Student Experience: Fall 2021 Student Survey
11:15 – 12:00 Multimedia Discussion using VoiceThread;
Social Annotation with Hypothesis;
Using Panopto to Create DIY Videos for Courses
12:00 – 12:30 Lunch Break and Chat
12:30 – 1:30 Developing a New Online Degree Completion Program
1:30- 2:30 Removing Troublesome Subjectivity: Labor-Based Grading
2:30 – 3:00 Getting Spring Courses Ready: Updates and Hidden Gems in Canvas
3:00 – 3:30 Partners in Teaching: Sprague Library Research Librarians

Session Descriptions

9:00am

Keynote Presentation and Workshop: Teaching and Culture, Community, and Considerations

Presenter: Dr. Courtney Plotts

Are you overwhelmed by the facilitation of student interaction and content development for your course? Do you feel disconnected and overwhelmed by the process of creating culturally responsive virtual environments? This interactive keynote and workshop will offer applicable strategies to increase interactions in learning spaces. Using the community of inquiry theory as the framework, we will explore the system of strategies that help build inclusive environments for diverse learners.

10:30am

Report on the Student Experience: Fall 2021 Student Survey

Presenter(s): Dr. Emily Isaacs and Dr. Masela Obade

Emily Isaacs, OFA, and Masela Obade, IR, will share the results of the Fall 2021 Student Survey, Educate the Educators. With responses from 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students on questions relating to instruction, the MSU experience, modalities, and academic support, this survey provides insight for instructors and other community members as we plan for the spring semester. Report includes population-specific findings and comparisons with pre-pandemic responses from students at MSU and peer institutions.

11:15am

During this time slot, we will be offering three workshops highlighting different teaching technologies that will be running simultaneously. Read through the session descriptions below to determine which workshop might interest you most!

1. Multimedia Discussion using VoiceThread

Presenters: Abigail Hunte and Pam Pallivene

VoiceThread is a multimedia discussion tool allowing students to record audio and/or video responses to slide-based prompts.

2. Social Annotation with Hypothesis

Presenters: Joe Russo and Chris Petrillo

Hypothesis is a collaborative web annotation tool that allows students to annotate digital text like websites, pdfs, and more.

3. Using Panopto to Create DIY Videos for Courses

Presenters: Rosi Lamela and Terry Steckowich

Panopto is an easy-to-use video platform that provides screencasting, lecture capture, live streaming, and video content management. Whether you are on camera or just recording a screencast, learning tips to improve your on camera presence and utilizing the features that Panopto offers will help you create more engaging videos for your courses.

12:30pm

Developing a New Online Degree Completion Program

Presenters: Dr. David Hood, Jane Sanchez Swain, Dr. Pablo Tinio, and Dr. Victoria Larson

This session will share how a new online degree completion program in Liberal Studies was initiated, developed and delivered. It will include the context and rationale for the program initiation, structure of the program, the collaboration between University College and academic departments, the student audience and support, how faculty prepare and design online program courses, the delivery and quality of teaching and learning, faculty’s observations, students feedback, etc.

1:30pm

Removing Troublesome Subjectivity: Labor-Based Grading

Presenters: Dr. Caroline Dadas and Susan Wright

Educators who have observed inequities in student outcomes (grades) have developed strategies to reduce inequity and simultaneously focus student attention on doing — reading, writing, calculating, experimenting, LEARNING — through radically reconfiguring assessment. Labor-based contract grading (Inoue) is an approach that a pilot group Writing Studies faculty have undertaken with positive results. In this session, Writing Studies faculty Susan Wright and Caroline Dadas will share their strategies and experiences so that other instructors can learn about and consider this approach to improving student engagement and success.

2:30pm

Getting Spring Courses Ready: Updates and Hidden Gems in Canvas

Presenters: Daniel Stratthaus and Pam Fallivene

This session will showcase the new features of Canvas to help you prepare your Spring courses.

3:00pm

Partners in Teaching: Sprague Library Research Librarians

Presenters: Justin Savage, Siobhan McCarthy, and Catherine Baird

In this session, research librarians Justin Savage, Siobhan McCarthy and Catherine Baird will briefly present the primary ways that they are able to support instructors in the teaching enterprise. Most instructors are aware that they can bring their classes to the library for a research class or do a Zoom class with a librarian. However, there are a number of other other ways librarians can support instructors in their teaching such as: finding and organizing materials to replace textbooks, creating and embedding disciplinary-specific research guides in your course, and designing better research assignments.

Return to Annual Spring Symposium Page