Skip to main content

Center for Teaching

January 2021 CFT Workshops and Events

As we look ahead to another unusual semester in the spring, the Center for Teaching is preparing a number of resources to continue supporting the Vanderbilt teaching community. The extended winter break will be a good time to learn about various technologies and strategies for your face-to-face, online or hybrid class sessions.

We are committed to providing universal access to our events.
Please contact Juliet Traub at cft@vanderbilt.edu or 615-322-7290 to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.

.

 

Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps

With the move to remote and online teaching in 2020, faculty and other instructors experimented with a wide variety of tools to foster and maintain social presence with their students. Some tried using group messaging apps like Slack, Discord, and Teams as a way to connect and communicate with students. These apps feature multimedia chat channels, making them useful places for sharing announcements, fielding questions, posting resources, and supporting group projects.

In this conversation on teaching, we’ll hear from a few instructors about the ways they’ve been using these apps to support student learning and engagement. And we’ll invite participants to share their own ideas for teaching with these collaboration tools.

Panelists:

  • Will Grissom, associate professor of biomedical engineering
  • Lisa Fazio, assistant professor of psychology and human development
  • Spencer Bagley, association professor of mathematics, Westminster College

Facilitator: Derek Bruff, CFT director
Date: Monday, January 11, 2021
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm

REGISTRATION CLOSED.

An Introduction to Online and Hybrid Teaching

Are you looking for ideas for how to engage your students this spring? This workshop will provide a structured introduction to teaching in online and hybrid settings. Participants will learn principles and practices for supporting student learning asynchronously (via Brightspace and other tools) and synchronously (via Zoom).

This workshop will be particularly useful to Vanderbilt instructors who did not teach during the fall, but is open to any Vanderbilt instructor.

The workshop has two components:

  • An asynchronous component, presented in Brightspace, that shares key principles for online and hybrid teaching and models examples of how to engage students asynchronously, and
  • A synchronous component, facilitated on Zoom, that shares ideas and models examples of pedagogies for synchronous instruction in an online or hybrid course.

The asynchronous component will take 2-3 hours and is essential preparation for the 1.5 hour synchronous session.

We’re offering the synchronous session twice in January. Register for the Zoom session of your choice using the links below. Please note that each Zoom session is limited to 25 participants. About a week before the Zoom session you choose, you will receive a link to the online materials and an invitation to the Zoom session.

  • Wednesday, January 13th, 10am to 11:30am – REGISTRATION CLOSED
  • Friday, January 15th, 12pm to 1:30pm – REGISTRATION CLOSED

Open to Vanderbilt Faculty, Graduate Students, & Postdocs

 

Teaching with Top Hat: Synchronous & Asynchronous Strategies

The folks at Top Hat have identified specific strategies to build community and engage students in online and hybrid courses. Erin Vaianisi from Top Hat will share ideas about how best to incorporate Top Hat into your class, demonstrate the platform’s newest features, and answer your questions.
If you are simply Interested in learning more about Top Hat, or you want to explore advanced features, you will find this session both practical and helpful.

  • Thursday, January 21, 10:00 – 11:00 am – Registration closed
  • Wednesday, January 13, 2:00-3:00 pm – Registration closed

Open to Vanderbilt Faculty, Graduate Students, & Postdocs

 

Teaching with Top Hat: Interactive Textbooks

Come explore some advanced features of Top Hat and learn about how you can host your e-textbook on Top Hat. During this session, Natalie Sela from Top Hat will show you how you can author your own e-textbook for your course and also make it available to others using Top Hat’s Content Marketplace.

Facilitator: Natalie Sela
Date: Thursday, January 14
Time: 11:00 am -12:00 pm
Location: A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

Open to Vanderbilt Faculty, Graduate Students, & Postdocs

 

Overcoming the ‘busywork’ Dilemma: Creating Meaningful Asynchronous Activities for Student Engagement

The busywork dilemma is where students perceive that assigned learning activities or assessments are not meaningfully contributing to their learning. This can be very frustrating to instructors as they often put a lot of effort and time into the design and implementation of these activities. This dilemma can be magnified in online and hybrid classes when students are held accountable for learning activities in new ways. While students’ reasons for calling intentional learning activities busywork vary and some are embedded in misconceptions of learning there are some common pitfalls to avoid.

In this Conversation on Teaching, two faculty members will share their approach for designing asynchronous assignments and how they engage with students meaningful. They will also share their successes and challenges.

Panelists: 

  • Marshall Eakin, Professor of History
  • Abby Parish, Associate Professor in The School of Nursing

Attendees are encouraged to bring questions and their own teaching experiences to the discussion. Questions? Contact julaine.fowlin@vanderbilt.edu

Facilitator: Julaine Fowlin, Assistant Director, CFT
Date: January 14, 2021
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm (CST)

A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

Creating Video Assignments with GoReact

During this session, a Kelly Fitzgerald from GoReact will teach you the basics of GoReact and demonstrate different ways you can use GoReact to create assignments. If you’ve used GoReact before, come and learn more ways to use this tool. If you’re simply interested in learning more, or considering using it during the upcoming semester, we’d love to help you get started.

This Workshop is offered twice in January:

  • Friday, January 15, 10:00 am – 11:00 am  – Registration closed
  • Wednesday, January 20, 10:00 am – 11:00 am – Registration closed

Open to Vanderbilt Faculty, Graduate Students, & Postdocs

 

Setting Classroom Expectations

Communicating classroom expectations helps to set a strong foundation for a mutually beneficial course. This interactive workshop will cover strategies for setting clear expectations for student engagement and learning in face-to-face and online settings. This workshop is open to all Vanderbilt graduate students and postdocs, and those serving as teaching assistants or instructors of record are particularly encouraged to participate. Please come prepared to engage with other emerging scholars actively.

Facilitator: Ransford Pinto
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Location: A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

Open to Vanderbilt Graduate Students & Postdocs

 

Accessibility and Equity in Course Design

Are you interested in learning how to create equitable online spaces that are accessible to all students? This interactive panel discussion will bring together members of the Vanderbilt community who are experts on fostering accessibility in online learning spaces. Panelists will share effective practices and creative approaches for building and implementing accessible courses online. Participants will be invited to ask questions and troubleshoot accessibility challenges they may be facing in their own courses with the group. This will be an opportunity for all to connect with others who wish to improve accessibility in current or future online courses and create more equitable learning environments. Live captioning (CART) will be provided. Please join us!

Panelists:

  • Erica Brandon, Instructional Technologist, CFT
  • Bill Burgess, Assistive Technology Specialist
  • Aimi Hamraie, Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society
  • Cait Kirby, PhD Candidate, Biology.

Facilitator: Amanda Brockman, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT.
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Time: 3:00-4:30 p.m.

A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

Group Work and Student Collaboration Online

Student collaboration looks very different in online and socially distanced settings than in our traditional, face-to-face classes. This panel discussion will bring together members of the Vanderbilt teaching community who are using group work or student collaborative projects in their online or hybrid teaching. Panelists will present their group projects, describe the challenges they have experienced, and how they have overcome those challenges in an online environment. Please join us! There will be time for group discussion, Q&A with the panelists, and opportunities to connect with instructors from across campus.

Panelists:

  • Bobby Bodenheimer, Professor of Computer Science
  • Corbette Doyle, Senior Lecturer in Organizational Leadership
  • Heather Fedesco, Senior Lecturer, Human and Organizational Development

Facilitator: Julaine Fowlin, Assistant Director, CFT
Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Time: 3:00-4:30 p.m.

A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

Hybrid courses: Approaches to engage your virtual and F2F students

In this Conversation on Teaching, three faculty members will share their successes and challenges in teaching hybrid courses this fall.

  • Jesse Blocher, Assistant Professor, Owen Graduate School of Management
  • Julie Johnson, Professor of the Practice, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
  • Marcy Singer-Gabella, Professor of the Practice, Department of Teaching & Learning

They’ll describe approaches that helped them engage students synchronously, whether they were attending virtually or in person, as well as asynchronous course structures that helped keep everyone moving through the course together. Attendees are encouraged to bring questions and their own teaching experiences to the discussion. Questions? Contact Cynthia.brame@vanderbilt.edu.

Facilitator: Cynthia Brame, CFT Associate Director
Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Time: 3:00-4:00 p.m.

A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

Synchronous Sessions in Online Courses

In this Conversation on Teaching, four faculty members will share their successes and challenges in facilitating synchronous sessions in online courses this fall.

Thomas Clements and Kathy Friedman, both from the Department of Biological Sciences, will talk about their use of undergraduate Learning Assistants to facilitate interaction in a high-enrollment introductory course

Diana Heney from the Philosophy Department will discuss lessons distilled from both introductory and upper-level philosophy courses, one taught with a TA and one without.

Jessica Watkins from the Department of Teaching & Learning will describe approaches she found helpful for promoting small group work and effective preparation in an online course with both graduate students and upper-level undergraduates.

Attendees are encouraged to bring questions and their own teaching experiences to the discussion. Questions? Contact Cynthia.brame@vanderbilt.edu.

Facilitator: Cynthia Brame, CFT Associate Director
Date: Thursday, January 21, 2021
Time: 2-3 p.m.

A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

Self-Compassionate Teaching: Putting on your Oxygen Mask First

The pandemic has impacted the teaching and learning experiences of both faculty and students. This interactive workshop will provide a space for faculty to pause and focus on themselves.  We will offer an overview of self-compassion and practical ways to apply it to daily life; including a facilitated discussion on how this applies to teaching. Representatives from the Student Care Network will also share helpful resources. Questions? Contact julaine.fowlin@vanderbilt.edu.

Facilitators: 

  • Julaine Fowlin, Assistant Director, CFT
  • Rebecca, Sandhu, Postdoctoral Fellow, University Counseling Center
  • Samantha York, Academic Skills Coach, Center for Student Wellbeing

Date: January 22, 2021
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Location: A Zoom link is included in the confirmation email.

Registration closed

 

 

 

.

.

.