1. Becoming a Scholarly Practitioner- Faculty Development Day Fall 2017
C. Josh Simpson, Ed.D.
Manager of CTE, Adjunct Professor
The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) is committed to actively promoting high quality academics and faculty-centered services that enhance excellence in teaching and learning, relevancy of the curriculum, and individual attention to students.

2. Session Objectives
Analyze our lesson planning, course content, and assessments for career-relevance
Apply different learning-centered techniques to our courses
Develop a working definition of ‘excellence in teaching’ at Wilmington University and a strategy for developing this over our teaching career arc
After today’s session, please complete the Becoming a Scholarly Practitioner quiz to earn credit on our Pathways to Instructional Excellence.
Today’s session is meant to be informal yet informative. Audience participation is strongly encouraged- and necessary! Please ask questions as often as you have them…

3. Warm-up: What does it mean to teach the Wilmington University way?
What do the following terms mean to you?
Scholarly-practitioner
Excellence in teaching
Individual attention to students
Career-relevance of curricula
Some key terms to highlight as we become scholarly-practitioners
Individual attention to students: Learner-centered instruction; formative assessment; timely and effective feedback
Career-relevance of curricula: authentic learning and assessment
Excellence in teaching: active learning, backwards design, rubrics…

4. What is expected of me as a faculty member at Wilmington University?
The teaching expectations document is available via: ons_16.pdf
The concrete behaviors set us on the path toward reaching our vision of academic success
Let’s discuss some of the ‘fuzzier’ expectations…what does ____ mean to you?
Timely feedback
Effective feedback
Presence in courses

5. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 1- How do I determine where to start/ what to teach when?
Generic syllabi provide us with our learning goals for the course…
To develop a road map for lesson planning consider:
Using professional judgment
Thinking about when this information was new to you
Using the learning outcomes planning guide when initially planning weekly class sessions

6. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 2- From roadmaps to destinations… Backwards Design:
Backwards design: Let’s ask ourselves 3 questions:
Start with your learning objectives- what should students be capable of by the end of the class session?
Next-identify the following: What would constitute evidence that my students are capable/ have learned?
Finally- what information will students need to be successful in completing these assessments?
Tip-the best assessments match the professional application of the content…

7. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 3- Engaging adult learners…
Q: How have you changed since high school?
Adult learners:
Are more self-directed/motivated… they need a facilitator, not a dictator
Have professional experience… allow them to use this/contribute when they can
Have numerous priorities such as work, family, etc… help them plan ahead

8. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 4- Active learning techniques
Active learning= involves instructional efforts that require more of students that simply passive listening.
The # of techniques is limitless, but generally can be broken down into those that:
Provide meta-cognitive reflection, e.g. the one-minute paper
Provide a new avenue for acquiring content expertise, e.g. peer teaching activities
Provide an authentic application, e.g. the mock trial
Provide opportunity to collaborate, e.g. concept mapping
Provide puzzles with ill-define solution, e.g. problem-based learning

9. Why active learning?
Cognitive Psychology 101: Memory is strongest when INPUT matches OUTPUT…
In other words- future ability to use information depends on active use of information while learning

10. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 5- Assessing student learning-some basics…
Assessment
Evaluation/estimation of student of student learning; evidence we have or seek of student learning
Formative Assessment
Provide students and faculty info needed to improve the learning process while it is happening
Examples-muddiest point/ brief summary of a lesson; student-teacher conferences, reviews of rough drafts
Summative Assessment
Provide a measure of mastery of learning goals; generally administered at the end of a course or learning unit
Examples- final exams, end of unit benchmark assessments, projects, etc.

11. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 6- The case for authentic learning and assessment…
Authentic learning refers to a wide variety of instructional techniques that focus on connecting what students are taught in the classroom to the real-world applications, issues, and problems facing professionals today.
How does this approach relate back to WU mission?
Example: I recently asked my undergrad research methods students to find evidence of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ news as a means of discussing information literacy
How might this approach improve student learning over for example a quiz on the associated terms dealing with science and information literacy?

12. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 7- Rubrics!
The rubric is a scoring tool used to represent your performance expectations for student work. Providing students with a rubric when you assign work is a great way to promote understanding of your grading criteria.
Some tips for rubric construction:
1- make sure your grading criteria match your learning objectives
2- try to prioritize point values/ grading weights with the importance of the grading criterion
3- try to explain what different levels of performance “look like” so students know what elements are missing from their work

13. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 8- There are three components to effective feedback…
Feedback should communicate and reduce the discrepancy between current performance and our target goals…
This includes:
Affirmative information
Corrective information
Suggested actions to improve performance
Without all 3 pieces of info, students might:
Inadvertently change what was working
Continue to make the same mistakes
Be in the dark as to how they should go about making improvements
Q: What challenges do you anticipate in grading/evaluating student work?

14. Excellence in teaching… a blueprint to consider: 9- In all things, be Learner-Centered…
Learner-centered: Anticipates student needs and questions; facilitates student learning
Set the tone from the start… things to consider including on your course syllabus:
Faculty contact info
What you hope students learn
Your expectations for students
What students can expect from you
Individual assignments and due dates
Your grading policies and how grades are determined
Attendance/ participation policies/ late-work, etc.
What should students do if they start to fall behind?
What else can we think of?

15. Some WU-centric terms…
Cyber-Day refers to the shifting of face-to-face learning content and activities online via Blackboard when face-to-face class sessions are canceled for holidays or due to inclement weather
IDEA (Individual Development and Educational Assessment) is a survey provided to students at the end of a course to provide faculty with feedback
Others you have heard/ would like to discuss?

16. Questions?