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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

March 2011 Issue Update: Online Classroom

Media Richness and Communication in Online Education

Communicating in an online environment, especially within the confines of an institution's learning management system (LMS) and an academic budget, often poses a challenge to even the most well-intentioned instructors. Many times we find ourselves constrained not by our imaginations or abilities but by the technological tools we have at our disposal. Given the systems in which we work, how do we select the best technological tool—the best medium—to communicate a message? One framework for answering these questions is through the lens of Media Richness Theory (MRT).

Online Learning and Service-Learning: How They Can Work Together
The benefits of having students engage in service activities to help create richer and more meaningful connection to course material have been well documented and utilized in higher education. However, using this tried-and-true practice is relatively new in the online classroom, so as educators and administrators we're still learning how we can implement this method of education in the online environment to its fullest extent.

Online Teaching Fundamentals: Making Online PowerPoint Content Engaging: How to Record Narration
In this series on adding narration and interactivity to online PowerPoint presentations, I'm hoping to help you produce more compelling PowerPoint-based presentations for your online students. Slides, even with text and graphics on them, don't make good instructional content. PowerPoint is supposed to support and enhance a presentation, not become the presentation itself.

Teaching Online with Errol: The Online Tutor—Getting Your Students to Use It
Many schools offering online courses pride themselves on making free online tutoring services available to their students. These allow students to submit their written work to a tutor and then receive detailed feedback on what can use improvement and what the student is doing well. Unfortunately, these online tutoring services are not used by students as much as they should be, for they often are simply in a course for a student to use at his or her leisure. Yet survey after survey has found that students who take advantage of these online tutoring services become better writers in the classroom and in the workplace.

Tips from the Pros: Three Rapid e-Learning Tools to Consider
If you're looking to enhance your online courses, rapid e-learning tools could be the answer. Rapid e-learning tools enable even those with fairly limited technical experience to create rich online learning course elements. The following are three that Rebecca Blakiston, Instructional Services Librarian University of Arizona Libraries, recommends:


Magna Publications

2718 Dryden Drive · Madison, WI 53704-3086 · 800-433-0499

Please do not reply to this e-mail, rather e-mail us at support@magnapubs.com

© Copyright 2011 Magna Publications
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March 2011 Issue Update: Academic Leader

Building a Comprehensive Professional Development Program
Ongoing professional development for faculty, staff, and administrators at colleges, now more than ever, is critical to the currency and quality of higher education. Evolving technology, modern degrees and emerging careers, Millennial and Generation Z students, multigenerational faculty, and new and often challenging required skill sets are demanding more time and energy from college employees to stay productive and up to date. If we are to maximize resources and provide relevant teaching and support services, we must be able to embrace new and different strategies to meet contemporary student needs for success.

Changing Times, Changing Models
Education was an important theme of President Obama's State of the Union Address in January. He stressed the importance of education in "winning the future," adding that in 10 years half the jobs in the United States will require education beyond high school. So what will higher education institutions need to do to serve these students?

Linking Learning Outcomes across the Curriculum
Curriculum mapping is a process that can help academic programs ensure that their students meet the desired learning outcomes of a program. In a recent Magna Online Seminar titled "Connect Learning across Courses with Curriculum Mapping," Peter Wolf, director of teaching support services at the University of Guelph, talked about the curriculum mapping process at his institution and offered practical suggestions for implementing a similar process.

Promoting Research While Advancing Instruction, Part 3
Perhaps the most fundamental reason why teaching and research are viewed as competing rather than interrelated activities—and a key cause of why it's so difficult to reunite these processes in faculty load assignments and evaluation systems—is that colleges and universities themselves are structured as though instruction and scholarship were utterly distinct enterprises. Examine the mission statement of almost any institution of higher education, and you'll discover that teaching and research are listed as important but not necessarily related functions of the organization. In other words, relatively few mission statements present learning as a goal achieved through independent inquiry and research; even fewer describe discovery, integration, and application as results actively sought through teaching. Once again, the focus is on the activity rather than the result, and that perspective shapes everything that is familiar about the modern university.

Strategies to Build and Maintain a Successful Academic Unit
Problems are inherent in any organization where you have people working together. Personalities differ, agendas conflict, generations struggle to understand one another, resources are limited, and the list goes on. While a leader may have little control over these factors, there are strategic measures that can provide a firm foundation upon which an organization can build a culture that provides members of the community with the best possible chance to succeed.


Magna Publications

2718 Dryden Drive · Madison, WI 53704-3086 · 800-433-0499

Please do not reply to this e-mail, rather e-mail us at support@magnapubs.com

© Copyright 2011 Magna Publications
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The Teaching Professor March 2011 Issue Update

Active-Learning Ideas for Large Classes: Simple to Complex The article that proposes these ideas is written for faculty who teach large-enrollment biology courses. But large courses share many similarities, not the least of which being any number of strategies that work well with a variety of content. Even so, most strategies need to be adapted so that they fit well with the instructor's style, the learning needs of the students, and the configuration of course content. The authors of the following list of strategies write that they attempted to "focus ... on strategies and activities that typically do not require ... a radical reframing of current standard practice, and are therefore more readily accessible to most science educators." (p. 263) They discuss each strategy in much more detail than space here allows, and they include many references describing experiences with and alterations of these seven strategies.

Engaging Students in Argument
The elderly shop owner opposes a corporation that wants to build a plant in her town. She's afraid that its products, similar to the ones she manufactures, will drive her out of business. At 70, it's too late in her life to start over and, even though the corporation says it will hire locally, she doubts it will hire someone her age. Besides, after a lifetime of running her own business, she doesn't want to work for someone else. How can she convince her fellow townspeople to rally against the corporation?

Honoring and Challenging Students' Beliefs
Students walk into college classrooms with values and beliefs that are nonnegotiable. They do not see themselves as broken vessels, blank slates, or empty cups ready for filling. Many students whom I have encountered accept that they may not know everything, but they still seek affirmation that their experiences and beliefs are valid. In any course, there is room for students to doubt and dismiss ideas that contradict what they hold most dear. As educators, we must consider their starting points in order for our dialogues with them to be more authentic.

Learning: Five Key Principles
A review of the research on active learning compiled for physiology faculty contains five "key findings" that author Joel Michael maintains ought "to be incorporated [into] our thinking as we make decisions about teaching physiology [I would say, name your discipline] at any educational level." (p. 160) Here's the list, along with a brief discussion of each.

Peer-Led Team Learning
This strategy involves training students who have successfully completed a course to serve as peer leaders for a small group of students currently enrolled in that same course. The peer leaders meet with their student groups—six to eight students, sometimes fewer—for a weekly session, during which they work on faculty-created problems. The problems involve material presented during the lecture, covered in the text, or assigned as homework. These weekly sessions replace one regularly scheduled course lecture per week.

Saffron and Gold: The Value of High-Quality Information and Library Instruction to Teaching Professors
"I gotta write a page on saffron and it's gotta be in Chef Rob's box in two hours!" Culinary student Rosa flies into the library, curly hair escaping from her white skull cap and tomato stains on her chef coat. Rosa, Kathleen, and Tran gather around a computer, notebooks and knife kits on the floor. Rosa: "Hey, this stuff is 180 dollars an ounce." Click. Click. Kathleen: "Here's an article. But I don't see any author. What do we put in 'works cited' if there's no author?" Click. Tran: "It says here saffron is made of gold. Um, hang on. Maybe it says it costs as much as gold. But it kinda looked gold when Chef showed it to us in the kitchen last night. So maybe it is gold. Whatever. Can we copy this and paste it into our paper?"

Teaching Mindfulness in the College Classroom
Pressures and constant distractions are a significant part of the lives of American students of all ages. For college students, learning how to balance school, jobs, and relationships is stressful; social networks and cell phones constantly interrupt the current focus of attention. Academic performance suffers when feelings and distractions filter out lecture content and impede studying. Recent reports of increases in young adult depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorders, and social problems are compelling college teachers to explore methods for guiding students to better understand their minds and how they think.

Using Clickers Effectively: A Research-Based Tip
Use of clickers (or personal response systems, as they are officially known) continues to grow. They offer students a way to participate in large courses. They give faculty immediate feedback as to the level of understanding on a particular topic, concept, or issue. They add interest and variety to lectures. No wonder they have become so popular.

Magna Publications
2718 Dryden Drive · Madison, WI 53704-3086 · 800-433-0499
Please do not reply to this e-mail, rather e-mail us at support@magnapubs.com.

© Copyright 2011 Magna Publications
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Dillard University Threat Assessment Training 2011


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AASHE Sustainability Across the Curriculum Leadership Workshops - 2011

AASHE's Sustainability Across the Curriculum Leadership workshops are for faculty leaders of all disciplines who wish to develop curriculum change programs around sustainability on their campuses.
Upcoming Workshops

•July 7-8, 2011, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Workshop size limited to approximately 35 participants.


Workshop Description

Through an intensive two days of presentations, exercises, discussions, reflection, and planning, participants will become familiar with the philosophy of change in higher education developed through the Ponderosa Project at Northern Arizona University and adapted at Emory in the Piedmont Project. Participants will also experience a range of workshop strategies, hear local experts, enjoy outdoor place-based activities, and dialogue with faculty from around the country as they gain help in adapting this model to their own campus. In a supportive and stimulating environment, workshop members will reflect on their own roles in the transformation of higher education. Readings and materials will also be provided.

These highly successful workshops are led by Geoffrey Chase of San Diego State University and Peggy Barlett of Emory University. Peggy and Geoff are editors of Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, published by MIT Press in 2004. Peggy and Geoff have many years of experience leading these kinds of workshops and have helped more than 350 faculty around the country take steps toward curriculum innovation in their universities and colleges.

FEES
Workshop tuition is $420 for AASHE members and $485 for non-members. Tuition covers snacks and lunches on both days of the workshop, handouts, materials, and an evening reception on the first day of the workshop.

FAQ's

Q: Once accepted, are there room blocks for attendees?

Yes, all accepted attendees will be notified in their acceptance letter of the hotel room blocks which are available at a discounted rate for attendees. Hotel rooms will cost approximately $110 pre-tax.

Q: I'm a sustainability coordinator and am interested in attending your workshop. Do you think I have a good chance of being accepted?

A: Generally, participation in the curriculum workshop is limited to faculty members. Many of the exercises are targeted directly to faculty, so other participants often aren't able to participate fully. Moreover, since the participants are expected to go back to their campus to organize sustainability across the curriculum faculty development workshops, participants should generally be someone whom other faculty will respect. We have on occasion accepted sustainability coordinators and academic staff (department coordinators). In general, students (including graduate students), staff, and visiting professors are not selected to participate.

Q: I would like to integrate sustainability into a few of the courses that I teach. Should I apply to this workshop?

A. This workshop is not about individual course development, it is for faculty who want to help train other faculty to integrate sustainability into their curricula.

Q: Will you accept late applications?

A: No. This workshop is in high demand and we are usually unable to accept late applications.

Q: When will you be holding this workshop again?

A: This workshop is held twice a year. We hold it in January at Emory University (GA) and in June or July at San Diego State University (CA).

Q: Several faculty members in the area (all from different colleges and universities) are interested in the workshop. Are you able to host this workshop in our area?

A: AASHE is unable to host this event at locations other than those that are predetermined. Please check back in the future. We are working to expand our coverage.

Q. I'd like to send one of my faculty to your workshop, but we have yet to hire this position. S/he should be in place by the time of the workshop. Can I submit an application for a placeholder?

A: Due to the high demand of the workshop, this person will probably have a better chance of being accepted once he or she is on-site. We host the workshop two times per year, so please apply to a future workshop.

Q: When is your next workshop, and when is the application deadline for the next workshop?

A: The dates of the next workshop and the corresponding the application deadline will be posted on the Curriculum Workshop webpage as soon as they are announced.

Q: I'd really like to attend this workshop, but I won't know if I'll be able to get funding until after the application deadline. What should I do?

A: Go ahead and apply for the workshop and continue to seek out funding. If, in the end, you are unable to access funding, you may withdraw from the application process. Please note, however, that you will need to inform us of your status as soon as possible. Cancellation fees do apply after a certain date (which will be provided in your acceptance letter).
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Campus Technology News Update: Google Enters the E-Book Fray. What Does It Mean?

The new Google eBooks platform could change the way readers look at digital literature.



By John K. Waters02/28/11

When one of the country's biggest technology companies--a company that has already digitized more than 15 million volumes as part of a mission to make humanity's literary treasures available to all--decides to sell e-books, it's easy to see the move as a defining moment.

In the March Campus Technology feature "Can Tech Transcend the Textbook?" publishers and educators debate why e-textbooks have lagged behind the e-book revolution.

But it might be more accurate to call Google's entry into the e-book biz a validating moment, particularly for the publishing industry. The very company that generated so many headlines (not to mention controversy) by providing online access to millions of titles for free is now promoting a retail/wholesale model. In the process, it's sanctioning the idea that not all information on the Web is free.

In December, the Internet search giant launched Google eBooks exclusively in the United States. Within a few weeks, its free e-book reader apps had been downloaded more than a million times. (The company promised to roll out an international version of eBooks in early 2011.) The service offers access to more than 3 million titles--including classics, which users can view for free, and current bestsellers, which readers can buy and store in the cloud on Google's servers.

Readers can get to those books from virtually any modern, HTML5-enabled Web browser. The idea that readers should have browser-based access to their e-books across multiple devices is a key component of Google's model. Amazon seemed to like the idea too, and the company stole a bit of Google's thunder when, a day after the Google eBooks launch, it announced Kindle for the Web, which allows its customers to read Kindle e-books on a browser.

According to Google spokesperson Jeannie Hornung, readers currently can access their eBooks from about 85 different devices, including the Sony Reader and the Barnes & Noble Nook, which are compatible with Adobe Digital Editions, a library tool that allows users to download DRM-protected EPUB or PDF files to their computers or handhelds.

On the retail side, what the Google eBookstore provides readers isn't really that different from the offerings of Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble. But what Google has created is more than just an e-book outlet. Google eBooks is actually a distribution platform for digital books that is device-independent and open to resellers and small publishers.

Openness and Choice
Google has described eBooks as a commerce layer within the Google Book Search project. "This is really about extending the Book Search experience," explained Hornung. "We're taking it one step further, giving people a way to buy books from the retailer of their choice and access them in the cloud forever. For us, this is about openness and choice."

That's been the company's rallying cry since it began digitizing books from libraries back in 2002. The company launched the Google Book Search project in 2004, which opened up its growing database of books to online readers. But the company was criticized for scanning books still under copyright, and it was sued for copyright infringement in 2005, first by the Authors Guild, then by the Association of American Publishers. Google settled with these groups in 2008.

The company seems well on its way to repairing its reputation with publishers with its eBook platform strategy. Google eBooks launched with about 4,000 participating publishers, and it has begun distributing books from small independent publishers such as Author Solutions Inc. (ASI), whose imprints include AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, and Xlibris.

"Google eBooks could very likely change the way publishing views book and content distribution, and we are pleased to be an early adopter of this model," said Kevin Weiss, ASI president and CEO, in a statement. "It's yet another opportunity for emerging authors to cast aside the obstacles of traditional distribution options and make their works available to readers worldwide."

At this year's Digital Book World conference, held in January in New York, Google announced that it had partnered with more than 180 resellers--independent bookstores such as Powell's and Alibris--nationwide.

"Google eBooks is a platform designed to support both retail and wholesale, so we can sell directly to consumers, but also through other booksellers' Web sites," Hornung said. "This is definitely more than just a typical e-bookstore."

Sean Sullivan, senior product manager for Cengage Learning's Questia online library service, saluted Google's efforts to "preserve the works of mankind and make sure that they are everlasting on the Web." But he also said he's glad to see the company becoming a bookseller.

"Google is helping to reset expectations among consumers that digital content has value," said Sullivan, noting that Questia is a subscription service that provides access to an online library of copyrighted materials for academic research. "Over the past decade, search engines have conditioned people to think of information as free, and that has been a challenge for publishers to overcome. Now the very player who helped to set those expectations is starting to charge for content. I think that's going to help users understand that a certain level of authoritative material needs to be paid for."

Next Stop: E-Textbooks?
Of course, Google has yet to dip its gigantic toe into the textbook market, and Hornung said the company has no current plans to do so. "There are some textbooks for sale in the store," she said, "and certainly students can benefit from all the public domain content, but Google has no textbook-specific strategy."

Vineet Madan, vice president of strategy and business development in McGraw-Hill's Higher Education group, said he doesn't expect the entry of another "flat e-book publisher" (meaning, essentially, a provider of digital copies of print books) to have much of an impact on the textbook market. "That's just not where the game is going to be played," he insisted. "Going forward, it's not going to be about a book-centered world, but about innovative ways to deliver educational outcomes."

If Google ever does decide to get into the e-textbook business, said Matt MacInnis, co-founder and CEO of e-book publishing startup Inkling, it won't be able to compete with flat files. "Google will have to offer students an experience that is noticeably better than the experience they get from a print book," he said. "Otherwise, the students won't want it. Time and time again, surveys show that, when students are offered a choice between print and scanned books they can read on a Web browser, they choose the print experience."

Inkling is one of a new breed of e-textbook publisher that is eschewing the "book" metaphor to provide textbook content that integrates audio, video, animation, assessment banks, and other content with text to create what MacInnis calls "an interactive digital experience."

Even if Google decides to enter the e-textbook market, Cengage Learning's Sullivan said, readers will still need alternatives.

"People read and consume information in a lot of different ways and for a lot of different reasons," he explained. "People doing research, which is the market we serve, are not looking to read immersively and consume 350 pages of every book they need to touch. They want to skim that material, and that's the model we offer. I think there's still plenty of room for different channels to get that information into people's hands. And I think we'll see new channels emerging as we learn more about how to deliver digital content."


Also Worth Reading:

The Device versus the Book
When it comes to meeting the demands of academic reading, today's e-readers are not yet ready to replace the textbook.

The Future of Content is an Open Book
Three open source veterans discuss the implications for open content in higher education.
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Dillard University is invited to join alchohol and tobacco free Mardi Gras Zone!

This information is provided on behalf of the Dillard University Fresh Campus Coalition and the School of Public Health.


Dillard University is part of this event as TFL grantee, and we support an alcohol and tobacco free Mardi Gras Zone. The Dillard University Fresh Campus Coalition and the School of Public Health are active supporters and participants in this event. The campus community is invited to join us.


Thank you,

Wodajo Welldaregay, DrPH, MPH

Assistant Professor of Public Health

School of Public Health

Dillard University

504-816-4379

wwelldaregay@dillard.edu

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9_KwJdDOiGrN2I5MTAzYTktODI4ZS00NGZjLWIwNTctY2Q1YWM3YTlhYTJj&hl=en

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9_KwJdDOiGrOGYxYTRhZGQtNzc1ZC00NWUyLTgxODItMGYzYjBiNDRlZmI5&hl=en
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Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning: Toward A Science of Learning

TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(sm) eMAIL NEWSLETTER


http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php


Archives of all past postings can be found at: http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php


A Vanderbilt University Blog with an RSS feed of current postings is available at: http://derekbruff.com/site/tomprof/?feed=rss2


Sponsored by Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning: http://ctl.stanford.edu/
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Urge Your Senator to Defend the Student Aid Programs!

Dillard University Community:


On Saturday morning (February 19, 2011), the U.S. House of Representatives passed an FY 2011 spending bill (H.R. 1) that would drastically reduce Pell Grants and eliminate FSEOG and LEAP funding for the 2011-12 academic year. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration, and we need your help in urging them to reject any cuts to the Pell Grant and other student aid programs for the 2011-12 year. Now is a perfect time to reach out to our Senators, as most will be in their home districts through this week. Attached, you will find a template letter for your convenience!

It is vital that we explain to our Senators that students and parents will be making college decisions for the 2011-12 year based on information already released by the federal government. Reducing funding for Pell Grants now could require schools to retract financial aid offers and make downward adjustments to grants, which would harm their most vulnerable and at-risk constituents.

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) has provided the attached template for the university to use in their message to our Senators. We are also encouraged to join NASFAAs’ Facebook campaign and describe how cuts to the Pell Grant program would negatively affect students.


Thank you,

Toya Barnes-Teamer, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Success
Dillard University
tbteamer@dillard.edu

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9_KwJdDOiGrNjE5MjQyOTctZWVlZC00NjYyLWJlMTQtZDQ3NGM4MWEyNTQ4&hl=en
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DU Office of Undergraduate Research: Abstract Writing & Student Research Support Workshop

“The abstract is the first thing your reader will turn to and therefore controls what the first impression of your work will be” (UQA website).

Thursday, March 17, 2011
DUICEF 207
11:00 a.m. 12 Noon

Facilitators:

Danielle Tyler, Director, Writing Center
Lynn Strong, Director, Undergraduate Research
Sponsor: Office of Undergraduate Research

CONTACT: 504-816-4446 or lstrong@dillard.edu

Lynn Y.R. Strong, CIM

Director, Undergraduate Research

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Dillard University

Professional Schools Bldg., Rm. 250

2601 Gentilly Blvd.

New Orleans, LA 70122

Tel: 504-816-4446

Fax: 504-816-4313

http://www.dillard.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=98
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