Center for

Teaching Excellence
Georgia Gwinnett College

Teachers edge
Spring 2012 In this Issue...
>>From the Director: Why Conversations on Teaching Matter >>LMS Focus: D2L Transition >>Learning the New Rules for a Service Learning Classroom >>Looking Backward, Looking Forward >>Doing Cooperative Learning: The Jigsaw >>Want More? New Ideas for Academic Integrity/Plagiarism >>Faculty Kudos

Contact Information
Dr. Stella Smith Director ssmith2@ggc.edu 678-407-5720 David Robinson LMS Administrator drobinso@ggc.edu 678-407-5111 Gautam Saha Instructional Designer gsaha@ggc.edu 678-407-5561 Dr. Daniel Haynes Educational Training Coordinator dhaynes1@ggc.edu 678-407-5560 How Can We (or You) Help Improve Teaching and Learning at GGC?

We invite you to send us ideas for workshops or programs you might be interested in doing or having us organize. We are also willing to work with individual schools to help

develop discipline-based programs. Contact Stella Smith to discuss any ideas

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From the Director:

on Teaching Matter
By Dr. Stella Smith

Why Conversations

As I end my tenure as Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence here at the college, I have been pondering the value of all these programs/events we sponsor at the Center. Then, I came across this blog entitled A Good Conversation about Teaching and Learning which identifies the goals of conversations on teaching. I realized as I read these goals that the author is confirming the essence of what we try to do at the Center.
Goal #1: Discuss topics of interest and relevance to college teachers. While classroom experiences are important and need to be shared, our conversations should be engaging so that teachers want to participate. These conversations should reflect informed opinions rather than misinformation or myths without evidence. Goal #2: Share the knowledge base that guides us in good teaching practices. Our conversations should be provocative and invoke feelings; however, we should examine the assumptions we have about teaching and learning and explore the research that either supports or doesnt support our assumptions. This year, weve had those kinds of conversations in both the Master Teacher Program and the Teaching & Learning Academy for New Faculty as well as in our many workshops. The CTE will always be that place where these conversations take place: a place where we take can a moment out of our busy lives to ponder what makes good teaching and what impacts learning.
Weimer, Maryellen. A Good Conversation about Teaching and Learning, Faculty Focus, online posting, 14 March 2012, retrieved 11 April 2012.

Goal #3: Design programs and discussions that promote ideas about teaching that we hadnt thought of beforethose aha moments. Hopefully we take those moments and transform them into strategies that we use in our classrooms. So it isnt just about listening or responding-- its about doing. Goal #4: Motivate teachers to act on what they are learning. At the Center, thats what we try to document. Whether through your articles in this newsletter, through your presentations either on campus or at teaching/ professional conferences, or through your discussions with each other, you are demonstrating your motivation to share what has worked in your classroom. Hopefully, the Center has played a part in providing you that nurturing environment that makes you a more reflective teacher and that encourages you to communicate your successes. This is our last issue for this academic year. As always, the CTE staff is here throughout the summer to answer your questions and be of assistance to you. Have a great summer.

GGC is moving from Blackboard/ WebCT to Desire2Learn learning environment. Ive been working with Desire2Learn (the company) and in Desire2Learn (the product) since last summer. I thought it would be interesting to explore what Desire2Learn is about. Here is how the D2L folks describe their company: As our name suggests, were passionate about creating solutions that can ignite the desire to learn in anyone. The companys stated values are: Learner Success, Creativity, Passion, and Collaboration. When I see things like Passion: Our intense desire, enthusiasm and commitment to make a difference in peoples lives and make the long term investments to change the world, I cant help but be encouraged. It is corporate hype, but I was struck by how their values link to GGCs stated values and to mine. Im a curmudgeon, but I recognize there are things worth being passionate about. As an access institution, GGC is about igniting a desire to learn, and equipping our students to succeed. Our new D2L learning environment is an important suite of tools to help us do that. Do you have the Desire?

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Were passionate about creating solutions that can ignite the desire to learn in anyone

D2L Transition
by David Robinson

LEARNING THE NEW

By Dr. Daniel Vollaro

RULES FOR A SERIVICE LEARNING CLASSROOM

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The first time I heard another teacher describe service learning to me, I thought I was listening to a sermon. Service learning radically reformed my teaching, she said. Its hard for me to remember what I was doing before. A few years later, after plunging into service learning myself as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech, I began to understand her fervor. Like her, I felt like I had crossed a threshold, and most of what I thought I knew about teaching no longer applied. I realized I had learned to teach in particular kind of classroomone with four walls, a lectern at the front of the room, and a familiar idea of hierarchy and power relationships deeply embedded in it. Service learning demolished this space and rewrote the rules about what a classroom should be, how the students should act, and who I should be as their professor. The American college classroom is governed by familiar rules. First, there are two basic constituent parties, the students and their professor, who face each other across a culturally familiar divide; the students work hard to please their professor, the professor works hard to teach them, and in the end, the professor is expected to be the principle evaluator of their work. Second, there is the semester, which typically spans about three-and-a-half months and functions as a kind of container for delivering the educational productsolidly built and capped tight, allowing nothing to spill out. Finally, there is the classroom itself, which is supposed to be a kind of command and control center for the learning environment. Students are certainly learning outside of the physical confines of the modern college classroom, but the professor, with his syllabus and his interpretation of the institutions learning outcomes, is supposed to set and manage the agenda from within this space. Service learning violates all of these rules. When I taught Technical Communication Practices at Georgia Tech, I partnered my studentswho were mostly juniors and seniors with Diamond in the Rough, a Snellville-based non-profit that works with at-risk teenage girls in the Atlanta Metro area. This partnership lasted for several semesters. In one semester, my students designed and wrote the organizations annual report. In another, they designed marketing materials. My students traveled to Snellville and other locales to complete this work, and the organizations director traveled to Georgia Tech to interact with my students and assess their work. At the end of the semester, her evaluation of the students work was always a significant factor in determining their final grades. When I accepted a position at Georgia Gwinnett College, which was geographically much closer to the organizations headquarters, I continued to work with Diamond in the Rough. One semester, my freshman 1101 students helped to redesign the organizations Brilliant Blog and then wrote articles for it. The next, a handful of 1101 students volunteered for the organization and wrote essays about their experience. Some of these students continued their volunteer work for the organization after the semester had ended. A year later, a senior English major stepped in and wrote for the Brilliant Blog as a semester-long internship project.

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Continued from Page 3... Within three years, this community partnership had spanned four semesters and two institutions; it never fit neatly into a semester, and the work my students did outlived their tenure in my semester-long class. The partnership also introduced an outside party into the pedagogical environment who quickly overturned my students expectations of classroom power dynamics. When students would ask me, what should I do on this project, I would deflect the question by saying, figure out how to please the client and you will please me. This deflection was my way of acknowledging that the power relationships were more complicated than they wanted or expected. Most significant, however, this partnership decentralized control of the learning environment, situating it partially outside of the classroom and the college community. With all of the Diamond in the Rough projects, the classroom spanned the Atlanta Metro area. At both institutions, the college was not entirely in control of the learning environment, and this was ultimately a positive situation for everyone involved. If colleges and universities want service learning to flourish, they must first accept that it is a radical pedagogy that requires new kinds of infrastructure, support, and assessment. Too often colleges and universities consider to the service aspect of service learning to be an add on something that students will do in addition to attending a traditional class with readings, homework, papers, quizzes, exams, and lecture-based instruction. In fact, a good service learning class makes the service itself the centerpiecethe main work done by studentswhile inviting the community partner to fully participate in feedback, assessment, and even teaching. To make this kind of teaching work, institutions must give up some of the control they are accustomed to wielding over the learning environment and accept the community partner(s) as full partners in the educational experience.
Dr. Daniel Vollaro is Assistant Professor of English in the School of Liberal Arts

LOOKING FORWARD LOOKING BACKWARD

Looking Backward: The CTE began the Winter Semester by continuing sessions of the Teaching and Learning Academy for New Faculty and the Master Teacher Program for returning faculty. The Master Teacher session topics covered topics related to teaching such as grading practices, testing and the scholarship of teaching and learning. The new faculty attended these sessions: Backwards Design, Mentoring Tools, Part Ii, Teaching Portfolios, and Student Integrity and Other Behavioral Concerns. Research Mondays and Breakfast Bytes gave faculty the opportunity to further develop their research and web skills. The Research Mondays topics included an overview of qualitative research, designing case studies, and writing seed grants. Breakfast Bytes were held on clickers, lecture capture, using respondus and uploading test banks. The video brown bag series covered topics related to pre-reading strategies, effective feedback for student writing, and promoting deep learning through critical reflection. The CTE staff extends a heart felt thank-you to those faculty who conducted workshops on behalf of the Center and to all the faculty who supported these events.

Looking Forward: The Center for Teaching Excellence will continue Year 2 of the Master Teacher Program and the Teaching and Learning Academy for New Faculty. Desire2Learn training will continue with more hands-on training sessions. The Center will be working over the summer to plan new programs that will engage faculty and promote discussions of how we can improve in the classroom. Let us know if you are interested in leading a workshop or have suggestions for topics you would like to see presented. Titles are on our website: cte.ggc.edu.

DOING COOPERATIVE LEARNING:

The Jigsaw
The jigsaw is a terrific technique for building learner confidence (becoming an momentary expert), re-focusing group allegiances (feeling connected to at least two groups), broadening perspectives (sharing/comparing perspectives across multiple individuals/groups) and building towards a class learning community. Heres an example of the jigsaw used with introductory text reading and another with critical thinking circles. More on the Jigsaw:

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http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/ strategy/strategy036.shtml http://www.educationworld.com/awards/ past/2001/r0601-06.shtml

Task: Review Introductory Chapters of Text This is usable in any course/discipline, but particularly appropriate for introductory /early semester sessions and getting students to survey and reference their texts effectively. Expert Group - assigned a segment of the chapter and asked to review collectively and identify and agree on the most important themes/information. Sharing Group - each member from the expert group contributes what was agreed upon and all participants create a summary (outline, concept map, timeline) of the conversation. Task: Develop Critical Thinking Circles - This describes the overlay of jigsaw on top of established critical thinking circles that meet periodically throughout a semester to cover readings and to help students learn to read and discuss more critically. Pre-Class Activity: Read assigned reading and develop 3-5 deep thinking questions to share with CT circle and promote discussion. Critical Thinking Jigsaw 2 - Expanding Views Discussion: Re-formed sharing group members share the question chosen (and why) and a brief synopsis of their circles discussion. Each group identifies common threads/ themes from the discussions that highlight relevant points and useful/applicable information and perspectives.

Submission Guidelines
The Teachers Edge encourages submissions on any aspect of college teaching and learning. The intent of the newsletter is to provide concise, thought-provoking topics that promote discussion among faculty and staff. Please limit submissions to less than nine hundred words. Articles may be submitted by GGC faculty, staff, and even students so that all voices are represented for our readers. Our web site gives us rich opportunities for posting ancillary

Conference Presentations/ Publications/Awards relating to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Kristina and Benjamin Brown Developmental differences in the relationship between ego-depletion and memory. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA. *Research was co-authored with GGC students Kay Tanner, Michele Volk-King, and Heather Mainard Kristina and Benjamin Brown A lack of gender differences in the relationship between ego-depletion and memory. Poster presented at Intersections: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender and Sexuality, Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, GA, April 7, 2012. *Research co-authored with GGC students Michele Volk-King, Heather Mainard, and Kay Tanner. Kristina and Benjamin Brown Gender differences in the earliest memories of deaf college students. Poster presented at Intersections: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender and Sexuality, Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, GA, April 7, 2012. Kristina Brown Gender differences in the relationship between nutrition and academic performance Poster presented at Intersections: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender and Sexuality, Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, GA, April 7, 2012. *Research co-authored with GGC student Lisbeth Cruz Lisa Pollacin 2012 winner of the Association of Instructional Technology Professionals (AITP) Extra Mile Faculty Advisor Award. Michael Lewkowicz Straight-Ticket Scapegoat? The Impact of the StraightTicket Option on State Legislative Contests Midwest Political Science Association Conference. Chicago, IL. April, 2012.

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Shane Tomashot Utilizing High School Techniques in the College Classroom Center for Instructional Innovation, Georgia State University: Graduate Student Conference, March 9, 2012 Liu Yingliang and Justin Jernigan Cultural adaptation of NNES college faculty: A cross-disciplinary study TESOL 2012 Convention, Philadelphia, PA, March 29, 2012. Tess Reid From Passive to Active: Transforming Instructional Design and Delivery in Pre Service Special Education Teachers University System of Georgia Teaching and Learning Conference, April 12, 2012. *Presented with four GGC students at this conference: Kimberlee Mankin, SuzAnne Moore, Jevondolyn Redmond, and Sarah Schillinger. Richard Pennington Enhancing Research Skills and Attitudes in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry via Organic Synthesis Presented at USG Teaching and Learning Conference, Helen, GA, April 13, 2012 Carlos Ruiz What makes managers effective in Mexico? in Leadership and Organization Development Journal. Carlos Ruiz Perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness within Mexican and British public sector hospitals: A cross-nation comparative analysis in Human Resource Development Quarterly. Carlos Ruiz Deducing a Universal Taxonomy of Perceived Managerial and Leadership Effectivenes Presented at the 2012 Academy of Human Resource Development International Research Conference in the Americas.

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Linda Hughes Accepted at Emory Universitys Oxford College Institute for Pedagogy in the Liberal Arts 2012, May 15-18. Linda Mancillas Presentation: Paper--Born Digital: Using Media Technology in the Political Science Classroom. Incorporating IT in Political Science Courses Panel Southern Political Science Association, January 12-15, 2012, New Orleans, LA. Also served as Discussant for Gender and Politics Panel. Linda Mancillas Integrating Technology into the Classroom Discussant for 2 Day Workshop American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, Washington, DC. February 1719, 2012. Jessica Damian, Associate Professor of English, will serve as a Wye Fellow with the Aspen Institute, Summer 2012. The mission of the Wye Faculty Seminar is to assist professors from colleges and universities in relating their teaching to broad issues of citizenship in the American polity and beyond. C. Douglas Johnson Oh, the Decisions We Make: Pedagogical Considerations for the Professoriate Paper presented at the 2012 Southeast Decision Sciences Institute, Columbia, SC (March). C. Douglas Johnson On my First Day Off: Setting the Stage for an Enhanced Educational Experience in the Collegiate Business Classroom. Paper presented at the 2012 Southeast Decision Sciences Institute, Columbia, SC February 2012. C. Douglas Johnson & H. A. Haynes Shades of diversity: A new look at race (and color) at work North Georgia Arts & Letters Conference, Dahlonega, GA February 2012.