Inservice Schedule – Spring 2021

Workshops that count as one professional development hour toward the Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices Certificate are indicated as CRTP. Attendance at the workshop is required for credit towards the certificate.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

• Virtual Coffee Chat
• 8:30 – 8:50 am
  • Welcome to 2021! Join The Teaching Center for a virtual coffee chat and say “hi” to colleagues as we prepare for a new semester.

• Creating an Equity-minded Syllabus – Part 1 of 2
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • Join us as we take a critical look at the equity and openness of our syllabi for students; this will be based upon a presentation developed by The Center for Urban Education (CUE, http://cue-equitytools.usc.edu/) about the inquiry tools we can use to evaluate syllabi in promoting “racial and ethnic equity and equity-minded practice.” The goal of these inquiry tools is to help us “achieve equity in outcomes for racially minoritized students.” Using research and CUE tools, we will answer these questions: What is the purpose of a syllabus? Do students use the syllabus during the semester? How can language in the syllabus affect students? Why are the content and style of syllabi important? This is the first part of a two-part series.
  • Presenters: Valerie Belew, Associate Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center, and Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Introduction to the TILT Method
• 10:15 – 11:15 am
  • Do you need to fulfill the TILT Workshop requirement for the CRTP Certificate? Join The Teaching Center for an introduction to the TILT Method Workshop for faculty who have never attended a TILT Workshop.  Recent research indicates that transparent assignment design significantly enhances students’ success, with even greater gains for historically underserved students. This presentation will cover the key principles underlying the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework and provide evidence of its efficacy. Participants will discuss examples of what transparent teaching and learning looks like in practice and will discuss how to scale this approach across the disciplines.
  • Presenters: Neely Ann Sheucraft, Teaching Center Director and Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Amy Bryant, Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Teaching Center Fellow
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Academic Plans for SAP Appeals -What You Need to Know
• 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • Join us for an important informational session on the Academic Plan for SAP appeals. We will cover what it is, why it is important, and the role of the Academic Advisor in the completion of the plan. Handouts will be provided.
  • Presenter: Jennifer Byrd, Director of Financial Aid
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Tired of Being Ignored?
• 1:15 – 2:15 pm
  • Wondering if students check their email? You are not alone. So, how can we reach our students and advisees? This workshop will provide you with ideas such as texting, push notifications, short videos, and apps that can catch students’ attention. Share your tips, too.
  • Presenters: Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology, and Marla Perry, Associate Professor, Sociology
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Fostering Learner-Instructor and Learner-Content Interactions with Kaltura
• 2:30 – 3:30 pm
  • Moore’s theory of interaction proposes three types of interaction essential to effective distance learning: learner-instructor, learner-content, and learner-learner. This workshop reviews Moore’s theory of interaction, then explores how Kaltura, a video-capture tool embedded in NS Online, can facilitate learner-instructor and learner-content interaction. Participants will view examples of Nashville State faculty using Kaltura to facilitate learner-instructor and learner-content interaction. Participants will review how to create a close-captioned video using Kaltura and share that video with their students through D2L. Participants will be provided the link to the .pdf guide and the video for how to use Kaltura through NS Online.
  • Presenter: Heather Rippetoe, Instructional Design Specialist, Office of Online Learning
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

Thursday, January 7, 2021

• How to Use Vulnerability in the Classroom to Create a Sense of Belonging and Community
• 8:00 – 8:50 am
  • “We must be guardians of spaces that allow students to breathe, be curious, and to explore.”  —Brene Brown   #daringclassrooms website
  • This session explores the integration of “Permission Slips,” “Containers,” and “Living into Our Values” into a classroom setting. When students know that the classroom is a safe place to explore, create community, and express themselves, they can become more engaged with their classmates and instructors.
  • Presenters: Yvonne Simerman, Assistant Professor, Sociology, and Valerie Belew, Associate Professor, English, and Teaching Center Fellow
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Collaboration via Office 365
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • Our students have access to Office 365 products through their myNSCC account, and we do, too, through Outlook. Learn how to collaborate using these applications.
  • Presenters: Amy Bryant, Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Fellow in The Teaching Center; Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center; and Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Improving Engagement in Online Discussion Boards
• 10:15 – 11:15 am
  • Are you tired of reading “great post”? We’re using online discussion boards more than ever for our web and virtual courses, so let’s get together and brainstorm ways to improve them. We’ll talk about updating our settings in NS Online, adding options for Universal Design for Learning, incorporating FlipGrid, and more. Please join us for this interactive in-service and share your own ideas about what’s working well for you and what you want to try next.
  • Presenters: Laura Burridge, Associate Professor, English; Katherine Sorenson, Associate Professor, Learning Support Reading; and Kristen Bradley, Assistant Professor, English
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Betting on Our Students
• 11:20 am – 12:20 pm
  • This workshop will involve brainstorming and creating a template to explore the idea of betting on our students.  It will also include a way to transfer the process to other situations (for example, asking students what it would mean to bet on themselves).
  • Presenter: Harlan Pease, Associate Professor, English and Communication Studies
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Developing a Meaningful Advisement Relationship with Students
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm
  • Evidence shows that a strong relationship with a faculty advisor can be a critical contributing factor to student retention and success. At NSCC, all faculty participate in student advising. Some of the students are majoring in an area that aligns with their faculty advisors’ work, but not all. That lack of alignment can be a challenge.
  • However, advisement is much broader than simply advising on a major. This session will look to help define advisement and review key steps faculty advisors can take to move from a registration focused advising agenda to career and degree planning, developing a stronger advisor/advisee relationship along the way.
  • Presenter: Rene Garcia, ATD Data Coach
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Elevate Student Voices
• 1:45 – 2:45 pm
  • How does Nashville State help and hinder a student’s sense of belonging in college? We worked with UVA’s Motivate Lab to train students to lead virtual focus groups in fall 2020 to gather answers to this question. In this workshop, we will share the preliminary results.
  • Presenters: Richard Garvin, Assistant Professor, Psychology; Marla Perry, Associate Professor, Sociology; and Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• I Am Not A Writing Instructor: How to Create a Rubric That Works in Your Discipline
  • 3:00 – 4:00 pm
  • Many instructors require students to write as part of the course curriculum and may need ideas about how to evaluate writing assignments. John Robert and Valerie for a session on best practices for creating a grading rubric for writing assignments. We will present a template that can be customized for our specific courses, and we will also look at ways to grade holistically/formatively.
  • Presenters: Valerie Belew, Associate Professor, English, and Teaching Fellow; Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Teaching Fellow
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

Friday, January 8, 2021

• Mini-Convocation
• 8:30 – 10:00 am

• VPAA Dr. Rothstein Meeting with Faculty
• 10:30 – 11:30 am

• Adjunct Orientation
• 11:45 am – 12:30 pm
  • Presenters: Neely Ann Sheucraft, Teaching Center Director and Associate Professor, Communication Studies; Amy Bryant, Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Teaching Center Fellow; and Mary Elizabeth Wilson-Patton, Ph.D., Associate Professor, ESL, and Fellow in The Teaching Center

• Division Meetings
• 12:00 noon – 2:00 pm or 1:00 – 3:00 pm

Monday, January 11, 2021

• 4^th Annual TBR HIP Statewide Conference “Forging HIP Frontiers: Small Steps for Instructors, Giant Leaps for Student Success”
• 8:00 am – 4:30 pm

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

• Creating an Equity-minded Syllabus – Part 2 of 2
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • In this workshop, we will look at our options for incorporating equity-mindedness into NSCC’s Master Syllabi and work on individual syllabi to incorporate tenets presented in the first session with design, equity, and accessibility in mind; we will also discuss examining outcomes with a critical eye for student accessibility and success. Faculty need to bring a copy of their syllabus. Limited to 12 persons.
  • Presenters: Valerie Belew, Associate Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center, and Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• TBR Let’s Talk about Race Workshop 2: Dismantling Colorblind Ideologies
• 10:30 – 11:30 am
  • “I don’t see race…racism is a thing of the past!” Or is it? This session examines the impact colorblind ideologies have on color-bound issues and communities of color. This session will seek to explore ways of countering these ideologies both individually and within an organizational context.
  • Presenter: Greg Fontus, CEO, The Fontus Experience
  • No Recording Available

• TILT 2.0
• 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm
  • Welcome to TILT 2.0! You’ve implemented TILT, so what’s next? Join The Teaching CENTER for an open forum where we will discuss the successes and stumbles from using TILT and share ways to improve implementation. The session will include Q&A, suggestions on how faculty can analyze results and measure success, and how to continue to use TILT to be more culturally responsive in your classes.
  • Presenters: Neely Ann Sheucraft, Teaching Center Director and Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Amy Bryant, Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Teaching Center Fellow
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Nashville State’s Value
• 1:15 – 2:15 pm
  • We just wrapped up a project with UVA’s Motivate Lab that asked NSCC 1010 students to consider the value of attending Nashville State. Our results support the link between finding personal value and motivation. We’ll help you consider how you can help students discover the value of your course and the assignments.
  • Presenters: Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology, and Marla Perry, Associate Professor, Sociology
  • CRTP
  • No Recording Available

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

• Zooming Right Along
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • This workshop will help you equitably engage students on Zoom. How do we capitalize on our fall virtual experiences to improve your Zoom classrooms this spring? There will be time set aside to share your successful Zoom strategies.
  • Presenters: Richard Garvin, Assistant Professor, Psychology; Marla Perry, Associate Professor, Sociology; and Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Apps and Tips to Keep You Sane (or at least make it appear that way)
• 10:15 – 11:15 am
  • This session will assist faculty in giving all students more access to faculty by freeing up time devoted to “housekeeping” tasks and reinventing the wheel when a better wheel exists already (probably as an app.) Example: Setmore is a scheduling app that allows faculty to send a link (or include it in their contact information) for students to quickly schedule appointments while sending the faculty information from the student needed for the appointment. Setmore also sends reminders to the student and faculty and does away with missed appointments, or at least it has this past semester.
  • Presenters: Robin Cooper-Wilbanks, Assistant Professor, Psychology, and Rachel Hazelwood Lewis, Instructor, Biology
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Using Online Rubrics in NS Online
• 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • Students prefer feedback that is both frequent and timely (Reis, 2012) and balanced and specific (Fiock & Garcia, 2019). Faculty want to provide that kind of feedback for students, but how do we do so for every student and every assignment? Grading with the NS Online rubric tool can help faculty provide this kind of feedback. Attaching rubrics to assignments makes criteria visible for students, and grading with NS Online rubrics moves quickly for faculty while still providing options for customized feedback. In this workshop, participants will discuss how well-written rubrics support student learning, view examples of rubrics in NS Online, practice creating simple rubrics, and learn how to attach rubrics to grade items in NS Online.
  • Presenter: Heather Rippetoe, Instructional Design Specialist, Office of Online Learning
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Virtual Coffee Chat
• 12:35 – 1:00 pm
  • Welcome to 2021! Join The Teaching Center for a virtual coffee chat and say hi to colleagues as we prepare for a new semester.

• Keep Calm and Zoom On: Managing Zoom Fatigue in the Classroom
• 1:15 – 2:15 pm
  • If you have been spending endless hours in virtual meetings and leading multiple virtual class sessions, you are likely very familiar with Zoom fatigue. You may know the feeling, but not the definition. Zoom fatigue describes the tiredness, worry, or burnout associated with consistently using virtual platforms of communication. Join us as we outline some of the common underlying causes and discuss practical methods to minimize it. Keep in mind, it is not just happening to faculty, but students as well.
  • Presenters: Tammy Ruff, Senior Affiliate Faculty, Psychology, and Neely Ann Sheucraft, Director of The Teaching Center and Associate Professor, Communication Studies
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

Thursday, January 14, 2021

• Setting Goals and Managing Outcomes
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • In this workshop, I would like to leverage my practices of providing transparent outcomes as a way of discussing the importance and implementation of meta-cognition and encouraging students to establish real, tangible goals in relation to the course outcomes. I would like to demonstrate how I help students set goals, and how I use choice to motivate students. We will also brainstorm methods for use in other curriculums and possible methods to improve and align students more closely with our desires for student success.
  • Presenter: Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Connecting with Students by Asking for and Engaging with Student Feedback
• 10:15 – 11:15 am
  • Who are my students? What are their preconceived ideas about this course? What do they already know? What knowledge gaps exist?
  • What is helping my students learn? What is not helping my students learn? What could I do to improve their learning?  What could my students do to improve their learning?
  • During this workshop, we will discuss questions that we wish we knew the answer to at the start, middle, and end of the semester and ways to incorporate welcome surveys, mid-semester check-in surveys, and end of the semester surveys to get the answers to these questions from our students during the course.  Template surveys will be provided after the session for you to be able to edit and implement in your courses.
  • Presenter: Amy Bryant, Associate Professor, Communication Studies, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP

• Media Literacy Across Curriculums
• 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • Media literacy teaches students how to responsibly, access, analyze, evaluate, and create information. Presenters will introduce the core concepts of media literacy and discuss a variety of resources to get your students thinking critically about information consumption.
  • Presenters: Jessie Angel, Interim Learning Center Coordinator, and Emily Bush, Instructional Librarian
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) – Meeting the Needs of All Our Students
• 1:15 – 2:15 pm
  • Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that focuses on providing all students with equal opportunities to succeed. It addresses removing barriers to content access and emphasizes multiple intelligences and learning styles. It emphasizes flexibility that maximizes the strengths and abilities that students bring to the classroom. In this session, we will introduce the key principles and features of UDL, discuss its integral connection with issues of student access to curriculum, and explore best practices and ways to apply the UDL principles to material development.
  • Presenters: Diana Blackburn, Instructional Support Specialist, Office of Online Learning; Katrina Dubree, Director, Access Center; Robert Ladd, Assistant Professor, English, and Fellow in The Teaching Center;  Anne Pouliot, Coordinator of Accessible Technology, Access Center; Heather Rippetoe, Instructional Design Specialist, Office of Online Learning; and Mary Elizabeth Wilson-Patton, Ph.D., Associate Professor, ESL, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

Friday, January 15, 2021

• Exploring Culture, Identity, and Learning in the Community College Classroom
• 9:00 – 10:00 am
  • What is “culture?” How does it impact learning? Is being “color-blind” really helping our students? What are cultural discontinuities and how do they impact student achievement? This workshop defines key terms, explores research on the connections between culture, identity, and learning, and includes an opportunity to discuss possible ways to integrate that information into the development of our classes at NSCC.
  • Presenter: Mary Elizabeth Wilson-Patton, Ph.D., Associate Professor, ESL, and Fellow in The Teaching Center
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Coding Camp: Collect Qualitative Data from Student Responses
• 10:15 – 11:15 am
  • As part of our QEP, Improving the First Year Experience, we ask students at the beginning and end of their first year how Nashville State will affect their personal growth. Working with Motivate Lab, I’ve learned how to collect data from these responses in a technique called “coding.” I’ll share Motivate Lab’s coding data on our 2018-19 cohort, and then you will help me code the 2019-20 responses. Thanks!
  • Presenter: Jessica Rabb, Professor, Biology and QEP Coordinator
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Explainer Session: Using Library Materials in Your Online Courses
• 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • Explanation of how to include library materials (ebooks, articles, streaming films) in course shells. This session will include a technical tutorial of how to format links, as well an explanation of what falls within fair use.
  • Presenter: Emily Bush, Instructional Librarian

• Teaching Beyond the Gender Binary: Welcoming Transgender and Non-binary Students
• 1:15 – 2:15 pm
  • According to Brielle Harbin of Vanderbilt University’s Teaching Center, “Students on campuses across the country have become increasingly vocal in resisting binary thinking with respect to gender identity and expression.” As more and more students claim their transgender and non-binary gender identities, it’s important for instructors to have a degree of fluency with gender non-binary vocabulary and an understanding of how to make trans, non-binary and other gender non-conforming students feel welcomed.  This session will cover the spectrum of trans and non-binary gender identities and offer a set of best practices for making these students feel recognized and respected in our classrooms.
  • Presenters: Mark Helm and Jeani Rice-Cranford
  • CRTP
  • Recording in Professional Development Library

• Creating a Standardized Rubric for Grading Writing in Your Specific Discipline
  • (Departments must contact The Teaching Center to set-up discipline-specific sessions.)
  • Have you thought about creating a standardized grading rubric in your department but don’t know how to get started? Contact us to schedule a workshop with Teaching Center writing faculty who can help you to navigate the process.
  • Contact The Teaching Center to schedule an appointment: theteachingcenter@nscc.edu