LEARN Center Workshops 2005-2006

November 2005

Student Response System

Monday, 14th November 2005, Minneiska Dining Room, University Center

Morning Session: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Using Clickers to Engage Students in the Classroom

Student response system technologies equip the student with a personal response unit, or "clicker", for answering questions posed by the instructor in class. The results are tallied, can be posted immediately as instant feedback or captured for later analysis.

Student Response Systems (SRS) have the potential for transforming traditionally passive large lecture classes into stimulating interactive classes.

• Student response systems can engage students, make them active participants in their learning, and provide them with immediate feedback on their understanding of material.
• Faculty are provided with information on students' understanding of course concepts and the ability to adjust course activities based upon student responses.
• Class responses can also be used as a prompt for classroom discussion and other activities.

Come find out how some faculty are using the "clickers" in their classroom this semester and you can easily incorporate SRS activities in your PowerPoint lectures.

Facilitators:

Dr. Richard Cummings – Accounting, Dr. Andrew Kapp – Safety, Dr. Carla Corroto – Sociology, Dr. Kris Curran – Biology, Dr. Kirsten Crossgrove – Biology, Lorna Wong – iCIT/LTC

August 2005

Getting A Handle On It All:
Time and Priority Management in Academic Settings

"Time pressures" and "lack of personal time" remain the top two stress producing factors for postsecondary faculty.
(The American College Teacher, 2002)

Tuesday, 23rd August 2005, Hamilton Center

Morning Session: 9:00 am - 12:00 pm                   (8:30am Continental Breakfast)
Drawing a Bead on What's Important

The process of developing and implementing an effective, long-term process for managing life's most valuable commodity requires working through a series of fundamental questions. With a series of engaging exercises, thought-provoking self-assessments and discussions, and exposure to different models and tools, participants will work through such issues as:

• What are my personal and professional priorities? How do they compare and conflict? How do they align with my actual use of time?
• What are my personal and professional goals? Why bother with goal setting? What are the roadblocks to my setting and achieving my goals? Whose goals am I really trying to achieve?
• What does it mean to have balance in my professional and personal life? How do I know if I've achieved it? Do I want balance?

Attendees will complete the morning session drafting an action plan for better time management.

Facilitator:

Jennifer Morgan Shambrook, MHA, currently serves as the Associate Chair for Research Administration for the Department of Psychiatry at Medical University of South Carolina and holds the designation of Distinguished Faculty Member of the Society of Research Administrators. She has led this popular session for thousands of postsecondary faculty and staff on three continents.

Afternoon Session: 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Eat the Frog

In this highly interactive session, participants will be introduced to a number of nuts and bolts, highly palatable, time management techniques. Seth Meisel and Denise Ehlen will provide tips and techniques faculty and staff can use to identify their "frogs" (the most time consuming and vital tasks you confront each day) and jump-start productivity.

Session topics include organizing your work area, getting the jump on service obligations, balancing teaching and research, and identifying time to think and write. Participants will leave this workshop armed with the tools necessary to beat work overload and improve their effectiveness and efficiency.

Facilitator:

Seth Meisel is a Professor in the History Department and has worked as a mentor in the LEARN Center's Scholar/Mentor Program since the program's inception in 2003. Denise Ehlen is Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, a Certified Research Administrator, and believed by many to be the most efficient individual on campus.

Thursday, 25th August 2005

8:45 am - 10:00 am, McGraw Hall 125
What Types of Feedback About Writing Do UW-W Students Value Most?

Few tasks in the life of an instructor require as much time and energy as evaluating and providing feedback on essays and projects. Pedagogical researchers have responded by forwarding a long list of "best practices" for more efficiently, effectively, and objectively evaluating student essays.

This discussion-based session will examine these "best practices" by comparing them to survey responses of UW-W students who were asked to describe what they liked and disliked about the way faculty evaluate their writing. The value of closing commentary paragraphs, writing rubrics, and comments in the margins will be examined. Discussion will also center on which evaluation practices most upset students, and which techniques are likely to lead to better writing performance.

Attendees will leave with some common sense approaches to more effectively grading those essays that come our way each semester.

Facilitator:

Lois Smith, Professor of Marketing, and currently serves as a Peer Coach for the LEARN Center.

8:45 am - 10:00 am, Library BI Lab (L2211)
Digging Deeper Into the Online Content of the University Library

The University Library website currently offers more than 150 online databases. The vast majority of these databases are overlooked as students and faculty alike tend to use the resources with which they are the most familiar (e.g., EBSCOhost).

This hands-on session will have attendees explore the capabilities and special features of three powerful and underused databases:

• LexisNexis (news and legal database with book reviews, biographical information, broadcast news transcripts)
• Web of Science (features the Science, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities Citation Indexes)
• UlrichsWeb (international periodical directory that can be used to find potential publishing venues)

This session will emphasize learning search techniques that will promote the retrieval of the most relevant results.

Facilitator:

Carol Elsen, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University Library.

10:15am-11:30am, McGraw Hall 117
So You're Thinking About Writing a Textbook...

Have you reviewed the array of textbooks available for one (or more) of your courses and thought, "I could do a better job than that"? Or have you looked at your discipline and thought, "Nobody has written a textbook that could be used for this course"?

This session, run by a pair of UW-W faculty currently collaborating on their second textbook, will lead attendees through practical considerations such as: how to get the process started; how to contact a publisher; what goes into drafting a prospectus; what are the major milestones and timelines for completing a textbook. Suggestions relevant to working with editors, influencing the editorial process, as well as developing supplementary material will also be addressed.

If you've given consideration to writing a textbook, or if you're among UW-W faculty who have written a textbook and want to share your experiences, you'll find this session engaging and instructive.

Facilitators:

Greg Cook, Professor, and Joan Littlefield Cook, Associate Professor, both work in the Psychology Department at UW-Whitewater. They are co-authors of Child Development: Principles and Perspectives (2005, Allyn & Bacon).

10:15am-11:30am, McGraw Hall 125
Working with Students with Asperger's Syndrome

The University has approximately a half-dozen students currently enrolled who have been identified as having Asperger's Syndrome—a "high functioning" form of autism. With more students diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome graduating from public schools each year, this number stands to grow, perhaps exponentially, in the years ahead.

Join a pair of facilitators with advanced knowledge and experience working with students who have Asperger's Syndrome as they lead a lively and thought-provoking session that will focus on the characteristics of students with Asperger's Syndrome, and on some of the social and communicative differences instructors might experience. Discussion will focus on how "typical" autism spectrum skills including excellent memories, special interests, or affinity with computers mesh with a university culture generally, and with UW-Whitewater specifically. Tips for recognizing and teaching students with Asperger's Syndrome will be provided.

Facilitators:

Shannon Stuart is Assistant Professor and coordinator of the Autism Specialist Certificate in the Department of Special Education. Nancy Amacher is the Interim Director of the Center for Students with Disabilities, and has experience coordinating students with Asperger's Sydrome in her work in Project ASSIST.