DE Oracle @ UMUC

Summer Faculty Leadership Institute, 2005

Susan Ko

Director

Center for Teaching and Learning

Published: November-December 2005

Category: » Events » Past-events

On August 1-4, 2005, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) hosted the second Summer Faculty Leadership Institute: Instructional Strategies and Learning Outcomes in Adelphi, Maryland.

Bringing together approximately fifty DE faculty and faculty development staff each year from Europe, Asia, and the United States, this Institute's purpose is to improve the quality of instruction at UMUC through a face-to-face faculty development workshop event, global in scope, and focused on the strategic needs of UMUC. The Institute also strives to bring about a greater awareness of peer leadership in the context of working toward "one UMUC," and in 2005, faculty have been encouraged to undertake a post-institute project with the goal of sharing what they have learned with colleagues in their discipline.

This year's main workshop tracks were entitled Creating and Assessing Writing Assignments and Creating and Integrating Multimedia. At our opening dinner, Interim President and Provost Nicholas Allen addressed the strategic objectives of UMUC and their connection to the themes of the Institute.

The last day's plenary session as well as two morning presentations and activities sponsored by the Office of Assessment and Office of Evaluation, Research, and Grants focused on the theme of understanding outcomes assessment. Beyond these stated themes, assessment on the course level was an underlying thread running through the Institute activities.

A guest speaker, Dr. Mary Huba, of Iowa State University spoke on "Outcomes Assessment: What Does it Mean for You?" and the Institute concluded with a round-table discussion, giving faculty an opportunity to ask questions from a group of panelists representing the various tracks and themes of the Institute.

The organization and planning of this year's Summer Institute required a high level of coordination with academic and administrative staff from the School of Undergraduate Studies (SUS), Graduate School of Management and Technology (GSMT), as well as the Offices of Instructional Services and Support, Outcomes Assessment, and Evaluation, Research, and Grants.

Creating and Assessing Writing Assignments Track

The Writing track was divided into a morning and afternoon session. In the morning, Pamela Monaco, Lisa Bernstein, Elizabeth Mulherrin, and Christina Sax (from SUS) gave presentations on guidelines for creating compelling writing assignments, helping students avoid plagiarism, and understanding how to avoid the common problems students encounter in interpreting and fulfilling writing assignments.

The faculty then divided into cross-disciplinary groups to redesign a flawed writing assignment, using a checklist derived from the morning presentations. Finally, each group presented the improved assignment to the whole track assembly, explaining the how and why of their redesign.

Facilitators from the School of Undergraduate Studies, Pamela Monaco, Christina Sax, Andy Cavanaugh, Lisa Bernstein, Elizabeth Mulherrin, and Donna Oti, as well as CTL's Richard Schumaker assisted the faculty groups.

In the afternoon, Jim Booth (SUS) and Kate Woodward (GSMT) presented an introduction to rubrics and their uses, defining the types of rubrics and detailing how to develop them.

Following the presentations, faculty divided into groups based on similar disciplines. Choosing one of the assignments faculty were asked to bring to the Institute, each group was given the task of creating appropriate criteria for an assignment in their discipline, then revising the assignment in light of those criteria, and finally, creating a grading rubric which could be used to assess student work on that revised assignment. Each group then presented their findings to the others in the track, demonstrating the criteria established, the revisions made, and their reasons for selecting the particular format of rubric chosen.

CTL offers an online workshop, entitled Rubrics: Grading Effectively and Efficiently twice each year to all interested UMUC faculty. This workshop has recently been updated to reflect the Summer Institute experience. For information on CTL online workshops, see http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/ctla/workshops.html

Creating and Integrating Multimedia Track

The Multimedia track addressed the use of multimedia in online teaching. Morning and afternoon presentations by Theodore Stone of the Office of Instructional Services and Support and David P. Johnson of CTL focused on the rationale for using low-threshold applications to enhance the classroom, and demonstrated some planning techniques that can be utilized to create more effective multimedia that are integrated within the courses and fulfill the course learning objectives.

Following the morning presentation, faculty divided into groups of two as David Johnson led them through a step-by-step instruction in three multimedia tools. These step-by-step instructions are now available to all faculty through the CTL Summer Institute Website.

In the afternoon, faculty again worked in groups of two to utilize at least two multimedia tools to enhance a pre-prepared WebTycho classroom, using materials supplied on a CD. Finally, pairs of faculty volunteered to present their applications to all the track group participants.

Facilitators Pat Johnson, Heloisa Seiffert, and Chris Guirreri (from Office of Instructional Services and Support) as well as Jim Golden (Adjunct Professor, SUS) circulated among the faculty to assist in both the morning and afternoon activities. This additional one-on-one support was invaluable in helping faculty to accomplish the complex tasks in the limited time available.

Summer Institute Outreach

The 2005 Summer Faculty Leadership Institute was designed to benefit the entire UMUC community of faculty through participants' sharing of their experience with colleagues, and through serving as an incubator for online workshops subsequently offered to the entire UMUC faculty. 

In 2006, CTL hopes to create new online workshops focusing on writing and assessment as an outgrowth of the experiences at the Summer Institute, with an aim to reach as many faculty as possible. Last year's creation of two highly popular online workshops in Best Practices and Using Multimedia evolved from the main tracks of Summer Institute 2004 and many faculty have taken advantage of the opportunity to participate in these workshops.

Over the next few months, we will be tracking the progress of participants who opt to create a post-institute project. Each post-institute project option is designed to focus the faculty member on improving teaching practices as well as devising a method that incorporates multimedia in order to share what they have learned with other faculty in their discipline. Faculty may make their presentations at face-to-face faculty meetings, through the WebTycho departmental 999 classrooms, or in other appropriate settings.

To share some of the insights of the Institute, CTL has incorporated some materials from the Summer Institute into a series of Web resource pages on the Center for Teaching and Learning website. As post-institute projects are approved and carried out, we will also highlight examples of these on our Website.