OFE Newsletter: October 11, 2021

The Adaptive Instructor and the New World of Teaching (Faculty Conversation Series)

The Office for Faculty Excellence’s popular Faculty Conversation Series continues next week with The Adaptive Instructor and the New World of Teaching (Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 11:30-12:30 p.m. via Zoom): This past year many of us made massive adaptations in our fall courses. If you are feeling close to your adaptive capacity, take a deep breath and chat with us about some practical tips and resources to help you keep up in our current environment.

The Faculty Conversation Series is designed to engage faculty in conversation around relevant topics that will be helpful as they teach. For each session, faculty will read a relevant article/paper about the topic (optional), receive question prompts, engage in conversation around the topic with other faculty members, and reflect on how the conversation may have changed thinking on the topic. All conversations are facilitated by Dr. Maria Gallardo-Williams, OFE SoTL Faculty Fellow:

Active Reading: Getting Your Students to Engage With Course Reading Material

Did you miss our Sept. 28 Back to Basics session on Active Reading? You can check out some of the concepts discussed in it in our new blog post! Many instructors assign reading materials in their courses with the unwritten expectation that students will know how to read as an expert in the discipline, or at the very least as an interested party with good reading skills. It turns out that this is rarely the case, and reading assignments greatly favor students with existing good study habits.

However, there are simple interventions that can help all the students in the class to master the reading materials with a modest time investment on the part of the instructor.

Online Lilly Conference Registrations Available

DELTA and the Office for Faculty Excellence are pleased to announce the purchase of a site license for the ITLC Lilly Online Conference, occurring April 6, 13, 20, and 27, 2022 with asynchronous sessions available through June 2022. The Lilly conference is focused on enhancing online, onsite and hybrid teaching and learning.

Attendees will enjoy 4 full days of conference programming, conveniently scheduled across four Wednesdays to reduce disruption to your teaching schedule. The conference is geared toward faculty and administrators at various stages in their academic careers, representing nearly every discipline found in higher education. Attendees will enjoy a variety of 20-minute and 40-minute asynchronous sessions, traditional plenary addresses, synchronous facilitated discussions, and poster presentations addressing contemporary issues and include proven, innovative pedagogies.

The Call for Proposals is currently open with a deadline of January 15, 2022.

How to Register at No Cost
The NC State site license provides up to 150 free conference registrations for faculty, staff and graduate students using their NC State email addresses. The Office for Faculty Excellence is managing registration for the conference and will gather registration requests and send them to Lilly Online in batches. If you want to attend the conference, complete the registration form. You will receive a confirmation of your registration from the Office of Faculty Development and later from ITLC Lilly Online Conference when we send them the batch registrations.

Remember there is no cost for registration and you can submit a conference proposal before being registered.

Upcoming Events for Faculty

Tuesday, Oct. 12

• Designing Your Moodle Course – Planning – 30 Minute Series, 12:30-1:00 p.m.

Wednesday, Oct. 13

• The Adaptive Instructor and The New World of Teaching (Faculty Conversation Series), 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
• Break-out Rooms and Small Group Work – 30 Minute Series, 12:30-1:00 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 14

• Designing Your Moodle Course – Layout – 30 Minute Series, 12:30-1:00 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 18

• Mindful Mondays, 9:00-9:30 a.m.