Tag Archives: NDLW

Happy Birthday and Happy National Distance Learning Week!

Happy Birthday to our Blog!

A year ago today, CELT launched its blog during National Distance Learning Week. I would like to thank the CELT staff and the faculty who have contributed to the blog over the past year. A big thank you to our readers as well!

Later today, at noon, you can join us for the CELT panel discussion: Gender Inclusivity and the Teaching Practice.

In this session, panelists discuss ways to acknowledge, incorporate, and include gender identity and sexuality in course design, readings, assignments, and assessments. In terms of gender, we include trans and nonbinary identities, the use of pronouns, and how our disciplines are adapting to gender inclusion. Panelists discuss how they incorporate these topics into their teaching practice and why. We also weave in online delivery for National Distance Learning Week.

Panelists include:

  • Mei Lin (Ete) Chan, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
  • Chris Tanaka, Assistant Director of LGBTQ* Services
  • Andrew Rimby, Ph.D. Candidate and Queer Activist, English Department

Facilitators:

  • Carol Hernandez, Senior Instructional Designer, CELT
  • Catherine Scott, Assistant Director for Faculty Development – Testing, Assessment & Evaluation, CELT

Please register in advance to attend this Zoom meeting.

National Distance Learning Week, 2021 

This week is National Distance Learning Week (NDLW). If you would like to participate in NDLW, both SUNY and the United States Distance Learning Association are offering webinars:

We appreciate all the time you spend with us. If you have any suggestions for upcoming posts or if you would like to write a guest post, please reach out to us at CELT@stonybrook.edu

 

Teaching Tuesdays

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) has always been dedicated to the belief that excellent teaching in all its forms is vital to student success. Recently, to better align with our mission, we have been moved to the Office of the Provost under Elizabeth Newman, PhD, Vice Provost for Curriculum and Undergraduate Education. 

Teaching Tuesdays This semester, we are excited to begin a new initiative: Teaching Tuesdays. During these sessions, CELT experts will discuss evidence-based practical strategies and reflective questions aligned with the research expertise of staff in our department. Please join us at 11:15am in the Faculty Commons (Melville Library E1332) for any of the following topics:

  • Using Critical Self-Reflection to Catalyze Inclusive Pedagogy with Carol Hernandez on October 5th 
    • The pandemic has made clear that social identities, both those of our students as well as our own, shape not only how we are experiencing the fallout of the crisis, but also how we experience teaching and learning. Our session will address how reflecting on the intersection of our identities is a crucial catalyst to improving an educator’s inclusive teaching practice.
  • Grading for Teaching Assistants (TAs): Reducing Bias and Time-Saving Tips with Kimberly Bell, PhD on October 19th 
    • Grading and assessment are an integral part of any teaching experience. In addition to the technical details of entering and submitting grades, time management and biases also play an important role in grading and assessment, and these are often more challenging to overcome. Join this workshop to hear more about time saving tips and strategies for reducing bias in your grading and assessment.
  • Supporting Students’ Self-Regulation Skills in Your Course with Kristin Hall on October 26th 
    • In this workshop, we will go over the importance of self-regulation skills and how they are linked to academic achievement and academic success.  We will also discuss how to model and help students develop these skills in your course. 
  • Designing Courses for all Students with Jennifer Jaiswal on November 2nd
    • Not all students learn in the same way. Creating courses that allow for diversity in how we interact with the content helps students to find different ways to engage and to connect with the course material. In this course we will discuss Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and redesign a course activity to be more inclusive.
  • National Distance Learning Week: Regular and Substantive Interaction: Reflections Based on the Updated Distance Education and Innovation Federal Regulations with Rose Tirotta, EdD on November 9th 
    • In July of 2021, the US Department of Education updated the Distance Education and Innovation Federal Regulations to align with updated pedagogical research and technological capabilities. This session will review these changes in parallel with evidence-based practices to reflect on future and current course development and organization. 
  • Ideation as a Teaching Strategy with Jennifer Jaiswal on November 16th 
    • How can you help your students craft new ideas in their area of study, create new products, or design new models for problem solving? Ideation is the process of creating many new ideas using generative thinking strategies. Ideation takes advantage of creativity to create new ways of thinking about problems and creating solutions. In this session we will cover generative thinking,  project models that can be applied and take on a design challenge.
  • Designing a Logic Model for Your Grant Evaluation with Catherine Scott on November 23rd 
    • Logic models are often required when submitting grant proposals. So what are they? Why do you need one? And how can you create your own? Join this workshop to have these questions answered and leave with a template to help you create your own.
  • Jump Start Engagement with Active Learning with Kimberly Bell, PhD and Rose Tirotta, EdD on November 30th 
    • Active learning can improve student outcomes and keep students engaged during and in-between your class meetings. Getting started incorporating active learning, implementing it, and assessing its effectiveness can seem challenging. Join this workshop to hear more about why active learning works and strategies you can implement and assess easily in your courses right away.

Please register prior to the session using the links above and email us if you have any questions.

Thanks for joining us!

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our inaugural week of posts! If you missed any of the National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) webinars, you can watch recordings on the SUNY Online NDLW page.  

As finals quickly approach, we want to remind you that CELT and DoIT still have a few upcoming webinars. If you would like to schedule a specialized webinar for your department, email celt@stonybrook.edu for more information! 

Thinking about your upcoming January course? Let us know if you would like to schedule a consultation.

 

Welcome to CELT’s Blog! Happy National Distance Learning Week!

Rose Tirotta  Rose Tirotta, Ed.D., Associate Director of Teaching Excellence

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) welcomes you to the launch of our blog! We begin this adventure on the first day of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW), 2020. NDLW was founded in 2007 by Drexel University Online in collaboration with the United States Distance Learning Association.

“During NDLW, students, faculty and champions of online education celebrate its tremendous growth and accomplishments, while working towards the possibilities of the future” (National Distance Learning Week, n.d.).

Isaac Pitman
“Sir Isaac Pitman” by JamesGardinerCollection is marked with CC0 1.0

If we take a step back in time, we can look at the first “distance learning” courses which began with Isaac Pitman in England in 1844. Not surprisingly, Pittman taught these courses by sending “content” to his students and getting their “assessments” back via the new postal system. Pitman then corrected the documents and sent them back to the student with feedback – a critical component (Tait, 2003). We have come a long way since 1844 with technology pushing us forward in recent years. While the postal service gave distance learning its first breath back in 1844, online learning became possible with the birth of the Internet in the 1980s (“History of the Internet,” 2020). Then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, things started to get interesting with the advent of some truly transformational technologies..

Blackboard was founded in 1997 (“Blackboard Inc.,” 2020); YouTube was founded in 2005 (“YouTube,” 2020); and the iPhone was first unveiled in 2007 (“IPhone,” 2020).
Despite the arrival of these technologies, engagement, assessment, and feedback are still critical. However, the tools allow us to achieve our goals more seamlessly as we focus on our teaching.

A second big push towards online learning of course happened this past spring with the pandemic moving many more students and faculty online.

Since we unfortunately can’t meet in person for a NDLW event, we decided to launch our blog which, over the next week and beyond , will publish posts that highlight the kinds of support that CELT offers, including online and distance learning. .

For our inaugural week, we will post a different topic each day related to distance or online education. After that, we will post every two weeks on various topics related to teaching and learning. There are a myriad of different terms and definitions related to distance and online learning and tomorrow’s post will attempt to provide some clarity.

If you would like to participate in NDLW, , there are virtual NDLW events being offered throughout the country. To get more information and to register for them, take a look at our NDLW web page.

We appreciate all the time you spend with us. If you have any suggestions for upcoming posts or if you would like to write a guest post, please reach out to us at CELT@stonybrook.edu

 

 

References

Blackboard Inc. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

History of the Internet. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

iPhone. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

National Distance Learning Week. (n.d.). Drexel University Online. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://www.online.drexel.edu/news/ndlw.aspx

YouTube. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube&oldid=986831989