By Carol Hernandez, Ed.D.
Senior Instructional Designer CELT
carol.hernandez@stonybrook.edu
The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching offers the Online Teaching Course (OTC) multiple times a year with two options: OTC and OTC Accelerated. These multi-week online courses will provide you with basic pedagogical, research-based practices specific to the online space and will assist you in planning instructional activities for your course. We will not focus on how to use Brightspace, but rather how to best use technology to meet your pedagogical goals. These courses will be delivered asynchronously online with one optional synchronous session.
OTC: This is a 5-week asynchronous course. Plan on spending 3-4 hours per week with assignments due weekly. We suggested logging on 4 times aweek during this course.
OTC Accelerated: This is a condensed, 2.5- week version of the OTC. Plan on spending 6-7 hours weekly with assignments due every 2-3 days. We suggest logging in daily during the course.
Take the OTC this summer and work with our team of instructional designers.
(2.5-weeks) Wednesday, July 12 to Friday, July 28, 2023
If you are an instructor who has already taken the OTC fairly recently, and you need assistance in Brightspace, you can request a one-on-one consultation by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/Wn2qY4CrwyocW61J9
If you are an instructor new to teaching online, take the OTC and after that, start meeting with an instructional designer.
If you are an instructor who is only revising a course, you can request a one-on-one instructional design consultation by emailing: CELT@stonybrook.edu.
By Carol Hernandez, Ed.D. Senior Instructional Designer Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT)
carol.hernandez@stonybrook.edu
Teaching online requires a reconceptualization of how you will design and deliver your course.
CELT can walk you through all the steps to get your course ready for the online platform. And we can show you ways to create a sense of community where students interact with you, the course content, and (perhaps most importantly) with each other. In a well-designed and well-delivered course, both you and your students will walk away feeling seen, heard, and engaged.
Building a great online course takes some time, but CELT can help.
Join us for the Online Teaching Certificate Course, which starts October 11. You can take it in the 5-week format or the accelerated 2.5-week format. Both are live facilitated by the CELT team members. These multi-week online courses will provide you with basic pedagogical, research-based practices specific to the online space and will assist you in planning instructional activities for your course. We will not focus on how to use Blackboard or Brightspace, but rather how to best use technology to meet your pedagogical goals. These courses will be delivered asynchronously online with one optional synchronous session.
OTC: This is a 5-week asynchronous course. Plan on spending 3-4 hours per week with assignments due weekly. We suggest logging on 4 times/week during this course.
OTC Accelerated: This is a condensed, 2 1/2-week version of the OTC. Plan on spending 6-7 hours weekly with assignments due every 2-3 days. We suggest logging in daily during the course.
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
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
Image by U.S. Copyright Office: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/
The pandemic forced many, if not all instructors, to move their courses online or to a hybrid format. In that shift, questions of copyright have come up. In order to help instructors navigate through these questions, the SBU Librarians have created a newly updated Copyright Guide, a comprehensive resource that includes information specific to online teaching and learning.
Start with the copyright basics page to get a foundational understanding of U.S. copyright law, what is protected, and how. Copyright is a form of intellectual property law that protects original works of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.). Copyright protects both published and unpublished works. One or more authors or creators of the work hold the copyright except in cases where there is a “work-for-hire” agreement or a “collective work” where the authorship is transferred.
Instructors may want to know more about how and when they may legally and ethically use copyrighted works as part of their course materials without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. There are circumstances when this can be done under Fair Use. These include teaching, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. However, it is important to do a self-check to assess whether your intended use of the material falls under Fair Use. Consider these four factors:
What is the purpose and character of the use?
What is the nature of the original work?
What is the amount of the work you plan to use as compared to the work as a whole?
What is the effect of using the work or part of the work when on the protected work’s market or value?
What if you must ask for permission to use a copyrighted work? This guide walks you through the process. Keep in mind that you might not need to ask for permission if:
The specific use is covered by the fair use doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Law.
If you are teaching online, you may want to become familiar with the “Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act” (the TEACH Act) of 2002. TEACH is significant because it explicitly addresses the terms and conditions by which accredited, nonprofit educational institutions in the United States are able to use copyright protected materials for distance education, which includes websites and digital forms, without needing permission from the copyright owner or the payment of royalties.
What if you are already following copyright laws for your in-person course? Do you need to do something different for your online course? Fortunately, there is not too much difference in the way that copyright guidelines are applied. So as long as an instructor was following copyright laws for their face-to-face course materials, they will likely be in good shape for online course materials as well.
What is not covered by copyright law that I may be using online? Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, logos, ideas, concepts, systems or methods of doing something. For those items, you may want to look at trademark law, which is also a form of intellectual property law (Prakash, 2020).
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.
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:
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Despite the challenges involved in moving to a remote teaching environment, Dr. Fouron displayed grace under pressure as he adapted to teaching over Zoom where he demonstrated compassion and empathy for his students while maintaining academic rigor and teaching effectiveness. In referring to the educator John Dewey, Dr. Fouron remarked that teachers “shouldn’t be strangers to the realities of students’ lives.” Teaching during the pandemic taught him that students are resilient in the face of difficulties, and often says that he is not interested in having students agree with his views, but rather he wants students to be able to articulate their own perspectives as both teachers and learners. His calm and determined demeanor throughout a difficult semester was inspiring not only to his students but to all of us here in CELT.
I had the opportunity to sit in on two of Dr. Fouron’s courses and was impressed by the way he facilitated his courses. Dr. Fouron consistently asked for student feedback and, most importantly, asked students to share their stories. Dr. Fouron also had many interesting and powerful stories, which addressed race, gender, and class, among other issues. Any questions that were asked were addressed positively and I felt like his class formed a strong community with each other, overcoming the challenges that COVID pressed upon them. Starting each class he also addressed the students saying that this class was for them, that every student had a voice, and that voice had the right to be heard.
What I think was the most powerful is that Dr. Fouron, after being a target of some horrible “Zoom-bombing” experiences, was able to accept me (and others) into his class for the semester and meet synchronously. He continued to teach Socratically and support his students during this difficult time (COVID) which provided them a sense of community.
In March 2020, the pandemic pushed all faculty and students to a remote teaching reality. CELT is hosting two online conversations where faculty members can get together to talk about what worked well, what they might want to incorporate into their teaching practice moving forward, and what they wish they had known back then.
When you register, you will have the option to respond to three reflective prompts. Using those responses, we will take a deeper dive into what actions faculty can take as they prepare to teach in the fall.
Your responses will remain confidential and will only be shared in aggregate as part of our study on the overall effectiveness of CELT. Your participation in this study is voluntary and you may continue to participate in CELT services even if you withdraw from the study of its effectiveness.
Register in advance to attend either of the CELT Reflections on Remote Teaching. Even if you cannot attend, register so that you can receive the recording and resources.
Jennifer Jaiswal, Instructional Designer & Sr Instructional Technologist
Congratulations to Dr. Virginia Coletti who received the Excellence in Teaching a Synchronous Online Course award at CELT’s Celebration of Teaching Awards on May 6, 2021, for development of HNI 373, online, Psychosocial Mental Health Nursing. This course, when taught face-to-face, enrolled about 80 students each term it was scheduled. When COVID-19 shut down the HSC last spring Dr. Virginia Coletti, Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, collaborated with CELT to develop a synchronous version of the course that would support active learning.
In changing a course with many practical and active learning components in it, she started with the learning outcomes. Working with Jennifer Jaiswal from CELT she created new learning objectives for each session of the course that would serve the students as a measure for what they would be learning and engaging with each week. Redesigning the learning outcomes allowed her to narrow down the topics to what was essential and ensure that all activities were aligned with the course level outcomes.
Once the course was redesigned and reorganized, a question arose: when should the content be delivered? Psychosocial Mental Health Nursing is a 6 credit course with 3 credit hours of in class lecture and work and 3 credit hours of clinical experience. Virginia worked closely with her clinical instructors to move content between the weekly class and the clinical experience to ensure the learning outcomes were met each week. Group texting with her 10 instructors ensured that they knew what was covered each week in lecture and what needed to be covered during the clinical sessions.
One of the major changes in the course was to take time to show processes, such as making nursing diagnosis, or hosting group therapy sessions, before requiring students to complete the task. Previously these would be completed in person with students asking questions as they worked through the process. In her Zoom sessions, Virginia scaffolded her lessons so that she could walk students through the project before allowing the students to complete the project on their own. This led to more insightful comments about the nursing process and patient care.
Virginia recommends:
6 seconds of silence to give students time to think, reflect and respond to questions,
Don’t forget to look at yourself in Zoom as you speak, ensure you are expressing yourself correctly and that students are able to see you,
Using breakout rooms for group activities, try to visit each group for a short period of time
Communicate well and often with your Clinical Instructor, TAs, and/or Co-Instructors,
Use written Announcements more frequently in Blackboard to address student questions,
Find out more about your student’s needs. Do they like recorded content, what types of notes and making your presentation files and lecture notes available. (Recordings, Notes, Presentations)
What students appreciated the most about the course was when Virginia would take time to listen to the students about their concerns. Using formative evaluations and communicating frequently with students through the semester allowed Virginia to assess when things may need to be changed, make adjustments to how and when content would be covered, and when to take a break in the course to give students time to prepare.
Congratulations to Virginia. CELT is delighted to have honored her work. If you missed it, you can watch the entire ceremony.
This semester, we are excited to begin a new initiative: 
On May 6th, 2021, Dr. George Fouron won the 2020-2021 COVID Teaching Hero Award at 
