Transgender Inclusion in the Classroom

The LGBT Center will be hosting a faculty and student panel titled:
Transgender Inclusion: Policies and Practice in the Classroom

The panel will include faculty, student, and staff perspectives on practices in the classroom that lead to transgender inclusion. The panel will discuss new guidelines on preferred name use.
See the event description provided by the LGBT Center below.


Transgender Inclusion: Policies and Practice in the Classroom
Faculty, staff and students are invited to a panel discussion about policies and practices that create an inclusive campus for transgender students. Topics will include best practices in the classroom, the experiences of current transgender students, and an introduction to the new UNF Preferred Name Policy. Panelists include Dr. Nick de Villiers (College of Arts & Sciences), Andrea Adams-Manning (Student Ombuds and Assistant Dean of Students), and student Bane Campos. Kaitlin Legg (LGBT Resource Center) will facilitate the discussion.
More information: see the event facebook page.

How Can Profs Keep Students' Attention? Put Them in Charge

It's important for faculty to work their hardest to ensure their courses, especially when they are long or comprised of tedious or difficult subject matter, hold their students' attention and keep them engaged. Because it can be so easy for students to drift mentally in class (research purports that college students retain only 10% of material covered in lecture-based courses), it is critical that faculty employ new and creative ways to hold engagement high and get students involved and thinking critically.

Raymond Benton, Jr., a professor at Loyola University Chicago, has managed to put a new spin on an active-learning classic. In what is known as a "jigsaw classroom", students are divided into subgroups within the class, with each subgroup learning a specific topic that they then teach to the rest of the class. Each subgroup member becomes an expert in their allotted area, and the subgroups must educate each other in order to complete an overarching assignment that all groups must complete as a class.

In Benton's version, the "jigsaw classroom" puts students in control of more than learning and communicating information in a given course topic. In an example he provides, a small class of students are given three assigned readings, all of which teach student must read before class, and are randomly assigned to a reading group and a discussion group. In each reading group, the students discuss one of the three articles thoroughly, comparing their own conclusions and understandings of the article. They become experts in that one article, knowing that the other group members will ask questions about that article they will be responsible for answering. Next, they discuss what they did not fully understand about the other two articles and form a list of questions for the other groups. The students then move to discussion groups, in which article "experts" are represented equally, and ask and answer questions and engage in conversations about the articles. Students then reconvene in their original reading groups to compare the answers they received from other groups and share how they answered questions about their group's article. Finally, the professor regroups the entire class to have a class discussion debriefing what they learned about all the articles.

This method is rich with opportunities for active critical thinking and deep levels of processing that will allow students not only to pay attention, but also to engage with the course material in ways they would not remotely approach in a traditional lecture.

Keep updated with OFE:

Alternatives To Traditional Final Exams Encourage Student Engagement, Learning

When students leave college classrooms at the end of the semester, what are they really taking away with them? Too often, courses culminate in a student turning in a traditional multiple-choice final exam, quietly muttering "Thank you" to the professor, and walking out of the lecture hall having learned little of substance that will stay with them for more than a couple months. The suggestion to exchange final exams for semester 'finales' may seem far-fetched, but the idea might have practical value.

The most common reason students walk out of a course without having learned meaningfully is that they never made course material relevant to themselves. Past research indicates that students experience greater levels of motivation to learn when their teachers make content personally relevant to the students. Personalizing knowledge by putting it into one's own context is all that it takes for students to understand more deeply, rather than just hearing information, memorizing it, and regurgitating it without having ever really thought about it.

There are plenty of examples as to what a semester "finale" might look like. In general, they all focus on giving students an ultimate experience they can use to make course material personal and practical for them- something they can take with them into their future. The idea is to get students thinking,especially on the last day, so they can leave the course still mulling over what they've learned and how it can continue to apply to their intellectual life. Presenting students with just one particularly novel, perplexing question, for example, and asking them to solve it within a confined time is one way to change the final assessment paradigm. Perhaps instead of a final exam, the last day of the course could be a rubric-outlined debate or a collaborative assignment.

The point is, there is a serious lack of genuineness and creativity in the way most professors assess their students at the end of their courses. Final exams as they stand now often make the end of the semester feel more like a chore than a crescendo of an academic experience. By adding a little novelty, a little intrigue, and a little excitement, professors can create an end of the semester assessment that students will be talking about, and thinking about, long after the course is finished.

How do you add creativity and engagement in your final exams?


Keep updated with OFE:

Use Technology To Help Curate Your Tenure Portfolio

Tenure-track faculty are asked to keep track of their most important contributions from the very moment they are hired. That body of work, sometime in the future, will be used to determine their worthiness for receiving tenure, and must be managed diligently in the meantime. Over what can be a very long period, one of the biggest challenges of creating an excellent portfolio to showcase one's entire career up to that point is simply keeping track of everything. That's where technology can be a game-changer.

Robert Talbert, a mathematics professor at Grand Valley State University and contributing writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education blog, says that technology can help faculty preparing for tenure selection work smarter, not harder. Instead of relying wholly on traditional storage and hoping that, on submission day, everything is in the binder that's been accumulating important files for years, he suggests using some technological assistance to keep disciplined and organized. At the core of his advice is that you can use technology to implement a system you trust that can easily be categorized and searched that you are able to easily organize and settle on a weekly basis. This allows you to make sure you are staying ahead of the constant influx of materials you must track, such that you can rest easy knowing each item that came across your desk or screen is safely vaulted where you can access it easily at a later time if necessary. Talbert recommends using converting all paper documents into electronic formats using a scanner, then keeping track of them using a free storage and organization service like Evernote, Dropbox, a combination of both, or some other means. Talbert goes into pretty specific detail about how he recommends using Evernote and Dropbox to prepare a portfolio. But the basic takeaway is this: if you're preparing for tenure selection, get organized with technology or be risk being overwhelmed when your time comes.

UNF will be hosting two two vendor demonstrations for electronic tenure and promotion portfolios on Friday, March 11th: Interfolio’s By Committee (12:00-1:30pm) and Data180’s Faculty180 (2:00-3:30pm). Both demonstrations will be held in Building 51, room 1205. Faculty are encouraged to come out, ask questions, and provide feedback on these digital systems for managing the promotion and tenure documents and process.

3 Strategies for Making The Most of the Few Minutes Before Class Starts

Most professors arrive to class early, perhaps around five minutes before they will need to begin teaching. Typically, professors will use this time to collect thoughts, prepare technology, or organize slides and notes. Faculty who are newest to teaching may especially use this time to prepare themselves for lecturing, which can initially be intimidating. But once the jitters have gone and the course material has become second-nature, how can professors use that few minutes before class begins to maximize student learning? In a recent article, James Lang provides some suggestions on how best to use that time.

Get to know your students. In the book, How College Works, sociology researchers conclude that relationships formed in college are the most important and influential part of the undergraduate experience. This includes relationships formed with professors, which are key to motivating students and increasing their learning and performance. Learning is easier when students can relate to their professors and know that professors care about their academic success. Using the first minutes of class to simply ask one or two students how they are, what their major is, or what they enjoy outside of class is an effective way to open the door to a mentoring relationship or at least increase their trust and participation.

Provide context. Use the extra pre-class minutes to help students understand the greater framework for the course or its attached field of study by writing an agenda or schedule for the day's material. This gives students an awareness of how course information fits in the day's lecture, the overall subject, and the course's sub-groupings and allows them to make connections between specific facts and ideas. This leads students to a more practical understanding of course knowledge rather than strings of facts to passively memorize and regurgitate.

Engage the class. Giving your students a reason to focus up and learn is a great way to use the minutes before class when students are still trickling in and getting settled. Displaying a picture, quote, or idea that relates to the course in an especially interesting way fosters interest and enthusiasm. Other engaging ways to warm up your students include sharing a funny image, story, or jokes. Personally, I ask students to request a song the class to be played in the following class, pick my favorite request, and play it in the 3-5 minutes as students are coming in. Such efforts not only help to enliven the class by bringing them some entertainment and break the ice, but also help to humanize their professor.

Keep updated with OFE:

Is Your Grading Biased? Beware the Halo Effect

Humans are prone to taking mental short cuts, it's part of the physiology of our brains. We are exposed to so much information throughout our lives and from day-to-day that it is necessary for our brain to utilize mental short-cuts (i.e., heuristics) to help sort information and to determine what should grab one's attention. Heuristics are mental guidelines you create from your experience to help you reach an answer more quickly than by algorithm searching through every possible answer. The only problem is that this quick thinking can also bias cognition and decision-making, and grading is no exception.

The Halo effect is one form of heuristic bias that impacts everyone's decision making. It happens when we find good qualities in an individual and, through experience, incorporate those good qualities as part of our perception of the person. This biases the way we perceive their actions, whether good or bad. For instance, attractive individuals are often perceived to be more intelligent, talented, and generally good more often than individuals of average attractiveness.

The Halo effect can produce biases in grading just like any other area of judgment. In a previous post we discussed briefly how faculty will frequently grade students based on their personal characteristics and past performance rather than solely on their performance on the work in question. Faculty may begin reading an assignment, stop and think, 'so-and-so usually does great work' and allow that judgment to alter the way they grade the assignment.

This bias in judgment and decision-making process is exactly what researchers found at work in a study examining the Halo effect in subjective student assessments. The researchers randomly assigned faculty to observe a student perform either very poorly or very well on an oral presentation, and then graded the student on a written assignment. When grading the exact same student on the exact same writing assignment, faculty members gave substantially higher grades when the students had done well in a presentation before being graded and lower grades when the students had done poorly before being graded. Other than giving either a poor or good oral performance, the student was the same and the quality of the written assignment was the same. And yet the grades were different. Prior experience with students will bias the way faculty members grade students on future assessments, but by being aware of this "Halo effect", faculty can more effectively protect against bias. Making student assessments anonymous is another effective was to reduce biased grading.

For Ph.D.s Working Outside Academia, Incorporation Holds Benefits

Occupational prospects for Ph.D. holding scientists and researchers have become increasingly sparse in recent years. In 2012 around 10% of scientists with a Ph.D. were unemployed. For many highly-educated individuals who have been unable to find careers as a university faculty, working as a freelance researcher, consultant, grant writer, or scientific worker outside of academia has been the best available option. Regardless of employment status, Ph.D.s may stand to benefit by incorporating themselves into a limited liability company.

According to Andrew Thaler, Ph.D., incorporation provides a more efficient way to manage finances and make services more appealing to outside sources of work/funding. As a "single-owner S Corp limited liability company (LLC)", for instance, personal wealth is better protected from lawsuits. In addition, there are a number of tax benefits afforded to a LLC that are not available to an individual person. Perhaps more importantly, forming a corporate organization allows a given Ph.D. to be more competitive for research grants and other opportunities for which they may otherwise be overlooked. Funding organizations are less hesitant to pay large amounts in the form of a grant or other vector to a professional consulting organization than they are to an individual. Organizations or corporations appear to be more accountable and therefore less risky in terms of investment. Additionally, the perception of being the leader of an organization, rather than a lone, semi-unemployed freelancer, is more appealing to those who can offer opportunities to further your career.

Incorporating can serve to legitimize the functions and services that are likely to produce greater opportunity for career growth and success. Futures look positive for more Ph.D.s to seek incorporation regardless of their current employment status.

Study Suggests Student Self-Assessment Is an Untapped Resource

RM Tamrakar; https://flic.kr/p/eiUxP1

Students are constantly being academically assessed,usually by professors, in the form of exams and quizzes. Students are rarely given the opportunity, however, to assess their own work. Researchers found that students who voluntarily self-assess become better able to make accurate judgement about their own work. A recent study showed that, as students continued to voluntarily self-assess their work, the judgments they made about their work became more closely aligned with those of tutors who were experts in assessment for the particular subject.

What does this imply for higher education faculty? It looks like it is a good idea to allow your students to self-assess more often. Although this study evaluated voluntary (self-selected) student self-assessment and not the effects of student self-assessment overall, it is theoretically likely that self-assessment would improve students' academic judgments of their own work regardless of whether they have chosen to self-assess on their own. Asking students to assess their own work in class or on assignments gives them a chance to develop assessment skills that they would otherwise have no opportunity to practice.

Self-assessment practice pays dividends post-graduation, when evaluation of one's own task performance does not come until after the performance is completed and cannot be taken back. Being able to accurately assess the quality of one's own work before putting it into action is critical in the real-world, where there are few second chances. Better self-assessment in college work could save professors more time, as students are better able to determine what areas need improvement before turning in completed work. 

When Assessing and Correcting Personal Bias, Slow and Steady Wins

The first step in eliminating bias is acknowledging that a bias exist. However, few faculty members, or any other profession, are willing to acknowledge their own biases in the classroom. Although progress can come from large-scale change that trickles down into individual lives and everyday interaction, equally beneficial change can work from the bottom-up. Taking small steps on a manageable time scale to reduce our own biases can make all the difference.

Here are a few tips to becoming a little more equitable everyday.
1) Faculty are often tempted to grade students based on personal characteristics and their work, rather than solely on the quality of the work. Like many other mental shortcuts used for judgement and decision-making, making assumptions about another person saves massive amounts of time and are often accurate enough. Faculty may begin reading an assignment, stop and think, "So-and-so usually does great work," and, thus, skim the rest of the assignment with their mind already made up on what type of grade to give. However, when it comes to grading, using our first impression of a person is genuinely unfair. Students benefit when faculty take the time to thoroughly assess work for the work itself.

2) Whereas a faculty member may not be consciously biased, every human is biased on an unconscious level. If you don't believe that, follow this link and take the Race Implicit Attitude Test (IAT), Age IAT, or other available IAT. It's likely that you have no desire to act on your biases, whether unconscious or conscious, and simply becoming aware that you may be accidentally adjusting student performance evaluations or classroom experiences allows you to correct for biases.

3) Follow-up with yourself to continually evaluate how you are working to reduce your own bias.

4) Listen actively and empathetically to each individual with whom you speak. This allows you to look past surface-level characteristics and focus on content, substance, and quality.

5) Seek progress, not perfection. In other words, don't expect to ever fully eliminate bias, whether that's based on gender, race, age, or education level, because it is impossible to do so. But it's worth attempting to reduce as much as possible. By doing so, you are making a more fair and inclusive environment for your students.

Noodles & Networking Event on Being a Proactive Mentee

Being a Proactive Mentee
Presenter: Radha Pyati, Chair/Professor, Chemistry
Monday, October 26, 2015, 3:00-4:15 p.m.,
President's Conference Room, JJ Daniel Hall, Building 1, Room 2800
RSVP to codi@unf.edu

Noodles and Networking: A Minority Faculty Learning Community is a pilot faculty community building initiative for tenure-earning underrepresented and ethnic minority faculty led by tenured minority faculty. The goal of this initiative is to create a network that supports the smooth transition of minority faculty at UNF and serve as an outlet for social, professional and community interactions. The President’s Office and Academic Affairs’ Office of Faculty Enhancement are sponsoring this initiative.

At this Noodles and Networking event, Radha Pyati, Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry will address how being a proactive mentee helps faculty get the most out of  mentoring relationships. Come and join the conversation.

Being a Proactive Mentee
Monday, October 26, 2015, 3:00-4:15 p.m.,
President's Conference Room, JJ Daniel Hall, Building 1, Room 2800
Please RSVP to codi@unf.edu, or contact Dedra Harris in the President’s Office at 620-2500

For STEM Instructors, Impartial Observation May Bring Needed Perspective

In any professional pursuit, it is often very difficult to improve performance without some form of assessment from an impartial observer. Receiving feedback from a colleague who is knowledgeable, yet not so deeply entrenched in the everyday context or style of a practice is essential to genuinely assessing strengths and weaknesses.

Instructors of STEM courses can benefit from this practice as well. In fact, third party observation may be especially important for STEM professors. STEM material is notoriously difficult to learn, and because of the difficulty of the material, the difference between effective and ineffective teaching may be more noticeable and result in greater changes in performance compared to other fields. Asking a colleague to provide perspective by sitting in on a class and observing your teaching methods, without necessarily even providing evaluation, may be eye-opening for some instructors. Using a set of classroom observation protocols for undergraduate STEM courses is a step that can help instructors breathe fresh life into their communication of STEM material and provide students with a better learning experience. When instructors discover what beneficial or detrimental habits that they were previously unaware of, they can begin to take action and adjust their teaching style for the better.

Exam Cramming Common, But Ineffective

Photo: D. Sharon Pruitt 

When it comes to undergraduates' plans for preparing for exams,
the strategy is often to ignore the "problem" of studying until the test is imminent. Students then study as much as possible in the span of one or two days to "learn" the material in time for the exam. The problem with this practice, called cramming, is that it does not work very well. This is especially true for students who are inconsistent with class attendance, as they really are left to learn all the covered material in the day or two prior to assessment.

Compared to the strategy of incremental learning, where students study recently covered material in a smaller amount every night or several times a week, cramming simply does not produce preferable short-term nor long-term results. The larger differences between incremental learning and cramming are found in performance is in long-term retention. When students cram, they are not adequately elaborating on the material they want to learn. Rather, they are only doing what is necessary to keep the material fresh in their minds for a short time. Once they have finished their exam, that information is no longer elaborated on with any additional repetition and, thus, disappears from memory fairly quickly. Incremental learning is done with more manageable amounts of information  across many repetitions, and on a much larger time scale, allowing for elaboration and consolidation that makes information much more likely to be assimilated into long-term memory.

Students will always be drawn to cramming, as it often get results that are "good enough." Students may benefit from instructors encouraging students to abandon cramming so that the students remember material from their course after final exams are turned in.

Well-designed Online Courseware Facilitates Attention, Learning

When faculty take the time to put in extra effort to the online components of their courses, it pays dividends in the engagement of their students. Although details of the layout of an online course, such as its level of visual appeal and amount of stimulating or relatable images, may seem purely cosmetic, they offer real value to the student experience in the course by making the course material more compelling.

Other qualities of online courses that recent research has has identified as positive are simple and user-friendly navigation formats and depth in terms of having a variety of features (i.e. discussion forums, content links, files, and assignments) that are used with consistency throughout the course.

Quick Tips to Help Learn Students' Names

At the beginning of the semester, teachers in higher education often are faced with a large room of new faces. Past research suggests that teacher verbal and nonverbal behaviors, including calling students by name, were associated with student motivation and student learning.

Below are a few useful links containing some practical tips to help learn students' names at the beginning of the semester and remember them throughout!

Not Quite 101 Ways to Learn Students' Names

Tomorrow's Professor: Learning Student Names

Protecting teacher immediacy and social presence can be especially difficult in online classes.
Past research links social presence in online classes with learning.

New Research on Student Motivation, Success

Researchers have found new evidence that the motivation and success of students impacted by teaching and learning environments. In a series of studies, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has found that two factors can alter student performance and success, in particular for minority students. The perception that their teacher cares about their improvement and overall well-being and performance, as well as the perception that they belong in their learning environment have significant effects on student motivation and subsequent performance.

Additional research by Stanford researcher David Paunesku demonstrates the importance of a "growth-mindset" to a students' motivation to succeed, which of course strongly impacts actual success. When students believe that success is based more on one's level of effort and dedication rather than unearned talent or raw intelligence, students were able to perform above their expectations and succeed in academic challenges.

The conclusions center around the following: 1) students who feel they belong and are supported in their efforts for success are more likely to succeed, especially if they are part of a group that historically has not been supported; 2) students who believe the key to success is being hard-working will perform more successfully than students who believe the key to success is being intelligent.

Click To Read The Article Here

New OFE Social Media Experience

The Office of Faculty Enhancement (OFE) has created a new facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/OFEFaculty) and a new approach to connecting with faculty at UNF. Follow the discussion by Liking the page, finding a post that connects with you, and comment. Feel free to share the posts with your friends as well.

The old OFE account will be discontinued, so you will need to connect with the new page to continue to receive notices through facebook.

We will still keep up with our OFE Newsletter blog, thecurrent, for news, announcements, and interesting teaching and learning ideas. We also maintain a twitter page (@OFEUNF) that posts tips and ideas for teaching and learning you might find interesting, mostly from conferences, symposia, and the like.

So what are you waiting for? Join the conversation online.

Regards,
OFE Staff

Adjunct Professors Unite!

A new resource by the Chronicle provides adjunct professors not only resources for their thankless jobs but a community of fellow adjuncts who are working together to help each other. The website uses crowd-sourcing to provide information about salary ranges in the area as well advice from fellow adjunct professors. Faculty can submit their own salary information, blog, or simply connect with other adjunct faculty in their region.

To access the resource website, visit the following address:
http://adjunct.chronicle.com/

Upcoming FLOWHE Events

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming Florida Office of Women in Higher Education (FLOWHE) events:

AUGUST 30^th

Conflict Resolution in Higher Education

with Dr. Candice Carter, Associate Professor, College of Education & Human Services, UNF

SEPTEMBER 28^th 

 Beyond Bone—Health Issues & Vitamin D

with Dr. Delores Truesdell, Assistant Professor, Brooks College of Health, UNF

 (NOTE:  UNF Convocation ends approximately 11:30, so late arrivals are anticipated)

OCTOBER 12^th

Fourth Annual State Conference in Deland, FL
Click for Online Registration

FLOWHE Brown Bag for Sharing and Networking

The Florida Office of Women in Higher Education (FLOWHE) at UNF will be hosting a Brown Bag Lunch for Sharing and Networking Event.


Conflict Resolution in Higher Education
with Dr. Candice Carter, Associate Professor, College of Education & Human Services, UNF

Thursday, August 30, 2012
11:45 AM – 1:00 PM
University of North Florida; Student Union West – Building 58W, Room 3804
Bring your Lunch!


Interactions in higher education constitute informal instruction as well as formal lessons in courses. Administrators and other leaders across the campus community provide models for conflict management that has two goals: resolution and transformation.  This session will clarify the two goals and present some methods that have been useful for accomplishing them. Participants will share their knowledge of pro-social methods that have been useful for conflict resolution and transformation. Pro-social approaches to conflict are attentive to the needs of everyone in a conflict.

About the Presenter:
Candice C. Carter Ph.D. is an associate professor at the University of North Florida, USA. Her research and scholarship topics include: conflict transformation, peace education, history/social studies instruction, citizenship education, and peace through arts. She serves in many international and national peace, education and policy organizations. Professor Carter designs and facilitates peace education programs in all levels of education, including the interdisciplinary Conflict Transformation Program at the University of North Florida.

For more information on FLOWHE, please contact our FLOWHE Institutional representatives:
Florida State College at Jacksonville:   Karen Arlington, karen.arlington@fscj.edu or 633-8317 or
University of North Florida:   Dr. Lynn Jones, lcjones@unf.edu or 620-1394

Returning to the Classroom: Teaching Students with Military Experience

UNF and the Jacksonville Community have welcomed those with military experience. More and more, instructors are noticing differences in the responses and perspectives of students in their classrooms who are military veterans. 

Upcoming OFE Event

Returning to the Classroom:  Teaching Students with Military Experience

September 6, 2012, 3:30-5:00 p.m.

Student Union Ballroom C/D,  Building 58(W), Room 3703
Register Now

In this session, Dr. Tracy Hejmanowski, Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Deployment Health Center at the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, will discuss how the experiences and resulting perspectives of student veterans impact their psychological and ideological viewpoints, as well as their capabilities and motivation in the college classroom.  The cognitive and emotional challenges of student veterans struggling with PTSD and persistent post-concussive syndrome will also be discussed, as it may impact classroom and instructional dynamics. An awareness of the scenarios that require sensitivity to student veterans' needs will help faculty minimize class disruption and maximize educational gains.

This event is sponsored by the Office of Faculty Enhancement and the Military and Veterans Resource Center and is supported by a grant from the Prudential Foundation.