These CTL programs have either concluded or are on hiatus:
Almost 50 faculty at UMSL were selected to participate in ACUE's "Effective Online Teaching Practices" year-long program that wrapped up in April 2021. Faculty participants from last year's program will host monthly Lunch and Learn meetings in 2021-2022 to share what they found to be successful in their courses. These monthly meetings are open to all UMSL faculty, staff, and graduate students to learn more about the innovative work of our colleagues.
The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) "Effective Online Teaching Practices" program provided faculty with an opportunity to learn evidenced-based teaching strategies, apply, and reflect on what they have learned. We have been featuring faculty from the program who employ practices from the program in our CTL newsletters over this past year. Please check out past issues to learn from the creativity of your colleagues.
You will have the opportunity to continue to learn from and with your colleagues through a virtual Lunch and Learn Series where ACUE credentialed faculty will share strategies that have been successful in their courses and then host discussions about how you can employ those strategies in your own context. All members of the UMSL community (faculty, staff, graduate students) are welcome to attend.
Event Details:
Through “Scaling Instructional Excellence for Student Success,” a National Association of System Heads (NASH) initiative, and in partnership with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE), the University of Missouri System was able to offer 60 faculty members at UMSL with 3 or more years teaching experience the opportunity to enroll in ACUE’s program in Effective Online Teaching Practices.
This grant-funded program was delivered fully online with a cohort of faculty colleagues, and professionally facilitated by two CTL Assistant Directors Dr. Jennifer McKanry and Dr. Erin Whitteck with co-facilitation by Dr. Alina Slapac from UMSL’s College of Education. Faculty completing the program earned a nationally recognized Certificate in Effective College Instruction, which is the only college teaching credential that is endorsed by the American Council on Education (ACE). The program addresses all of the core competencies defined in ACUE’s Effective Practice Framework© and is organized into five major areas of practice:
- Designing an Effective Course
- Establishing a Productive Learning Environment
- Using Active Learning Strategies
- Promoting Higher Order Thinking
- Assessing to Inform Instruction and Promote Learning
This 25-week course prepares faculty in evidence-based teaching practices that have been proven successful and studied through independently-validated research to improve student achievement and close equity gaps.
Completion of this program also fulfills the Online Teaching Certification requirement.
Blended learning is the "thoughtful fusion of face-to-face and online learning experiences…such that the strengths of each are blended into a unique experience…Blended learning is a fundamental redesign that transforms the structure of, and approach to, teaching and learning" (Garrison and Vaughan, 2008). In this nine-week course development series faculty produce a high-quality, high-impact course. Throughout the series, faculty design an organized course structure, meaningful learning experiences, and high-quality assessments for both in-class and online learning environments. By the end of the nine weeks, a peer-reviewed course design is ready to go. The group met face-to-face every other week with online activities on the non-meeting weeks.
- Week 1 – Defining Blended Learning
- Week 2 – Course Structure, Dividing up the components by Modality
- Week 3 – Optimizing your Face-to-Face Time
- Week 4 – Designing the Online Component, OER, Copyright, and Accessibility
- Week 5 – Discussions
- Week 6 – Assessment and Rubrics
- Week 7 – Group and Collaboration
- Week 8 – Case Studies and Peer Review
- Week 9 – Feedback and Grading
This was the most advanced offering of the online course development program series, allowing faculty to design a course in collaboration with an instructional designer in the CTL. DIY offered the flexibility to build a course at your own pace. Workshops, webinars, and consultations were available to support faculty throughout their time developing.
With the development of UM-System’s Missouri Online, current offerings for online program design and the Online Teaching Certificate Seminar can now be found on their program.
A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is a year-long, peer-led endeavor that establishes an interdisciplinary community of reflective and supportive faculty (typically 6-12) who are committed to developing and implementing innovations in their classroom and disseminating their results to the larger UMSL community. This typically involves active, collaborative, encouragement, support, and reflection.
Each FLC focuses on a question, a set of problems, or a passion for a topic. Members deepen their knowledge and expertise in the chosen area by interacting on an ongoing basis. In addition to the shared learning about the topic, all FLC members will work on a personal project that uses what they have learned to improve a specific course or program, and the group members collectively share their knowledge and accomplishments with the wider UMSL community.
Each year, the Center for Teaching and Learning facilitates FLCs on an as-needed basis. The list below represents recent FLCs.
- Alternative Assessments in STEM: Funded by a mini-grant from an organization called Factors in Learning, Attitudes, and Mindsets in Education Network. This group consisted of members from institutions across the nation and Canada and worked asynchronously, reading and commenting on articles of interest and meeting monthly for rich discussion about the articles and potential classroom implementations. The group worked to create a repository of one-page documents to be shared with the broader community about alternative assessments in STEM.
- Introductory Statistics Courses: Faculty worked together in Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 culminating in faculty presentations of their work at the Spring 2021 Spring Forum on Teaching.
- Foundational STEM Courses: Faculty worked together in Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 culminating in faculty presentations of their work at the Spring 2021 Spring Forum on Teaching.
- Transparency in Learning and Teaching Faculty Advocate Program: Launched in February 2022, facilitated by Suellynn Duffey, Lauren Obermark, and Chris Schott from the English Department. The group was supported by students as partners; students are embedded in the program to give feedback to faculty throughout the experience. The group members consisted of faculty across disciplines in the College of Arts and Sciences looking to improve college writing in their courses. The group used the transparency in learning and teaching framework to redesign two assignments to be more transparent for their students and took what they learned from the community back to their departments to broaden the reach of their efforts.
The Online in 9 program was offered by the CTL until 2019. This introductory series efficiently developed or redesigned a course for online offerings. By the end of the series, the faculty had a completely finished course site, confidence with new technologies, and strategies for managing time and students. Offered in fall, spring, and summer semesters, this interdisciplinary small group promoted faculty to share ideas and learn new tools and strategies guided by research-based, national standards. The program was offered with both in-person and online cohorts.
With the development of UM-System’s Missouri Online, current offerings for online program design and the Online Teaching Certificate Seminar can now be found on their website.
The Online in 9-Advanced program was offered by the CTL until 2019. This nine-week series was for faculty who had already successfully completed Online in 9. It built on what was already learned, introducing advanced-level online design strategies to build a next-level, quality-assured online course with carefully integrated technologies and instructional strategies to achieve course goals. The central components of the program were built around Chickering and Ehrmann's framework, Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. At the end of the semester, faculty participants would have a completely designed, quality-assured course ready to offer students.
Offered in the fall and spring semesters, this interdisciplinary small group encouraged faculty to share ideas and learn new tools and strategies guided by research-based, national standards. The program met every other week (even weeks of the nine-week program).
With the development of UM-System’s Missouri Online, current offerings for online program design and the Online Teaching Certificate Seminar can now be found on their website.
Offered during early summers, Summer CAMP (Collaborating to Advance Meaningful Partnerships) is an opportunity for you to refine and hone skills in a selected area to support your teaching goals for the upcoming Fall and beyond. Faculty participants agree to provide peer feedback to fellow participants and to share what they learn within their departments/colleges.
This program engages faculty and students in drawing on each other's expertise in teaching and learning. A multidisciplinary community affords members a rich set of opportunities for exploration and growth. The examination of things we have in common as teachers and learners allows us to share ideas and strategies. Reflection on our individual and disciplinary differences helps us learn more about ourselves and reveal best practices for our disciplines.
There is no specific curriculum followed. Rather, this is a supportive community in which we help each other meet our goals for the summer. In this program, you will work with faculty colleagues, student partners, and CTL camp leaders to collaborate in a faculty cohort. You’ll receive student and peer feedback as you focus on specific aspects of your course. The cohort meets weekly as a large group, and also in smaller accountability groups as needed with those with similar goals and more individualized feedback from your student partners.
NOTE: TAA historically referred to the CTL’s one-day kickoff event for graduate students in the fall; that event is now called the Graduate Student Professional Development Summit. The Teaching Assistant Academy is a program for graduate teaching assistants and graduate instructors with a current GTA or GI appointment who are interested in learning more about teaching strategies with peers. These meetings include both structured workshops on teaching techniques as well as informal activities designed to build relationships between students across the university.
Pat Hutchings, in her book Making Teaching Community Property, defines a teaching circle as “a small group of faculty who make a commitment to work together over a period of at least a semester to address questions and concerns about the particulars of their teaching and their students' learning.”
Each year, the Center for Teaching and Learning facilitates Teaching Circles on an as-needed basis. The list below represents recent groups.
- Anti-Racist Educator's Group: Through bi-weekly synchronous discussions, this group provided a space for faculty across disciplines to share experiences, find common ground, pursue lifelong learning opportunities, and view race and racism from multiple perspectives. We shared events, resources, and other work being done on campus with one another. The goal was to brainstorm anti-racist pedagogical strategies and think about how to apply this knowledge to our courses.
- Statistics Teaching Circle: This group started from a faculty learning community that launched in January 2020. When the FLC completed their work they decided to continue meeting three times per semester and expand the teaching circle beyond the College of Arts and Sciences. This was an interdisciplinary group of faculty members that rotated facilitating a conversation about teaching graduate and undergraduate statistics courses.