- Faculty Inquiry Group (FIG): FIGs are small groups of faculty members who read a common text that is applicable to teaching best practices. Past topics include equity issues in teaching, engaging students in online courses, syllabi best practices, etc.
- Mindset Meetup: The Mindset Meetup includes faculty and staff reading a common text and meeting to have discussions around concepts covered in those texts. Past topics include equitable practices and wellness and work.
- Full-day workshops
- Coordination of faculty-assigned duty days
- Consultation and planning portions of the administratively assigned professional development days
- Asynchronous Online Training Courses: Library and Information Literacy Tutorials, Accessibility, POET
The CFI staff also act as resources for individual assistance to our faculty and staff members in one-on-one meetings.
Reading Across the Curriculum
Because critical reading is a key skill in all courses, instructors should teach reading skills needed for their disciplines. This requires an understanding of why there may be a reading skills gap along with how to support all students, but especially those who struggle, to gain those necessary skills. Instructors have the opportunity to participate in a learning community to earn this badge, showing that they have acquired the knowledge to implement specific reading strategies in their courses.
Regular and Substantive Interactions
Because most students will take online asynchronous courses in their time as a student at Lake Superior College, faculty members must offer courses that are not only robust in content, but also in teacher-to-student interaction. Faculty should design their courses so that students are interacting and receiving regular feedback, increasing their connection to the course and their learning. Instructors who have earned this badge have reviewed their courses to inventory their current interaction practices and created actionable plans to further enhance regular and substantive interaction with their students.
Skills Gained from Training
- Articulate the learning benefits of instructor/teacher presence through regular and substantive interaction.
- Apply equitable teaching practices to courses through regular and substantive interaction best practices.
- Use technology tools to support and document regular and substantive interaction.
Criteria to Earn the Badge
- Read materials supporting Regular and Substantive Interaction.
- Participate in three module discussions in an online asynchronous course.
- Create a Regular and Substantive Interaction Action Plan outlining current practices, enhanced/new practices, and measurable milestones.
- Share the Regular and Substantive Interaction Action Plan for feedback.
Podcasts
Because critical reading is a key skill in all courses, instructors should teach reading skills needed for their disciplines. This requires an understanding of why there may be a reading skills gap along with how to support all students, but especially those who struggle, to gain those necessary skills. Instructors have the opportunity to participate in a learning community to earn this badge, showing that they have acquired the knowledge to implement specific reading strategies in their courses.
Video Podcast: No Dumb Questions
No Dumb Questions Season One (2020-2021)
- Episode One, “Out loud and confused!” (on how to appropriately respond to a student who has come out in class)
- Episode Two, “Stuck with a silent student” (on how to encourage student participation):
- Episode Three, “All the same” (on why treating students equally isn’t always the best course of action)
- Episode Four, “Could I be clearer?” (on what to do if students are confused by your course setup)
- Episode Five, “Sick of teaching online” (on how to spice up your online teaching when it’s starting to feel like a drag)
- Episode Six, “Can you see me now?” (on how to react when more and more students stop using their cameras in Zoom)
- Episode Seven, “Stuck in limbo” (on being sick and tired of the daily grind of the pandemic)
- Episode Eight, “Plagued by plagiarism” (on how to work with a student who has plagiarized)
- Episode Nine, “Sticking with science” (on how to redirect students when they are getting too opinionated in online discussion boards)
- Episode Ten, “Not so sorry about chatting” (on why it’s good to take class time to chat about random things with your students)
- Episode Eleven, “Due dates overview” (on what we mean when we’d like to see everyone have a “Due Dates Overview” in their online courses for spring)
- Episode Twelve, “Grading Grinch?” (on how to avoid the stress and guilt of finals grading)
- Episode Thirteen, The Ghosted Instructor (on what do when your students stop showing up)
- Episode Fourteen, Head Scratching Online Teacher (on how to help students learn independently online)
- Episode Fifteen, The Acronym-Confused Faculty (on how to navigate the college and system abbreviations and codes)
No Dumb Questions Season Two (2021-2022)
- Episode One, “Pronouns in Intro Discussions” (on how on and why to ask for pronouns in classes)
- Episode Two, “Already Making Contingency Plans” (on being able to shift modalities during Covid illnesses)
- Episode Three, “Wanting to Help but Unsure How” (on what to do about students who don’t show up at the start of the semester because of Covid)
- Episode Four, “Flummoxed by Faulty Files” (on how to help students submit readable files in D2L)
- Episode Five, “Forced to Police the Mask Police” (on helping faculty with class management regarding masking”
- Episode Six, “Stuck with Silent Students” (on how to get quiet students talking)
- Episode Seven, “Written Communication Failure” (on how to help students write clearly and professionally)
- Episode Eight, “Apparently Assigns Confusing Work” (on helping faculty respond to students who don’t understand assignments)
- Episode Nine, “Ready for Lasting Change” (on preparing for and going through a POET online peer review)
- Episode Ten, “The Crack that Broke the (Grand)mother’s Back” (on how to respond to students’ excuses for missing class and classwork)
- Episode Eleven, “Not Feeling the Like” (on managing student and classroom behavior and whether faculty need to like all their students)
- Episode Twelve, “Sick of Running On” (on helping students with common writing errors in non-writing classes)
Student and Instructor Podcast: Going There
