Workshops 2006

Adjuncts don't always know where to find the help they need, from nuts & bolts like rosters and gradebooks, to theoretical pedagogical issues like course design and classroom management. We can help!

One of the hardest things to do is to document teaching proficiency. This portfolio workshop will help faculty develop an outline for their portfolio and define the content and layout.

How to Develop, Strengthen and Maintain a Healthy Voice

This workshop will cover exercises from the Linklater Technique. Kristin Linklater is one of the leading Vocal Experts in the world. Tips from her technique will help you develop volume and endurance, without damaging your voice. Please come dressed in warm-up clothes and have something committed to memory ready to speak.

In this session we will discuss the ways in which faculty and administration can mentor each other and how best to find effective mentors in and outside of your department.

New Adjunct and Full-Time Faculty Workshop: Tools You Need to Start the Semester

Find out about rosters, grade books, syllabi, course websites, and using any software or campus resources that make your life easier as a UCF instructor.

An overview of how to plan and implement useful strategies that assess student learning for multiple purposes: evaluating student progress in your class, part of course and program evaluation (for QEP and ALC objectives and accreditation needs) and for your SoTL projects.

Implementing Design-Based Research in a University Setting

The focus of this session is design-based research conducted with a college class. Lessons learned through the course of the project will be highlighted and the potential impact on practice will be shared. Participants will engage in discussion related to reducing barriers in conducting university-specific design-based research.

Assessment of Student Learning: Formative to Summative Methods

Discuss options for assessing student performance throughout the learning process. Bring your syllabus and examples of assessment instruments you currently use.

What should we be asking "them" and "when" should it be asked? Discuss what you would like to see on future versions of UCF's Student Perception of Instruction form. What can you do now to collect feedback from your students when it would be most useful?

We will walk through a grade book template and customize it to your syllabus. Please bring your syllabus with a breakdown of your scoring policy.

How do you know your students are learning? What can you do to provide remediation when needed and not hold up the rest of the class? How can you use classroom assessments for program assessments?

Before the Final Exam – Assess Student Learning Throughout the Course

Helpful classroom assessment strategies that can even be used for program evaluation and classroom management. Oral and written questioning strategies and classroom exercises that encourage active learning.

Review your program's Institutional Effectiveness Plan and discuss ways to make it more useful. The entire assessment process from developing Student Learning Outcomes, matching outcomes with measures, collecting and analyzing results to using the results to make program improvements will be the focus. Teams of program faculty are encouraged to participate.

Collecting and Analyzing the Results and Determining the Next Steps

Discussion of the most efficient means to collect and analyze results of program measures and how to implement changes for effective improvements.

Intro to myUCF Grades: An Online Grade Reporting Tool

This pagelet in myUCF will automatically synchronize with your official class rosters and allow you to manually input grades, import from Microsoft Excel, or report grades uploaded directly from Test Scoring Services (without the intermediate step of burning results to a disc). Learn how to use this electronic grade posting tool and do away with posting grades outside classrooms and offices!

Create a rubric to set expectations for and to gauge your students' performance. Bring the description of an assignment and we will assist you through the process.

Discussion of practices that have been found to promote positive responses with the current instrument and what you would like to see on future versions of the University's Student Perception of Instruction form.

This joint session will introduce learning theories and how they might be employed in the classroom, and the large subject of student assessment, in its many forms.

Efficient and Effective Student Evaluation and Grading Practices

Does it seem like all your time is taken up creating and grading tests? Is your corrective feedback unheeded? Join us to discuss how you deal with grading, how to provide continuous feedback that makes a difference, how to write focused test questions, how to create and use rubrics, and more.

Writing Student Learning Outcomes and Selecting Direct Measures

Discussion of the most effective ways to state Student Learning Outcomes and Measures. We will provide suggestions for improving your individual program plans to provide the most informative results.

This workshop will discuss benefits of using mid-term evaluations and how to collect feedback from students.

How do we maintain our standards for excellent teaching and effective learning when teaching large or even very large classes? Come to this workshop to share your ideas and learn new perspectives.

Looking for ways to engage your students? Increase student accountability in large classes? Innovate your delivery methods? This session will offer you an overview of various student response systems and a demonstration.

This workshop will illustrate how collaborative learning can be enhanced in a classroom environment. The workshop will use social network analysis to assess the students' performance in collaboration during the term using the class as an organizational setting. The instructor collects course related and friendship network data at the beginning of the each term and toward the end of the term. Then, these two sets of network data compared to see the change in collaboration and networking among students over the term. We will discover implications and suggestions for implementing these activities in other courses and settings.

Presenting to students or colleagues is a tough task that requires not only a calming of the nerves, but an audience-centric approach. This session will help you identify the stages of anxiety as well as how to use technologies, such as PowerPoint, more effectively.

This session will examine the advances of neuro-science and cognitive science and the implications for instructional delivery given what we know about brain based research. Concrete practical applications will be provided.

In this presentation you will be given a syllabus template with everything that is recommended by the university. We will examine several UCF syllabi according to the rhetorical choices made by their creators toward developing a syllabus that accurately reflects your teaching philosophy and that effectively communicates your expectations to students.

Within the larger movement of experience-based learning, expeditionary learning asserts the primacy of self-discovery and creativity. The students explore their personal, social, and environmental worlds. They work toward responsibility, empathy, success, and service. They reflect in solitude and share their reflections with others. Learn how to innovate portions or your entire curriculum around this process.

How do we deal with students who are critical of our teaching, either in public or in private? We will model some scenarios, and provide suggestions and hints for turning confrontations into constructive experiences.

This workshop will discuss how faculty can handle difficult students in and outside the classroom. It will provide some practical and legal recommendations on what to do and what not to do.

This interactive workshop will review the structure of course design and give examples of different kinds of course syllabi. We will revise and clarify our teaching goals, outcomes, delivery methods, and assessments toward a more effective syllabus.

BLOGS: Breakthrough Learning Online Guarantees Success

BLOG: a "website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and hyperlinks selected by the creator" (Meriam-Webster, 2004). BLOGs strengthen class community and serve as course management software, provide a tool for reflective writing, breakdown barriers among faculty and students, and enhance online discussions. This workshop will provide an overview of how you can use BLOGs in your classes and will demonstrate several examples currently in use.

Writing Across Borders: Working Productively with Second-Language Speakers

If you work with international students, you will be interested in this workshop. We will view an award-winning film, "Writing Across Borders," which employs interviews and an engaging narrative to explore some of the major issues that teachers, learning center tutors, and students need to think about when working with international students. The film and follow-up discussion will explore questions such as the following: - How does culture play out in writing? - How are educational expectations shaped by cultural preferences? - How can teachers fairly assess the work of international students alongside the writing of native speakers?

Constructive Engagement: An Innovative Teaching Method to Engage Today’s Student

The traditional lecture approach is no longer sufficient; only a fraction of the students are able to endure a two-hour plus lecture and retain the critical ideas and concepts. Pedagogical research suggests that students are more apt to retain information when engaging in collaborative learning as compared to the traditional lecture approach. Constructive Engagement (CE) is a collaborative learning technique that requires students to research, synthesize knowledge, and communicate this knowledge to other students. Furthermore, students learn the important art of persuasion. This session will describe the CE process, provide the tools for faculty to implement CE in their own classes, and provide a demonstration of CE in action.

Alternative Teaching Methods and Instructional Technology

Interactive techniques in the classroom may improve student engagement and retention. Learn also about course management software and other instructional technologies that might augment your course delivery.

Educators who speak English as a second language face unique linguistic and cultural challenges. We will discuss strategies to ease the transition to a new language and a new culture.

Participants will experience creative classroom techniques that might be used in any size class. By being actively involved, faculty will be able to determine the value of the methods from the student and faculty perspective.

As teachers embrace the growing need to document their scholarship, to more objectively measure student learning, and to align their practices with standards, it is important not to forget that the passion for learning, the desire for growth, and the eros of the learning environment are intangible and ineffable energies. This session will be about making small enhancements to the curriculum that will encourage students to find, express, and channel their desire for learning creatively.

Explore the role of philosophical understanding of critical thinking in student approaches to Internet research in ethics, science and technology. We will review student perceptions of the need for clarity in research contexts, including direct and indirect assessments.

Designing Communication Assignments That Promote Information Fluency

You may have heard about UCF's Information Fluency initiative, which encourages students to use technology more effectively, better understand quantitative concepts and relationships, and improve their research, speaking, writing, and visual communication skills. In this workshop, you will get ideas for including the written communication components of the information fluency initiative into your existing courses. Both minimally assessed assignments ("writing to learn") and more formal graded assignments ("writing to perform") will be discussed.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a concept so new that there are few “standard” definitions of it. Together we will explore what SoTL is (and isn’t), and come to an understanding of what SoTL projects would look like in our various fields.

Are you interested in teaching a Service-Learning class, but aren't sure how to start? This workshop is aimed at those who have not taught a Service-Learning class yet at UCF, but are interested in exploring ways to incorporate this exciting hands-on style of learning into their classes.

Academic Service Learning: A Community University Partnership

The workshop will focus on the service learning practices at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and its capacity building among community organizations (public, private, nonprofit) in the region. The workshop will highlight service-learning pedagogy as a central strategy for bridging the instruction of civic knowledge and skills with opportunities for active service at UCF. In addition, it will explore how higher education institutions and community-based organizations form partnerships to meet the educational goals of students.

Come share what has worked well (and maybe not so well) in your Service-Learning classes, and benefit from others’ experiences as well.

Community Partners in Service Learning: Finding Them and Keeping Them Happy

This workshop will provide practical suggestions and successful practices for developing partnerships with community agencies, including social service organizations and K-12

Finding a Service-Learning Connection in YOUR Discipline

Would you like to integrate Service-Learning in your class but are having trouble finding projects or partnerships? Come to this workshop to explore some options for a variety of disciplines.

"The City of Novgorod and Novgorod State University."

Taking Advantage of Diversity and University Policiees

Learn about University policies and how they impact your class, and examine why diversity matters in your students.

Professor Galina Shendrick of the Pryazovskyi State Technical University will discuss life in the Ukraine, including business developments, national values and the status of university education. She will also provide insights into what it is like to teach English to the Ukrainians.

Why should we use PowerPoint in our classes? What is the added student learning? What can you incorporate into your PowerPoint presentations to reach all student learning types? In this workshop these and other questions will be discussed and the types of media that can be incorporated into a PowerPoint presentation will be demonstrated.

Victim Services - Rights, Responsibilities and Options

This workshop is intended to provide you with your rights and responsibilities along with options and referral resources for students, who disclose personal crime, violence or abuse to you.

This workshop will explore the increasing role of the teaching artist in world culture and global politics. In particular, the workshop will look at the ways in which various artists have embraced the notion of theatre for social change in order to subvert dominant political ideology, cultural chauvinism, and gender politics.

Globalization: Female Artists and Theatre for Social Change

The workshop will explore the increasing role of women in world culture and global politics. In particular, the workshop will look at the ways in which women artists have embraced the notion of theatre for social change in order to subvert dominant political ideology, cultural chauvinism, and gender politics.

GTA Training

These workshops are designed for GTAs to gain valuable knowledge and perspectives in advance of their classroom experiences.