EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
EDUCATE. CONNECT. INSPIRE.
Back to the Wild
2016
11/3 Presentation Details
Keynote: Larry Robertson
Tuesday, November 3 at 9:00 am PST
Speaker: Larry Robertson, award- winning author, strategist, and innovation advisor
If you want to understand how to lead, innovate, and thrive in today’s uncertain times, award- winning author, strategist, and innovation advisor Larry Robertson is the ideal choice.
Larry brings to the stage a rare combination of expertise across creativity, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Known for his ability to connect intimately with groups large and small and to motivate them to action, he’s regularly appeared alongside other exceptional leaders and speakers – from former Secretary of State General Colin Powell to Charles Schwab.
An exceptional storyteller, Larry is uniquely gifted at sharing the practical knowledge he’s gained over 30 years advising some of the most innovative leaders and organizations on the planet.
Not only a leading thinker, Larry has authored award-winning books, written over 100 articles as a popular columnist for Inc. Magazine, The Creativity Post, and Fast Company, and had his work featured in the Chicago Tribune, AdAge, SmartBrief, and MSNBC.
Panel Discussion - The Resilient Professor: Approaches to Overcoming Online Teaching Burnout
Tuesday, November 3 at 10:00 am PST
Resiliency in Crisis: A case study of Online and Ground-based faculty during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Speaker: Lauren Kerzee, MA -Faculty Development Manager at Bryant & Stratton College
Bryant & Stratton College offers both ground-based and online courses. Over the course of 9 days, all ground-based faculty were trained in Skype for Business and Blackboard for asynchronous and synchronous classroom interaction due to COVID-19. Online faculty were able to continue as “normal,” while also dealing with the pandemic’s effect on them and their students. Faculty resilience, burn-out, and student support look different on the other side of the shift. While the major change was for the ground-based faculty who are now teaching “online” (remotely), the Online faculty are also dealing with a lot of the same social, student support, technological, and pedagogical differences. Online Instructor’s best practices for self-care and boundaries were essential as ground-based faculty navigated the change in modality. Burn out occurred early and predictably in ground-based faculty, but online instructors were not fully immune. The analysis of the learning opportunities from Online, as well as the differing responses between faculty sets, offers a perspective on resilience and burnout which will help provide best practices towards self-care and balance across modalities. I will discuss the data, analysis, and how all faculty navigate and develop from collective change.
How To Run Your Classroom – so it doesn’t run you!
Speaker: Nathan Pritts, PhD - Professor and Lead Faculty at Ashford University
When we talk about faculty workload management in the online classroom, there’s a lot of focus on ways to better manage the myriad tasks that pop up from day to day: quicker grading, faster discussion responses. And the current crop of productivity gurus turn that lens on you – they want to you to hack your way to machine like efficiency. The problem is that both of these methods are wrong – or, at least, incomplete. They’re tactical solutions to tactical problems. They want you to get better at managing your daily workflow, dealing with all the digital sediment that piles up and blocks our ability to get deeper, to think our way through the classroom with wider scope. But that overburden never goes away – it’s constantly being replenished. So what happens when we shift that overburden to the side and reconfigure our mindset to prioritize innovation, green fields, and the bluest blue sky?
Faculty Focus in an Online Landscape
Speaker: Dr. Susan J. Wegmann -Associate Dean of Digital Learning and Innovation at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
We have been recently thrust into a socially-distanced teaching world - aptly called emergency
remote emergency online teaching (Tweet @kthompso). However, researchers have been
studying online pedagogy and the role of the online teacher for decades, and delivering online
content is not as easy as it might appear. The social, emotional, and physical demands of
teaching online comes with a plethora of questions such as: “How much structure will the class
include?” “How much interaction will the faculty member build in the class?” and “What
expectations will students face daily/weekly?” At the core, online faculty members need to
decide what kind of online teacher they will be, including their online persona and how they
will increase social and teaching presence (Lowenthal, 2009; Richardson, Caskurlu, & Lv, 2017;
Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). For most faculty, emails and messages from students and
administrators are ubiquitous and often an unanticipated, yet necessary part of the journey.
The Mind’s Design: The Neuroscience of Stress and Resilience
Speaker: Ellen Beattie -Adjunct Faculty at Ashford University
Resiliency contributes to academic and professional success and is a positive predictor of life satisfaction. Integrating research from neuroscience, positive psychology, and the learning sciences, this workshop presents the neurobiology of the stress response. We will explore the neurobiological consequences of too much stress, the biological underpinnings of stress response variations, and what neuroscience says about meditation and mindfulness concerning brain structure and function. Participants will gain an evidence-based framework for building resilience. Faculty members experience the same stress that our students do. We have multiple responsibilities, multiple employers, family responsibilities, and desires to achieve personal, professional, and academic goals. Learning about benefits and consequences of stress, how our brain and body responds to stress, and immediately applicable methods to reduce stress and build resiliency will aid the faculty member and in turn, all of the students in his or her sphere.
Panel Discussion - Course Design with Career in Mind: Building Career Competencies into Course Work and Course Materials
Tuesday, November 3 at 10:00 am PST
Integrating NACE Competencies at The Course and Program Level
Speakers: William G. Woods, Lead Faculty – Master of Arts in Organizational Management Faculty Council Co-Chair at Ashford University & Charlie Minnick, PhD Professor, MBA Program Lead Faculty at Ashford University
NACE Competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers sign
signify the readiness levels of college graduates to engage in their career fields. By integrating the eight competencies in course work and in programs, universities can further assist students with acquiring skills that can prove helpful in being successful in their desired career field. This presentation explores methods for incorporating NACE Competencies in courses and programs.
Collaborative Approaches to Incorporate Career Readiness into Course Design
Speakers: Matthew Phillips, Career Services Resource Designer at Ashford University and Sarah Sonognini, Instructional Designer at Zovio
Join an experienced instructional designer and career services professional for this engaging presentation about innovative academic collaboration. As academic learning and course development place more focus on career-readiness and industry competencies, academic professionals and subject matter experts must develop new ways of collaborating, communicating, and creating. Discover new practices for course development in your own program or institution with this insightful look at an innovative approach between Ashford U and Zovio. Complete with applied learning activities and corresponding resources.
ePortfolios: Connecting Coursework and Career Competencies
Speaker: Barbara M. Hall, PhD, Director of Curriculum and Associate Professor at Northcentral University
Portfolios are most effective when you build them over time with careful, intentional selection of artifacts and reflection about the learning process and subsequent skills developed in creating those artifacts. Portfolios often lack proper scaffolding and are used more for assessment than their broader potential as a learning tool (Barrett, 2005; Eynon & Gambino, 2017; Roberts, Maor, & Herrington, 2016; Stefani, Mason, & Pegler, 2007). The proposed panel will explore such an intentional planning process to ensure the successful design and implementation of a digital portfolio throughout a learning program. This process includes four considerations: scaffolding, tutorials, course integration, and student engagement. The innovation is not the portfolio itself, the supporting tutorials, or any one piece of the portfolio project. Rather, the true innovation is the project as a whole - taking a holistic look at how portfolios fit into the program and how to support the development and evaluation of the portfolio for both learners and instructors. This four-phased approach has won two awards: Innovation in Teaching Award from Northcentral University and second place for the Best Practice Award from the Division of Distance Learning of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).
Integrating John Maxwell’s DNA at The Course and Program Level
Speakers: Ronald Beach, PhD, Associate Professor/Lead Faculty – Bachelor of Business Administration at Ashford University and Bill Davis MA,CM, CDM, CCTS Assistant Professor at Ashford University
John Maxwell is the foremost New York Times Best Seller that has sold millions of copies and is one of the foremost leadership experts globally. Dr. Beach and Bill Davis will discuss how they have incorporated the DNA concept into the business leadership course work.
D Demonstrate a positive attitude
N Nurture transformation
A Allow Room for Personal Beliefs
The Practicum Resource Center: Real World Solutions in an Online Environment
Tuesday, November 3 at 10:30 am PST
Speaker: Peter Lombardo, Curriculum Specialist II at Zovio
Since inception, the Master of Public Health program continues to be a driving force on creatively integrating the online classroom and the real world to prepare all students for what lies ahead after graduation. In this program, students are required to complete their practicum experience at a health care site of their choosing, which directly aligns with their career goals. With the practicum having an influence on students’ professional careers, the Practicum Resource Center (PRC) is able to assist and support students every step of the way as they work towards completing their practicum. Given this information, the focus of this program is not solely on the core theory; instead, it expertly intertwines online learning and first-hand experience. While we travel through the resource center, you will experience an alternative approach to online learning that can be the launching point for creating your resource center based on your course, program, and school needs.
PAUSE: A Tool for Academic Writing Feedback
Tuesday, November 3 at 10:00 am PST
Speaker: Jennifer Robinson, Core Faculty at Ashford University
One challenge in online higher education is providing meaningful and effective feedback (Uribe & Vaughan, 2017). Effective feedback must be embedded into assessment practices to help students make necessary connections between what they are learning, discipline-specific writing, and any areas of strengths and needs related to content and writing (Black & William, 1998; Quinton & Smallbone, 2010). However, providing feedback can feel daunting to faculty who have many papers to grade and students with writing gaps. Still, it is important that students are given feedback that supports the various dimensions required for content-area and academic writing (Mauri, Colomina, Clara & Ginesta, 2016). A proposed solution is to teach faculty an acronym, or formula, that will support meaningful, epistemic, and suggestive guidance on students’ writing.
PAUSE:
● Praise the student on what he/she did correctly.
● Provide feedback that can be immediately applicable.
● Provide understandable feedback.
● Provide specific feedback.
● Provide encouraging feedback.
PAUSE creates an acronym framework that will make writing feedback pragmatic for all online subject matter instructors. As stated by Cleary (2011), if universities want to keep and graduate more non-traditional students, a new approach is needed for helping students learn to write successfully. PAUSE is a reminder to use when providing quality written feedback to help students reach distinguished writing as defined by the subject objectives. This workshop will walk attendees through the acronym and provide opportunities to identify pieces of the framework in feedback and to generate their own feedback using examples. Finally, attendees will have access to a new Google Doc file that will provide ideas for writing feedback using the acronym and be a living document to collect ideas from other attendees.
A Can-Do Attitude: Encouraging Meaningful Adjunct Faculty Professional Development
Tuesday, November 3 at 11:00 am PST
Speaker: Teresa Kuruc, PhD, Director, Faculty Support and Development at Ashford University
Even though higher-education institutions generally require a professional development activity for each term or course an adjunct faculty member teaches, adjuncts tend to feel that they lack professional support in their work (as reported in Coalition on Adjunct Workforce surveys). This dissatisfaction stems from the disjointedness of continuing education opportunities in adjunct faculty members’ teaching lifecycles, in part due to that fact that adjuncts can teach sporadically or have inconsistent schedules. Drawing from the American Council for Teachers of Foreign Language (ACTFL) “can-do” statements – which help language students connect individual tasks to categories of overall language proficiency – this presentation argues that faculty development departments must connect individual offerings to instructional proficiency that is transferrable, adaptable, and marketable across fields, teaching environments, and institutions. Facilitating connections among individual learning opportunities will encourage adjuncts to manage their professional development as meaningful career-building rather than contractual obligation, which ultimately will sow benefits for their students.
Reimagining the New Faculty Experience
Tuesday, November 3 at 11:30 am PST
Speakers: Kate Johnson, Faculty Support and Development Manager at Ashford University and Becky Hayes, Learning Technology Specialist at Ashford University
The New Faculty Experience (NFE) has had a facelift and we’d like to offer participants a peek inside the new training. We will share behind-the-scenes information about the redesign, describe the topics addressed in the new NFE, as well as show participants how they can access the training themselves.
Classroom Management Mastery Series – A Yearlong Quest of Instructional Excellence
Tuesday, November 3 at 12:00 pm PST
Speakers: Cole McFarren, Faculty Support and Development Manager at Ashford University, Stephanie Adams, Faculty Development and Coaching Specialist at Ashford University, Deb Swanson, Faculty Support and Classroom Consultant at Ashford University, Sally Deckard, Faculty Support and Classroom Consultant at Ashford University, Mallory DeMay, Faculty Support and Classroom Consultant at Ashford University, and Herminder Wray, Faculty Support and Classroom Consultant at Ashford University
The main objectives of this presentation are to develop classroom management skills and increase awareness and usage of internal and external resources. Faculty will be informed and capable of utilizing the various tools within the Canvas classroom to improve overall instruction as well as how to integrate external resources to increase engagement and productivity in their own classrooms.
Examples of areas highlighted include:
• New Analytics within Canvas
• Gradebook Customizations and Tips
• Utilizing Video in the Classroom
• Signalz and Proactive Faculty Outreach
• Best Practices in Communicating with Students
• Providing quality feedback
• Academic Integrity and Turnitin Reports
Tick Tock: Taking Back the Clock to Create a Work/ Life Balance
Tuesday, November 3 at 12:30 pm PST
Speaker: Dr. Jessica Guire, Online Associate Professor at Ashford University
What is the ol’ saying… “time is of the essence”? In a demanding world, managing time has become a vital skill to success in all aspects of life. Educators in higher education feel the pressure of time…making time to plan curriculum, find supplementary class material, respond to emails, attend meetings and professional development sessions, not to mention the traditional roles of being a parent or spouse too. Even without the roles of parenthood and marriage, an educator finds that time to self-love is scare. The clock can become the enemy. By using planning strategies, technology, and changing your mindset, time becomes a means to an end not a pressure that breaks you.
Leveraging an Online Space to Create an Employee Experience
Tuesday, November 3 at 12:30 pm PST
Speaker: Diana Boggan, Faculty Development and Coaching Specialist at Ashford University
This presentation will discuss transforming an online space into a digital workspace that promotes an effective employee experience as driven by the institutional vision and design capabilities. Consideration is given to organizational culture, employee productivity and specific goals such as the needs of users to create a comprehensive employee experience.
This transformation is achieved by developing these critical components: vision, culture, productivity, and a user-centric design. A clear vision encapsulates the value of the digital workplace. A strong culture aligns with organizational goals and builds a culture of trust and wellness. Productivity is achieved by providing the most relevant and effective tools and resources. A user-centric design remains agile and can be modified consistently to meet changing user needs.
Guidelines, best practices, and examples on developing and implementing these components will be reviewed and provided as a separate document for attendees at the end of the presentation.
Engaged Pedagogy: A Practice for Cultivating Teacher Self-Care
Tuesday, November 3 at 1:00 pm PST
Speaker: Prairie Markussen, faculty at Ashford University
In Teaching to Transgress, feminist scholar bell hooks writes, “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” To care for the “souls of our students,” we must first learn how to care for ourselves as teachers. This presentation will investigate what it means to care for ourselves, and in turn, our students, through the lens of an engaged pedagogy. An engaged pedagogy requires that teachers strive for self-actualization, engage in self-revelation, practice vulnerability, and take part in the work they are asking their students to do; through this pedagogy, teachers are better able to reveal themselves as whole beings to their students. Likewise, teachers are better able to conceptualize their students as whole beings. Ultimately, I argue that for teachers to serve their students in the fullest way possible, they must be willing to establish themselves not only as teachers, but as fellow human beings, with complex and challenging lives. When teachers practice self-care by acknowledging their own humanity through an engaged pedagogy, they can offer their students truly empathetic instruction.
Instructor Presence Training: Sustainable Practices Supporting Student Retention and Success
Tuesday, November 3 at 1:00 pm PST
Speakers: Michelle Rosser-Majors, Program Lead, Professor at Ashford University, Sandra Rebeor, Associate Professor at Ashford University, Christy McMahon, Associate Professor at Ashford University, and Stephanie Anderson, Associate Professor at Ashford University
Retention and student success in online environments can be a formidable task. For years, online institutions and instructors have diligently worked to identify ways to improve the ongoing challenges that students face in this demanding environment. However, when appropriate and creative strategies are applied, the needle can move in the right direction. This presentation will not only reveal the findings of the initial improvement in student success and retention at Ashford University (based on the exposure of strategies aligned with instructor presence that includes mastery quizzing and image examples), but will also report the results of a post-analysis of the sustainability of the application.
Ashford College of Arts and Sciences and Forbes School of Business and Technology Updates
Tuesday, November 3 at 1:00 pm PST
Speakers: Dr. Iris Lafferty, Executive Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences at Ashford University and Bob Daugherty, Executive Dean for the Forbes School of Business and Technology at Ashford University
Dr. Iris Lafferty and Bob Daugherty will provide updates on Ashford University’s College of Arts and Sciences and Forbes School of Business and Technology.
Understanding wellness in high education faculty: A comparison of learning environments
Tuesday, November 3 at 1:30 pm PST
Speakers: Cara L Metz, Assistant Professor, Lead Faculty at Ashford University and Dr. Sarah Jarvie, Associate Professor at Colorado Christian University
This presentation will focus on a recent study exploring factors of burnout in educators, comparing educators in various teaching settings.
In a world and profession that seems to demand more and more of ourselves, it can seem that these increasing pressures can leave us feeling a bit empty and run down. Keeping up with the fast pace of academia, balancing family, and outside activities can lead to feelings of not being able to give your best to each activity. Taking a closer look at these factors can help us to understand how we can continue to do what we love, with confidence, and feel as though we can maintain a balance to avoid burnout.
It is vital to understand the contributing factors to create an environment that is more conducive to genuineness, confidence, and enhanced self-esteem. The factors that influence wellness and burnout might not be the same across settings in relation to teaching location, for example, online versus in-seat. Thus, it is important that we look at unique factors in each setting to enhance ourselves and our team as educators.
We Rise by Lifting Others: Virtual Mentoring of Associate Faculty
Tuesday, November 3 at 1:30 pm PST
Speakers: Kelly Olson Stewart, Program Lead, Ph.D. Ed & Assistant Professor at Ashford University and Jen Robinson, Core Faculty/Assistant Professor at Ashford University
Without well-thought-out support through mentoring, universities run the risk of losing potential classroom talent or breeding the continuation of classroom practices that do not support optimal student learning. Any mentoring should be transformational (Tipple, 2009) providing opportunities for associate faculty to be supported and engaged by faculty who are empathetic and positive communicators who understand how to guide faculty to practices that are reflected by the mission and vision of the organization. Mentoring must also be situational by providing targeted support and guidance for associate faculty who demonstrate needing more support through a regular feedback cycle (Tipple, 2009; Rogers, McIntyre, & Jazzar, 2009). Finally, mentoring should involve cognitive coaching (Williams, Layne, & Ice, 2014) meant to support associate faculty using an overt framework for improvement while helping associate faculty feel competent and reflective about their teaching practice.
This presentation will disseminate the online faculty mentoring cycle in the Department of Education and Liberal Arts. Attendees will leave the presentation with a baseline framework of how to incorporate mentoring with online adjunct faculty in a way that leads to faculty success, and, ultimately, student success.
Rogers, C., McIntyre, M., Jazzar, M. (2009). Four cornerstones to mentoring adjunct faculty online.
Tipple, D.M. (2009). Effective leadership of online adjunct faculty. Online Journal of Distance Learning
Administration, 12(4).
Williams, Lane, and Ice (2014). Online faculty perceptions on effective faculty mentoring: A qualitative
study. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 17(2).