10th Annual CALS Teaching Enhancement Symposium
The Tenth Annual CALS Teaching Enhancement Symposium will be held 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at the UF Hilton Hotel and Conference Center in Gainesville, Florida. This annual event provides you with ideas, tools, and resources to enhance the classroom and advising experiences of our students. We have an exciting program planned with a variety of topics and speakers. We welcome our colleagues from the College of Health and Human Performance, who will be joining us at this year's Symposium. We look forward to seeing you in August.
For more information about the program, please contact Elaine Turner at returner@ufl.edu or (352) 392-1963.
Register is now closed. Thank you for your interest.
Registration and Refreshments
8:00 AM
Poster Session
8:00 AM - 8:45 AM
Concurrent Session I
9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
- Community Programs and Institutions of Higher Education: An Integral Partnership for Service Learning.
This interactive, experientially-based workshop focuses on the mutually beneficial relationship between community programs and undergraduate students (courses, student organizations, internship/practicum experiences) and will include sharing successful examples of how collaborations can get started.
Presenters: Dale Pracht, Kate Fogarty, and Kate Fletcher, Family, Youth and Community Sciences; Matt Benge, Alachua County Extension; Leesha London, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office - What does your ideal Student Evaluation of Instruction form look like?
A task force has been convened by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences to evaluate and improve the "Faculty Evaluation Form." Among the issues to be considered are the use of the form to improve instruction, differences across UF colleges in the form's components, and questions on the form for which data summaries are not available. This session will be a dialogue where faculty can provide input on improving the evaluation form. Topics to consider include the standard questions, data collection method (electronic and/or paper-based), and optional questions for instructors to ask.
Presenters: Michael Gunderson, Food and Resource Economics; Anne Kendall, Food Science and Human Nutrition; Jamie Foster, Microbiology and Cell Sciences; Ricky Telg, Agricultural Education and Communication - Empowered Learning and Instruction through Shared Learning Resources
Traditional classroom and online education have been constrained by the need for experts to produce learning materials and closed (password protected) learning spaces designed for entire courses or large learning modules. Recent shifts toward user-generated online learning content and open learning environments have helped build online user communities in which people are empowered to actively participate in the creation of learning material. We will present the EcoLearnIT system which is rooted in Web 2.0 technology, empowering students, faculty, researchers, scientists, and extension specialists to co-create and share learning material in an open-access mode.
Presenters: Sabine Grunwald and Brandon Hoover, Soil and Water Science - Advising Roundtable
Join academic advisers in a discussion of current issues including privacy, university petitions and progress toward degree. Bring your ideas, best practices, and insights for improving the advising experience for our students.
Facilitator: Elaine Turner, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Break and Poster Session
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Concurrent Session II
10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
- The Written Word: Enhancing Student Writing in your Classroom
SESSION CANCELLED
- The New Course Management System for UF: SAKAI 3.0
UF has adopted a new course management system (CMS) to replace the current Blackboard system (formerly webCT-Vista). The new CMS, called SAKAI, is an open-source product that has been gaining popularity worldwide and is now in use at several leading universities. Session presenters will discuss the reasons for choosing SAKAI and the timeline for adoption, and also provide a brief tour of its features. Every instructor at UF will be impacted by this change, so don't miss the opportunity to preview SAKAI and ask questions of the experts.
Presenters: Doug Johnson, Academic Technology; Randy Graff, Health Science Center; Tawnya Means, Warrington College of Business Administration; John Dobson, College of Health and Human Performance - Improving Undergraduate Education
The Task Force on Undergraduate Education at UF seeks your input. After an intensive review of current and best practices regarding numerous aspects of the undergraduate experience, the Task Force has released its recommendations for review by the larger UF community. All Task Force documents, including the report, are available online for review. Session participants will discuss the Task Force recommendations and provide input for revision and implementation
Presenters: Jill Varnes, Health Education and Behavior; Mike Olexa, Food and Resource Economics; Elaine Turner, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences - Beyond Student Evaluations: Assessing and Evaluating Teaching and Advising
Student evaluations of course and instructor are required at UF for promotion and tenure documentation. But, there is much more to the story. This session will include a review of the expectations for peer observation of teaching for P&T in IFAS and the peer evaluation summary (section 10.c).
Presenter: Kirby Barrick, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Luncheon and Keynote Presentation
11:50 AM - 1:40 PM
Room: Century Ballroom
- Message from the College: Dr. R. Kirby Barrick, Dean, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. Susie Whittington, The Ohio State University
"Teaching with flair' \(fla(a)/(e)r, n. [fr. flairier 1: natural ability of capacity] "
Dr. M. Susie Whittington teaches undergraduate and graduate programs in agricultural and extension education at The Ohio State University. Her primary teaching responsibilities include Methods of Teaching Agriculture and Program Planning. Susie also coordinates, in conjunction with the state department of education and the Ohio Association for Agricultural Educators (OAAE), the New Teacher Induction Program for first through third year secondary agricultural science teachers.
Susie chairs the college honors committee and serves on the university honors advisory council. She was a 2008 recipient of the USDA National Award for Excellence in College and University Teaching in the Food and Agricultural Sciences. She has also received The Josephine Sitterle Failer Award for Outstanding Service to Students by The Ohio State University Alumni Association, and was selected for the President's and Provost's Leadership Institute for The Ohio State University.
Susie directs a project entitled, "Improving the Cognitive Capacity of Students by Fully Engaging Professors in the Teaching and Learning Process." Her research has been awarded the Author of the Year from the American Association for Agricultural Education, and the E.B. Knight and Jack Everly Outstanding Journal Article Awards from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture. Dr. Whittington is the junior author of Methods of Teaching Agriculture.
Dr. Whittington holds B.S. (1982), M.S. (1987), and Ph.D. (1991) degrees from The Ohio State University in Agricultural Education with minors in Animal Science (B.S.), Educational Policy and Leadership (M.S.), and Agricultural Communications/Educational Psychology and Research (Ph.D.)
Concurrent Session III
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
- Engaging Learners at Higher Cognitive Levels
Manguarin, Feldman, Clements, and Boucher (2001) wrote that lecture does not allow for active student learning. Empirical data on the cognitive levels at which professors deliver course content, and the frequency with which students engage at higher cognitive levels during class sessions, will assist professors in exploring strategies for delivering content in ways that sustain the cognitive activity of learners during class sessions. In this workshop, we will explore strategies for engaging learners. Participants should bring a course syllabus, some assignments used for their classes, and a final exam.
Presenter: M. Susie Whittington, The Ohio State University - Helicopters, Lawnmowers, Stealths, and Submarines, OH MY!
Parents don't disappear once their children enroll in college and their relationships with their student and with the university are constantly evolving. Discover the different types of parents and how to communicate with each of them about their prospective and current students.
Presenter: Charlotte Emerson, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences - Understanding the Schism between Digital Natives (students) and Digital Immigrants (faculty) and its Implications for Classroom Teaching and Learning
Today's digital native students arrive in the classroom with a defined set of behavioral norms and values that often conflict with traditional course designs and expected behavior in the classroom and on assignments. The genesis and nature of digital native's values are examined followed by examples of the use of interactive classroom technology, experiments, software, etc. to teach this new generation. Discussions with attendees sharing their strategies and techniques will conclude the session.
Presenters: Allen Wysocki and Jane Bachelor, Food and Resource Economics; Tracy Irani and Nicole Stedman, Agricultural Education and Communication; Alan Long, Forest Resources and Conservation - How to Make a Web Course More than just Narrated Presentations
With the recent increase in and demand for online courses, many faculty are designing and offering courses for delivery on the Web. With the variety of online courses and degrees available in the current education market, it is important to offer something more than just a narrated presentation. The workshop presenters have developed several innovative additions to their Web courses that will be shared with attendees.
Presenters: Kimberly Moore, Environmental Horticulture; Sabine Grunwald, Ed Hanlon, and Samira Daroub, Soil and Water Science