The January 2021 Faculty Forum Video Recording is Now Available!

  • by Site Factory admin

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

Thanks to all of you who joined us for our faculty forum on January 15, 2021, where we discussed “What’s Working for You.”  If you missed the event, or would like to revisit the conversation, the recording is now available.

At this Faculty Forum, we heard faculty reflections on their remote teaching experiences from previous quarters. Instructional designers and instructional technologists appreciated the chance to learn more about faculty adjustments and discoveries, the pedagogical strategies that worked, and the challenges that faculty continue to face.

We addressed the need to accommodate students who participate in our classes from various unexpected locations, including in faraway time zones, a concern also addressed by the Quarter in the Cloud initiative (QITC). The blog of the Center for Educational Effectiveness has collected strategies for involving global students. Our colleague Susan Pike addressed such concerns by setting aside extra time, and in doing so, she discovered that off-hour office hours help students from all time zones.

Faculty shared the following teaching strategies:

  • Involve students in conversations by encouraging in-class and outside-class connections (with the use of tools such as Discord and GroupMe);
  • Create opportunities for students to communicate with each other and develop a community;
  • Use music to fill awkward pauses;
  • Create shorter videos to help lessen faculty production anxiety and increase student engagement. We also discussed the advantages and challenges presented by videos of different length (this resource was shared in the chat).

After the forum, faculty resolved to forgive themselves for the uneven quality of their video creations and technological skills. We recognize that our relevant skills are improving incrementally. As E.L. Doctorow said about the writing process, "The act of composition is a series of discoveries."

Academic Technology Services is dedicated to supporting faculty in their teaching needs. We organize and host DOLCE (Discussing Online Learning and Collaborative Education, on the first Friday of every month) and Faculty Forums (on the third Friday of the month). Our next DOLCE will take place on February 5.

To stay tuned about these and future teaching and technology forums, please subscribe to the Wheel e-mail updates, or follow @ucdaviswheel on Twitter. If you have questions about Instructional Design at UC Davis, please contact our ATS senior instructional designers at instructionaldesign@ucdavis.edu.

Best regards,

Dr. Andy Jones

Academic Associate Director, Academic Technology Services

Editor in Chief of The Wheel: The Instructional Technology Blog of UC Davis

University of California, Davis

 

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