We found 68 results that contain "community engagement"
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Preparation
Increasingly, students are looking for and benefiting from learning experiences connecting them with the community beyond textbooks and tests. Engaging students with communities outside the classroom can provide students with opportunities to learn more about what is immediately around them, help them understand why particular problems exist, and teach them how they can be active participants in communities. Depending on intent of the course, the community of focus can range in scale and scope from students’ own communities on campus to local and international communities that they may have never been engaged with before. Added benefits to students who participate in community-engaged courses include better performance on assessments, increased student retention, and increased political awareness and civic engagement (Reed, Rosenberg, Statham, & Rosing, 2015; Simons & Cleary, 2006; Strage, 2000). Representatives of community partner organizations have also indicated that under ideal conditions, engagement between students and communities can support client outcomes, organizational and community enrichment, and foster the growth of social justice (Sandy & Holland, 2006).
The Spectrum of Engagement
We visualize the types of community engagement on a spectrum, ranging from the least resource-intensive to the most resource-intensive activities (see image below). These resources include instructor, student, and community partner contribution. Course topic and learning objectives help determine the level of engagement and community settings appropriate for your class. As an instructor, you can even immerse students in community issues without leaving the classroom through articles and videos, or by bringing in a guest speaker who is a part of the topic being presented. More resource-intensive activities include asking students to do observations in their communities, interviewing community members, participating in aphotovoice project, or working with a community partner on a service learning project. Full immersion of students in a new community might include participating in a study abroad program.
Four Ways to Determine How Community Engagement Fits Into Your Course
The prospect of engaging students outside of traditional textbooks and classroom instruction can be exciting. But incorporating community engagement into a course can feel daunting and like a lot of extra work. But it doesn’t have to be.The following can help you through the process:
Ask yourself why you want to engage students with the community. Reflecting on your own reasons for the importance of community engagement can help you prioritize and decide the amount of time and effort you are willing to put into incorporating community engagement.
Decide on the amount of added time and resources you want to put into community engagement. Using the spectrum of community engagement, you may decide that for your first course you have minimal time and resources to commit to engaging students with the community, but can find meaningful articles and videos, enhanced by a knowledgeable speaker to engage students on a specific topic covered in the class.
Assess the community’s ability & interest to be engaged. Connect with community members about the activities you would like to do and determine their willingness and ability to engage with students. Be prepared to modify your original plan in order to meet your community partners’ needs.
Incorporate student and community feedback into the engagement activity. Consider doing a brief evaluation with students after the activity to find out the extent to which it was helpful to them. If your students are engaging directly with community members or organizations, seek feedback from individuals in those settings as well. You can close the feedback loop by reporting out to students and community members about what you learn and the aspects of the experience you plan to approach differently in the future.
Now that community engagement has your attention… stay tuned for the next two blog posts where we will describe the activities we’ve used in our own classrooms and how you can implement them too! In the meantime, tell us what you think: What factors do you take into account when incorporating community engagement into your course? For those of you considering community engagement, what are the challenges you foresee? Seasoned community engagers, what are your rock star success stories? Post in the comments below!
Originally posted at “Inside Teaching MSU” (site no longer live): Lawlor, J. and Gregory K. Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Preparation. inside teaching.grad.msu.edu
The Spectrum of Engagement
We visualize the types of community engagement on a spectrum, ranging from the least resource-intensive to the most resource-intensive activities (see image below). These resources include instructor, student, and community partner contribution. Course topic and learning objectives help determine the level of engagement and community settings appropriate for your class. As an instructor, you can even immerse students in community issues without leaving the classroom through articles and videos, or by bringing in a guest speaker who is a part of the topic being presented. More resource-intensive activities include asking students to do observations in their communities, interviewing community members, participating in aphotovoice project, or working with a community partner on a service learning project. Full immersion of students in a new community might include participating in a study abroad program.
Four Ways to Determine How Community Engagement Fits Into Your Course
The prospect of engaging students outside of traditional textbooks and classroom instruction can be exciting. But incorporating community engagement into a course can feel daunting and like a lot of extra work. But it doesn’t have to be.The following can help you through the process:
Ask yourself why you want to engage students with the community. Reflecting on your own reasons for the importance of community engagement can help you prioritize and decide the amount of time and effort you are willing to put into incorporating community engagement.
Decide on the amount of added time and resources you want to put into community engagement. Using the spectrum of community engagement, you may decide that for your first course you have minimal time and resources to commit to engaging students with the community, but can find meaningful articles and videos, enhanced by a knowledgeable speaker to engage students on a specific topic covered in the class.
Assess the community’s ability & interest to be engaged. Connect with community members about the activities you would like to do and determine their willingness and ability to engage with students. Be prepared to modify your original plan in order to meet your community partners’ needs.
Incorporate student and community feedback into the engagement activity. Consider doing a brief evaluation with students after the activity to find out the extent to which it was helpful to them. If your students are engaging directly with community members or organizations, seek feedback from individuals in those settings as well. You can close the feedback loop by reporting out to students and community members about what you learn and the aspects of the experience you plan to approach differently in the future.
Now that community engagement has your attention… stay tuned for the next two blog posts where we will describe the activities we’ve used in our own classrooms and how you can implement them too! In the meantime, tell us what you think: What factors do you take into account when incorporating community engagement into your course? For those of you considering community engagement, what are the challenges you foresee? Seasoned community engagers, what are your rock star success stories? Post in the comments below!
Originally posted at “Inside Teaching MSU” (site no longer live): Lawlor, J. and Gregory K. Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Preparation. inside teaching.grad.msu.edu
Authored by: K. Gregory and J. Lawlor
Disciplinary Content
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Online Engagement & Community Building Workshop
The Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology supported a new Online Engagement & Community Building workshop on March 12, 2021. This workshop was led by Dr. Ellie Louson (Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology and Lyman Briggs College) and Dr. Melissa Usiak (College of Education). During the workshop, participants had the opportunity to learn more about engaging their students in the online environment and creating a community online. Facilitators answered questions and shared resources. You’ll walk away with at least one strategy to try in your course. For anyone who previously completed SOIREE, this workshop will go more in-depth and build on the strategies covered in SOIREE.
If you have questions related to the SOIREE workshops, please reach out to Ashley Braman (behanash@msu.edu) for additional support.Do you have tools, tactics, or approaches that have worked for you in building community online? Please share them in the comments below!
If you have questions related to the SOIREE workshops, please reach out to Ashley Braman (behanash@msu.edu) for additional support.Do you have tools, tactics, or approaches that have worked for you in building community online? Please share them in the comments below!
Authored by: Breana Yaklin, Ellie Louson, Melissa Usiak
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Building Community Engagement Into Your Course: Ethics and Reflections
Community engagement can be a powerful tool for both connecting classroom learning to real life experiences and supporting community change efforts. In this our last post on community engagement in teaching, we want to address two questions: : 1) How can teachers attend to ethical concerns that may arise throughout community engagement projects?; and 2) How can teachers integrate routine reflection as a strategy to assess student learning throughout community engagement projects? Reflective activities create a critical space for us to capture the ethical issues arising with students and to reflect on our own ethical practice as instructors for community engaged courses. And we could not discuss ethical concerns without students being able to reflect about specific issues. For this last post in our community engagement series, we will focus on the ways we made sure to support student learning by exploring potential ethical issues and creating regular reflective opportunities.
Ethical Considerations When Engaging Communities
The ethical issues you must attend to are both community- and student-focused. Returning to the community engagement spectrum from our previous two posts (Preparation and Implementation), the ethical considerations broaden as students become more immersed in communities. For example, we both had concerns about communities being exploited for the sake of students’ learning. To address this concern, Jenny (service learning) spent time with community partners prior to her course to gain an understanding about what would make the project meaningful to them and built mechanisms into the course to attend to those needs. Katie (photovoice) built guidelines for students’ photos into her photovoice rubric, spent time in class talking to students about ethical photography, and encouraged students to ask questions they may have about their photos.
We both felt it would be unethical for students to engage with communities without first considering the impact their own identities and expectations on their work. We made sure students thought about privileged and oppressed identities, assumptions they hold about communities that they might engage with, and how they might manage or interpret challenging experiences. Overall, we focused students on reflecting as an ethical imperative to ensure the experience worked well for community members and for students, but also as an assessment process to enhance student learning.
Reflection for Learning in Community Engagement
Reflection can be a useful tool for both students and instructors to more fully understand learning during community engagement activities. We both used multiple tools for reflection based in course objectives, both formal and informal, and creatively responding to the unexpected elements of this work. Below, we highlight how you can prepare to incorporate reflection into your community engagement efforts, along with some helpful tips for doing so that we derived from our own work
A) Reflect Flexibly Toward Course Objectives
If you’ve already elected to use community engagement as part of your course, you should consider how it will match up with course objectives. This can be very direct if you’re reading an article or bringing in a speaker about a particular topic, but may require more scaffolding if you’re integrating an experience like photovoice, service learning, or study abroad. Here, it’s essential to anticipate multiple student experiences of community engagement work. Make sure that reflection prompts are broad enough so that all students can participate, but still focused enough they are reflecting back toward the overall project and course objectives. For example, in Katie’s course, she had a full class dedicated to reflection incorporating definitions, examples and an assignment using a reflection tool called the “Ladder of Inference.” These activities taught students how to identify their own learning and thinking changed about particular issues, preparing to do deeper reflection in their photovoice project, and further connecting back to the overall course objectives of examining how concepts of power and oppression relate to social issues.
B) Reflect Informally and Formally
It’s essential to provide a spectrum of ways students can reflect on their learning. This spectrum builds a comprehensive culture of reflection in your course and provides multiple windows into student learning during community engagement and beyond. Providing informal reflection spaces help students build up to more formal, graded reflections on their work. These informal reflections could include short discussions, posing quick questions to students after explaining something, and/or having students keep a journal of their thoughts during community engagement work. And eventually building formal reflection into the course provides a culminating space for student to think about their learning across community engagement experiences. Final papers or projects can provide a powerful picture of what students experienced and continue to validate both the community engagement work and the importance of regular reflection in connection to it. Whatever mixture of formal and informal reflection you decide on, make sure to integrate the results of the student reflection into your instruction moving forward. Through lectures and learning activities, demonstrate you’ve heard and are thinking about what students said.
C) Reflect Creatively
Reflective activities and assignments don’t have to fit within the bounds of traditional assessment strategies. There is plenty of room for creativity in setting up these activities.For example, Katie hosted a photovoice gallery in her classroom where students could explore their peers’ interpretations of the activity. Then, students had the opportunity to engage in discussion to reflect on what they’ve learned as a group from participating in the process. Doing this in both a big group and individually can speak to multiple learning styles. It also provides a space for students to generate new understandings of their experiences.
D) Reflect on the Unexpected
Realize that reflections may go beyond the scope of your course objectives and be prepared to facilitate learning that departs from expected directions. Community engagement can be both messy and beautiful. Leave space for unpacking the complexities.
We hope this series of blog posts helped remove some of the mystique regarding community engagement in the classroom. Getting students to connect course topics to what is going on around them can be rewarding and exciting! As you continue to consider incorporating community engagement into your own work, what ethical concerns do you need to consider? How important is reflection in your course? What reflective activities could you do to prepare your students for engagement and to assess their learning? We are always looking for new ideas so please share with us in the comments below!
Originally posted at “Inside Teaching MSU” (site no longer live): Gregory K. and Lawlor, J. Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Ethics and Reflections. inside teaching.grad.msu.edu
Ethical Considerations When Engaging Communities
The ethical issues you must attend to are both community- and student-focused. Returning to the community engagement spectrum from our previous two posts (Preparation and Implementation), the ethical considerations broaden as students become more immersed in communities. For example, we both had concerns about communities being exploited for the sake of students’ learning. To address this concern, Jenny (service learning) spent time with community partners prior to her course to gain an understanding about what would make the project meaningful to them and built mechanisms into the course to attend to those needs. Katie (photovoice) built guidelines for students’ photos into her photovoice rubric, spent time in class talking to students about ethical photography, and encouraged students to ask questions they may have about their photos.
We both felt it would be unethical for students to engage with communities without first considering the impact their own identities and expectations on their work. We made sure students thought about privileged and oppressed identities, assumptions they hold about communities that they might engage with, and how they might manage or interpret challenging experiences. Overall, we focused students on reflecting as an ethical imperative to ensure the experience worked well for community members and for students, but also as an assessment process to enhance student learning.
Reflection for Learning in Community Engagement
Reflection can be a useful tool for both students and instructors to more fully understand learning during community engagement activities. We both used multiple tools for reflection based in course objectives, both formal and informal, and creatively responding to the unexpected elements of this work. Below, we highlight how you can prepare to incorporate reflection into your community engagement efforts, along with some helpful tips for doing so that we derived from our own work
A) Reflect Flexibly Toward Course Objectives
If you’ve already elected to use community engagement as part of your course, you should consider how it will match up with course objectives. This can be very direct if you’re reading an article or bringing in a speaker about a particular topic, but may require more scaffolding if you’re integrating an experience like photovoice, service learning, or study abroad. Here, it’s essential to anticipate multiple student experiences of community engagement work. Make sure that reflection prompts are broad enough so that all students can participate, but still focused enough they are reflecting back toward the overall project and course objectives. For example, in Katie’s course, she had a full class dedicated to reflection incorporating definitions, examples and an assignment using a reflection tool called the “Ladder of Inference.” These activities taught students how to identify their own learning and thinking changed about particular issues, preparing to do deeper reflection in their photovoice project, and further connecting back to the overall course objectives of examining how concepts of power and oppression relate to social issues.
B) Reflect Informally and Formally
It’s essential to provide a spectrum of ways students can reflect on their learning. This spectrum builds a comprehensive culture of reflection in your course and provides multiple windows into student learning during community engagement and beyond. Providing informal reflection spaces help students build up to more formal, graded reflections on their work. These informal reflections could include short discussions, posing quick questions to students after explaining something, and/or having students keep a journal of their thoughts during community engagement work. And eventually building formal reflection into the course provides a culminating space for student to think about their learning across community engagement experiences. Final papers or projects can provide a powerful picture of what students experienced and continue to validate both the community engagement work and the importance of regular reflection in connection to it. Whatever mixture of formal and informal reflection you decide on, make sure to integrate the results of the student reflection into your instruction moving forward. Through lectures and learning activities, demonstrate you’ve heard and are thinking about what students said.
C) Reflect Creatively
Reflective activities and assignments don’t have to fit within the bounds of traditional assessment strategies. There is plenty of room for creativity in setting up these activities.For example, Katie hosted a photovoice gallery in her classroom where students could explore their peers’ interpretations of the activity. Then, students had the opportunity to engage in discussion to reflect on what they’ve learned as a group from participating in the process. Doing this in both a big group and individually can speak to multiple learning styles. It also provides a space for students to generate new understandings of their experiences.
D) Reflect on the Unexpected
Realize that reflections may go beyond the scope of your course objectives and be prepared to facilitate learning that departs from expected directions. Community engagement can be both messy and beautiful. Leave space for unpacking the complexities.
We hope this series of blog posts helped remove some of the mystique regarding community engagement in the classroom. Getting students to connect course topics to what is going on around them can be rewarding and exciting! As you continue to consider incorporating community engagement into your own work, what ethical concerns do you need to consider? How important is reflection in your course? What reflective activities could you do to prepare your students for engagement and to assess their learning? We are always looking for new ideas so please share with us in the comments below!
Originally posted at “Inside Teaching MSU” (site no longer live): Gregory K. and Lawlor, J. Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Ethics and Reflections. inside teaching.grad.msu.edu
Authored by: K. Gregory and J. Lawlor
Disciplinary Content
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Engaging Students with iClicker
What is iClicker?
iClicker is a student response system that allows instructors to incorporate interactive and engaging aspects of teaching and learning into their lessons. Students can participate using actual clicker remotes, or their own devices (such as phones, tablets, and laptops) via the iClicker Reef application.
What is the difference between iClicker Cloud and iClicker Reef?
iClicker Cloud is the portion of the tool that allows for instructors to set up courses and assessments. ICloud Reef is for student responses and can be accessed via different devices as long as students have internet access.
Why is iClicker important?
With iClicker, instructors can engage students throughout instruction, whether face-to-face or remote. As instructors have the opportunity to incorporate activities like polls and quizzes directly into their lessons, iClicker can be used for both formative and summative assessment. This tool also allows assessments to be graded and transferred to learning management systems such as D2L.
How do I access iClicker?
iClicker is FREE for all MSU students and instructors. The application can be downloaded here.
Where can I find more information about iClicker?
The Academic Service Technology Catalog has guidance for instructors and students on iClicker.
iClicker is a student response system that allows instructors to incorporate interactive and engaging aspects of teaching and learning into their lessons. Students can participate using actual clicker remotes, or their own devices (such as phones, tablets, and laptops) via the iClicker Reef application.
What is the difference between iClicker Cloud and iClicker Reef?
iClicker Cloud is the portion of the tool that allows for instructors to set up courses and assessments. ICloud Reef is for student responses and can be accessed via different devices as long as students have internet access.
Why is iClicker important?
With iClicker, instructors can engage students throughout instruction, whether face-to-face or remote. As instructors have the opportunity to incorporate activities like polls and quizzes directly into their lessons, iClicker can be used for both formative and summative assessment. This tool also allows assessments to be graded and transferred to learning management systems such as D2L.
How do I access iClicker?
iClicker is FREE for all MSU students and instructors. The application can be downloaded here.
Where can I find more information about iClicker?
The Academic Service Technology Catalog has guidance for instructors and students on iClicker.
Authored by: Cierra Presberry
Posted on: Graduate Teaching A...
D2L Pedagogies: Designing for Engaging and Inclusive Online Learning Experiences
This workshop is designed to help you prepare for your teaching roles by strengthening your pedagogical understandings of D2L. For us, this means understanding how to implement thoughtful, intentional, and inclusive practices. We will introduce GTAs to foundational skills and strategies necessary to create well-structured, engaging, accessible online learning experiences.
Upon completing this session, GTAs will be able to:
Identify key components and goals of the learner experience through design thinking exercises.
Consider factors that may impact learners’ ability to fully participate in various modes of online learning, and develop strategies to gain a sense of learners’ digital learning contexts.
Evaluate opportunities for asynchronous and synchronous connection, community-building, interaction, and engagement.
Discuss and explore features for enhancing learning and improving accessibility.
Identify resources and supports for technical aspects of D2L.
Upon completing this session, GTAs will be able to:
Identify key components and goals of the learner experience through design thinking exercises.
Consider factors that may impact learners’ ability to fully participate in various modes of online learning, and develop strategies to gain a sense of learners’ digital learning contexts.
Evaluate opportunities for asynchronous and synchronous connection, community-building, interaction, and engagement.
Discuss and explore features for enhancing learning and improving accessibility.
Identify resources and supports for technical aspects of D2L.
Posted by: Kenneth Gene Herrema
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Engagement Resources for Online Teaching
Here is a set of resources about different aspects of student engagement and online teaching.
“What Is Caring Pedagogy? An Introduction: Relationships of Reciprocity Series” by Monica B. Glina, NYU.
“Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes” by Vignesh Ramachandran, about Stanford research into the psychology of online work.
“8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online” by Caitlin Tucker, Pepperdine University.
“The Human Element in Online Learning” by Larry DeBrock, Norma Scagnoli and Fataneh Taghaboni-Dutta for Inside Higher Ed.
“4 Zoom-Friendly Creative Warm-ups” by Hilary Buchanan and Alexis Schuknecht, Pixel Park.
“Zoom Friendly Warm-ups and Icebreakers” by Eugene Korsunskiy for Future of Design in Higher Education [Medium].
Hybrid Learning Models with components of different learning modalities from The Linden School.
Image Credit: ST.art / Shutterstock.com © 2020
“What Is Caring Pedagogy? An Introduction: Relationships of Reciprocity Series” by Monica B. Glina, NYU.
“Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes” by Vignesh Ramachandran, about Stanford research into the psychology of online work.
“8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online” by Caitlin Tucker, Pepperdine University.
“The Human Element in Online Learning” by Larry DeBrock, Norma Scagnoli and Fataneh Taghaboni-Dutta for Inside Higher Ed.
“4 Zoom-Friendly Creative Warm-ups” by Hilary Buchanan and Alexis Schuknecht, Pixel Park.
“Zoom Friendly Warm-ups and Icebreakers” by Eugene Korsunskiy for Future of Design in Higher Education [Medium].
Hybrid Learning Models with components of different learning modalities from The Linden School.
Image Credit: ST.art / Shutterstock.com © 2020
Authored by: Ellie Louson and Melissa Usiak
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
#iteachmsu Community Norms
#iteachmsu Community Norms and Practices
The #iteachmsu Commons is an inclusive community. In order to cultivate and maintain a space where we all feel comfortable sharing ideas, questions, and resources, we have developed this set of norms and practices.
If you feel that there is something missing from these standards that is essential to our community, please let us know.
We value a diverse community and inclusive language, interactions, and practices. We’re all here to learn.
We will work to promote an anti-discriminatory environment where everyone feels safe and welcome. Accordingly, each of us has the right to be addressed in a way that aligns with our personal identity.
Discriminatory language or imagery is not tolerated.
We welcome linguistic diversity while recognizing the public nature of the platform and the sharing capacity.
Content that is shared will be formatted for accessibility. For your support, review this Basic Accessibility Checklist when creating content.
We all value learning and are supportive of our community members as we expand our knowledge together. We all make mistakes and that's okay. If someone shares a misconception, question, etc., we will respond in a constructive, non-critical way.
We believe in the power and importance of sharing responsibly.
We encourage each other. We ask questions. We answer questions. We provide feedback and resources to deepen our understanding.
When an idea is not yours originally, a proper attribution and/or citation should be provided.
Copyright and Fair Use guidelines should be adhered to. Need support to determine if you’re following them? Contact MSU Libraries’ Copyright Office.
This is a learning community built by members, for members.
Search the site before adding new/reduplicated content.
Use a title and description that provides an accurate reflection of what your article, post, assessment, etc. covers.
Use the tagging feature to label/categorize your content and improve the search experience.
Select the appropriate/relevant group to share your content to.
The #iteachmsu Commons is an inclusive community. In order to cultivate and maintain a space where we all feel comfortable sharing ideas, questions, and resources, we have developed this set of norms and practices.
If you feel that there is something missing from these standards that is essential to our community, please let us know.
We value a diverse community and inclusive language, interactions, and practices. We’re all here to learn.
We will work to promote an anti-discriminatory environment where everyone feels safe and welcome. Accordingly, each of us has the right to be addressed in a way that aligns with our personal identity.
Discriminatory language or imagery is not tolerated.
We welcome linguistic diversity while recognizing the public nature of the platform and the sharing capacity.
Content that is shared will be formatted for accessibility. For your support, review this Basic Accessibility Checklist when creating content.
We all value learning and are supportive of our community members as we expand our knowledge together. We all make mistakes and that's okay. If someone shares a misconception, question, etc., we will respond in a constructive, non-critical way.
We believe in the power and importance of sharing responsibly.
We encourage each other. We ask questions. We answer questions. We provide feedback and resources to deepen our understanding.
When an idea is not yours originally, a proper attribution and/or citation should be provided.
Copyright and Fair Use guidelines should be adhered to. Need support to determine if you’re following them? Contact MSU Libraries’ Copyright Office.
This is a learning community built by members, for members.
Search the site before adding new/reduplicated content.
Use a title and description that provides an accurate reflection of what your article, post, assessment, etc. covers.
Use the tagging feature to label/categorize your content and improve the search experience.
Select the appropriate/relevant group to share your content to.
Authored by: Candace Robertson and Lindsay Luft
Navigating Context
Posted on: Spring Conference o...
MSUvote and Democratic Engagement at MSU
Title: MSUvote and Democratic Engagement at MSUPresenters: Renee Brown (MSUvote Initiative); Suchitra Webster (MSUvote); and Erin Kramer (MSUvote)Format: WorkshopDate: May 11th, 2023Time:1:30 pm - 2:30 pmClick here to viewDescription:Workshop presenters, Renee Brown, Suchitra Webster, and Erin Kramer will share data and information about student democratic engagement and the student voting landscape at Michigan State University (MSU). This workshop has been designed for those who are interested in effectively integrating democratic engagement strategies in their teaching or program. Presenters will share tools for increasing and improving democratic dialogue, syllabus design, and student civic skills building. This workshop will offer a comprehensive overview of the MSU National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE) Reports. NSLVE is the first and only study to objectively examine student and institution-level data on student voting and to share these data with participating campuses. There are more than 1,200 participating campuses and over 10 million student records included in this study. The NSLVE Study is produced by the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University. The presenters will highlight opportunities for continuing to improve student voting and engagement. Opportunities for connecting to the MSU Campus Plan for Democratic Engagement (a part of the NASPA Voter Friendly Campus Designation held by MSU since the designation inception) will be shared. Input and partners will be sought for the first Annual MSU Civic Skills Conference planned for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Authored by: Renee Brown
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
SOIREE on Student to student interactions & engagement
Student to student interactions are a very important part in any classroom and the online setting is no exception. There are many ways students can engage with each other online - but here a few tips and suggestions you can structure in your course that can offer this connection between students.
Methods
Discussions
Group Work
Group Projects
Group Discussion
Study Groups
Group Case Studies
Peer Review
Peer Instruction
Collaborative Brainstorming
Tools
D2L Discussion Threads. Students need to be able to connect with classmates around your teaching. Provide them with discussion threads for both the entire class "i.e. General Course Conversation" and module-specific. Some students can and will use this tool. Others will only use it if it's required. But it still is a great way to be able to provide students opportunity to connect.
Microsoft Teams. Every student at MSU can use Teams for realtime group chat, individual chat, voice and video and file sharing.
Zoom. Every student by default is able to use Zoom for voice/video/meetings.
Google Apps: Docs, Slides, Sheets. Students can work together to create and work on files in real time.
Dip Deeper
If you would like to further explore this topic, here are some resources you could check out:
10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions
Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation Resource Guide
Zoom Breakout Room Information Sheet
SOIREE Team:
Design Lead: Sarah Wellman
Content Leads: Kate Sonka, Stephen Thomas, and Jeremy Van Hof
Content Authors: Jason Archer, Kevin Henley, David Howe, Summer Issawi, Leslie Johnson, Rashad Muhammad, Nick Noel, Candace Robertson, Scott Schopieray, Jessica Sender, Daniel Trego, Valeta Wensloff, and Sue Halick
Methods
Discussions
Group Work
Group Projects
Group Discussion
Study Groups
Group Case Studies
Peer Review
Peer Instruction
Collaborative Brainstorming
Tools
D2L Discussion Threads. Students need to be able to connect with classmates around your teaching. Provide them with discussion threads for both the entire class "i.e. General Course Conversation" and module-specific. Some students can and will use this tool. Others will only use it if it's required. But it still is a great way to be able to provide students opportunity to connect.
Microsoft Teams. Every student at MSU can use Teams for realtime group chat, individual chat, voice and video and file sharing.
Zoom. Every student by default is able to use Zoom for voice/video/meetings.
Google Apps: Docs, Slides, Sheets. Students can work together to create and work on files in real time.
Dip Deeper
If you would like to further explore this topic, here are some resources you could check out:
10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions
Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation Resource Guide
Zoom Breakout Room Information Sheet
SOIREE Team:
Design Lead: Sarah Wellman
Content Leads: Kate Sonka, Stephen Thomas, and Jeremy Van Hof
Content Authors: Jason Archer, Kevin Henley, David Howe, Summer Issawi, Leslie Johnson, Rashad Muhammad, Nick Noel, Candace Robertson, Scott Schopieray, Jessica Sender, Daniel Trego, Valeta Wensloff, and Sue Halick
Authored by: SOIREE Team
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Creativity and Student Engagement in a Virtual Space
Topic Area: Pandemic Pivot
Presented by: Carrie Hauser
Abstract:
COVID unexpectedly challenged us all to truly assess the needs of our students, what it means to have a campus environment, and how to develop that in a virtual space. The Michigan School of Psychology (MSP), a small graduate program in Farmington Hills, is known for having a very personal and connected environment. Faculty and staff know almost the entire campus by name and students are truly invested in each other’s lives. When the school changed to remote teaching in March, 2020, the Student Engagement Office went to work to figure out how to offer anything virtual that would create that same feeling of care and nurture that the campus typically provided. This presentation will discuss how MSP developed an online supportive culture, how student needs were assessed, and how creativity helped save the day. It will also cover programming ideas for faculty and staff members that can be implemented at all types of institutions and how to remain creative with programming in the face of adversity. The presentation will finally discuss how COVID will impact the future of student programming.
Session Resources:A PDF of Carrie's presentation can be accessed here.
Presented by: Carrie Hauser
Abstract:
COVID unexpectedly challenged us all to truly assess the needs of our students, what it means to have a campus environment, and how to develop that in a virtual space. The Michigan School of Psychology (MSP), a small graduate program in Farmington Hills, is known for having a very personal and connected environment. Faculty and staff know almost the entire campus by name and students are truly invested in each other’s lives. When the school changed to remote teaching in March, 2020, the Student Engagement Office went to work to figure out how to offer anything virtual that would create that same feeling of care and nurture that the campus typically provided. This presentation will discuss how MSP developed an online supportive culture, how student needs were assessed, and how creativity helped save the day. It will also cover programming ideas for faculty and staff members that can be implemented at all types of institutions and how to remain creative with programming in the face of adversity. The presentation will finally discuss how COVID will impact the future of student programming.
Session Resources:A PDF of Carrie's presentation can be accessed here.
Authored by: Carrie Hauser
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Community of Inquiry
The Community of Inquiry framework proposed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archern (2000) identifies three dimensions to support a social constructivist model of learning. Research suggests that building these three dimensions into your course will help to support the learning experience for your students.
Cognitive Presence
Cognitive presence refers to the way your students might construct meaning in your course. This happens when they have the chance to be curious, explore, and have an "ah-ha" moment. You'll see this when they're able to connect and apply new ideas from the course. The important steps you'll need to take to support cognitive presence are to carefully select content for your course and support discourse. You can help to build this into your course by providing multiple opportunities for students to explore and engage with material that will help them to understand the big ideas. You can accomplish this in your course by providing different options for engaging with the content, such as reading texts, watching videos, and completing learning activities and various assessments.
Social Presence
Social presence refers to the way your students might present themselves to the class. This happens when students have opportunities to openly communicate in class, and are free to express emotions in a risk-free environment. To encourage this, you should support the discourse and set the climate for discussion. You can support this by providing opportunities for interaction and collaboration amongst students and by modeling the kinds of behaviors they should follow. You can accomplish this by asking students to introduce themselves, either in a live zoom meeting or on the course discussion board. Set parameters for students to engage in discussion in both the asynchronous and synchronous environments. For example, in a synchronous zoom meeting you might direct students to post in the chat to answer a question and set breakout rooms for students to engage with their peers. Or, you might direct students to complete an assignment in a small group, and direct them to use an asynchronous discussion board to chat and plan their assignment.
Teaching Presence
Teaching presence refers to your structure and process, including how you will provide direct instruction to your students and build understanding. This means selecting the content, identifying the topics for discussion, and keeping the discussion focused on those topics. It will also help if you set the social climate and provide clear instructions for how students should engage with and respond to these discussions. You can easily accomplish this with discussion forums related to course topics, with targeted discussion questions in your online course. What are some other ways you might accomplish this?
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T, & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87–105
"Community of Inquiry Model" by jrhode is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Cognitive Presence
Cognitive presence refers to the way your students might construct meaning in your course. This happens when they have the chance to be curious, explore, and have an "ah-ha" moment. You'll see this when they're able to connect and apply new ideas from the course. The important steps you'll need to take to support cognitive presence are to carefully select content for your course and support discourse. You can help to build this into your course by providing multiple opportunities for students to explore and engage with material that will help them to understand the big ideas. You can accomplish this in your course by providing different options for engaging with the content, such as reading texts, watching videos, and completing learning activities and various assessments.
Social Presence
Social presence refers to the way your students might present themselves to the class. This happens when students have opportunities to openly communicate in class, and are free to express emotions in a risk-free environment. To encourage this, you should support the discourse and set the climate for discussion. You can support this by providing opportunities for interaction and collaboration amongst students and by modeling the kinds of behaviors they should follow. You can accomplish this by asking students to introduce themselves, either in a live zoom meeting or on the course discussion board. Set parameters for students to engage in discussion in both the asynchronous and synchronous environments. For example, in a synchronous zoom meeting you might direct students to post in the chat to answer a question and set breakout rooms for students to engage with their peers. Or, you might direct students to complete an assignment in a small group, and direct them to use an asynchronous discussion board to chat and plan their assignment.
Teaching Presence
Teaching presence refers to your structure and process, including how you will provide direct instruction to your students and build understanding. This means selecting the content, identifying the topics for discussion, and keeping the discussion focused on those topics. It will also help if you set the social climate and provide clear instructions for how students should engage with and respond to these discussions. You can easily accomplish this with discussion forums related to course topics, with targeted discussion questions in your online course. What are some other ways you might accomplish this?
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T, & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87–105
"Community of Inquiry Model" by jrhode is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Authored by: Breana Yaklin
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: Teaching Toolkit Ta...
(Re)defining Student Engagement in Your Course
Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash
Defining Engagement
“Student engagement” is a popular term for describing optimal responses from students to their experiences in higher education: participating in class, using campus support services, and ultimately staying in school to finish a college degree. That’s why, for example, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) looks at a spectrum of “educationally purposeful activities” inside and outside of the classroom as they assess levels of student engagement across higher ed. Since we are most focused on what student engagement looks like in a classroom, we’ll dive in here, but also acknowledge that other forms of student engagement are important and very much connected to one another along a spectrum.
For the sake of our work in the classroom, we’ve found Great School Partnership’s Edglossary definition of student engagement most helpful: “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” Here we get a picture of students wanting to learn what is important in our disciplines and classes, successfully completing our course, and eventually completing a degree. But, as you can imagine, this classroom engagement looks different based upon your discipline, class, and overall learning outcomes. It also hinges on the relationships you build with students, between students, and in how you facilitate authentic opportunities for all of you to engage with the questions and challenges that actually drive your discipline.
(Re)defining Engagement in Your Class
Since we teach and learn across a variety of disciplines, with a variety of learning outcomes and discipline-driving questions, student engagement can take many forms. While there may be some similarities, engagement in an English class may look different than in a Science class, since our disciplines use different lens on the world and value making claims and meaning in different ways. We assess learning differently too. To begin the process of thinking about what student engagement does or could look like in your class, here are some questions to consider:
What are the key questions and challenges driving you and the work in your discipline? Why/how might students care about these questions and challenges with you?
What does a student, fully engaged in what matters in your discipline, and on their way to meeting the learning outcomes in your course, look like? What do they know? What do they do? How do you hope they’ll get there?
What multiple form(s) does/could “attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion” take in relation to what matters to students and your discipline? How could learning activities best facilitate this engagement? How will you know if these learning activities are facilitating this engagement?
Overall, how do you already teach in ways that support optimal student engagement with your discipline and class? In what areas do you want to grow?
These questions are starting points for you in beginning to identify key aspects of student engagement. These questions also begin to help you recognize what you’re already doing towards optimal student engagement as well as areas where you may want to grow. Hopefully, these questions raise awareness that leads to the student engagement you hope for towards your learning outcomes and overall success for students in and beyond your course.
Defining Engagement
“Student engagement” is a popular term for describing optimal responses from students to their experiences in higher education: participating in class, using campus support services, and ultimately staying in school to finish a college degree. That’s why, for example, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) looks at a spectrum of “educationally purposeful activities” inside and outside of the classroom as they assess levels of student engagement across higher ed. Since we are most focused on what student engagement looks like in a classroom, we’ll dive in here, but also acknowledge that other forms of student engagement are important and very much connected to one another along a spectrum.
For the sake of our work in the classroom, we’ve found Great School Partnership’s Edglossary definition of student engagement most helpful: “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” Here we get a picture of students wanting to learn what is important in our disciplines and classes, successfully completing our course, and eventually completing a degree. But, as you can imagine, this classroom engagement looks different based upon your discipline, class, and overall learning outcomes. It also hinges on the relationships you build with students, between students, and in how you facilitate authentic opportunities for all of you to engage with the questions and challenges that actually drive your discipline.
(Re)defining Engagement in Your Class
Since we teach and learn across a variety of disciplines, with a variety of learning outcomes and discipline-driving questions, student engagement can take many forms. While there may be some similarities, engagement in an English class may look different than in a Science class, since our disciplines use different lens on the world and value making claims and meaning in different ways. We assess learning differently too. To begin the process of thinking about what student engagement does or could look like in your class, here are some questions to consider:
What are the key questions and challenges driving you and the work in your discipline? Why/how might students care about these questions and challenges with you?
What does a student, fully engaged in what matters in your discipline, and on their way to meeting the learning outcomes in your course, look like? What do they know? What do they do? How do you hope they’ll get there?
What multiple form(s) does/could “attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion” take in relation to what matters to students and your discipline? How could learning activities best facilitate this engagement? How will you know if these learning activities are facilitating this engagement?
Overall, how do you already teach in ways that support optimal student engagement with your discipline and class? In what areas do you want to grow?
These questions are starting points for you in beginning to identify key aspects of student engagement. These questions also begin to help you recognize what you’re already doing towards optimal student engagement as well as areas where you may want to grow. Hopefully, these questions raise awareness that leads to the student engagement you hope for towards your learning outcomes and overall success for students in and beyond your course.
Authored by: Erik Skogsberg
Pedagogical Design
Posted on: #iteachmsu
Hello!
The MSU Department of Police and Public Safety is hosting a Community Cool Down event outside of the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility this Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 from 11:00am to 2:00pm. The event is open to all students, faculty, and staff and the goal is to provide a safe space and opportunity for the Spartan community to get energized ahead of the fall semester. There will be a DJ, yard games, cool treats, and more. We hope to see you there!
The MSU Department of Police and Public Safety is hosting a Community Cool Down event outside of the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility this Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 from 11:00am to 2:00pm. The event is open to all students, faculty, and staff and the goal is to provide a safe space and opportunity for the Spartan community to get energized ahead of the fall semester. There will be a DJ, yard games, cool treats, and more. We hope to see you there!
Posted by: Jaclyn M Sayen
Pedagogical Design
Host: CTLI
Boosting student engagement: Easy tactics and tools to connect in any modality
In this interactive session, two educational developers from MSU's Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation will demonstrate and lead participants through several easy ways to boost engagement in courses of any modality (synchronous in-person, blended, hybrid; asynchronous). Using zoom chat, google docs and slides, word clouds, D2L, and other MSU tech tools, we will focus on low-barrier ways that instructors can connect with students, help students connect with each other, organize whole-class or small-group brainstorms, and translate effective in-person activities for hybrid or online classrooms. Participants can share tactics that have worked in their own courses. The session will conclude with a QnA and connection to further MSU resources from the CTLI. No prior experience with these technologies is required.
The content in this workshop will be primarily targeted to classroom instructors and settings, but tools and strategies are relevant for adaptation and use by any educator in any context.
Photo by Stephen Harlan on Unsplash
Navigating Context
Host: CTLI
Community Engaged Learning In the Classroom: Rubrics, Reflections, and Resources
Date: Monday, November 13, 2023 from 9:30 - 11:00 AM
Location: Via Zoom
Registration Deadline: Friday, November 10, 2023
This session will discuss creative examples, strategies for grading, and best practices for leading students to reflect upon and make meaning of their community-engaged learning experiences. Hear from faculty peers, dialogue with colleagues, and leave with new ideas to enhance student learning and complement your teaching practices.
This workshop is hosted by the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) through MSU's office of University Outreach and Engagement. Community Engaged Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community partnerships with instruction and critical reflection to enrich the student learning experience, teach civic and social responsibility, and strengthen communities. CCEL is committed to supporting students, faculty/staff, and community partners in many ways.
Register for Community Engaged Learning In the Classroom: Rubrics, Reflections, and Resources by 12/05/23.
Navigating Context
Host: CTLI
Community Conversations: The Elements of Community Partnerships
Date: Monday, November 13, 2023 from 9:30 - 11:00 AM
Location: Via Zoom
Registration Deadline: Friday, November 10, 2023
This session will discuss elements of strong partnerships to effectively co-create community engaged learning opportunities for students. Hear examples of successful faculty/community partnerships, discuss considerations for initiating and sustaining partnerships, and explore resources to assist you in partnership development or enhancement.
This workshop is hosted by the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) through MSU's office of University Outreach and Engagement. Community Engaged Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community partnerships with instruction and critical reflection to enrich the student learning experience, teach civic and social responsibility, and strengthen communities. CCEL is committed to supporting students, faculty/staff, and community partners in many ways.
Register for Community Conversations: The Elements of Community Partnerships by 11/10/23.
Navigating Context
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