UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Teaching & Learning Collaborative

TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: TLC for Library Research

Could you (or your students) benefit from some TLC for library research? Reference librarians are available for Zoom or phone consultations to assist UP students, faculty, and staff with their research. Ask us questions about getting started, choosing the best places to search, creating an efficient search strategy, identifying relevant resources, organizing and managing your sources, or citing tricky sources.

To make an appointment to meet with a librarian, go to: http://library.up.edu/meet. Choose an online or phone appointment, then choose your preferred date and time from the online calendar. If the listed times don’t work for you (or for your students who may be in a different time zone), email refererence@up.edu to request an alternate meeting time. Lastly, fill out the brief form to tell us a little bit about you and your research question; both you and the librarian will receive an email confirming the appointment. We look forward to assisting you or your students with your research questions!

For more information contact Stephanie Michel, Clark Library, at x7418 or michel@up.edu.
 

TLC Tip of the Week: Ways to Take Care of Yourself

These days, creating a sustainable “work-life balance” feels as elusive as a unicorn, but it’s an absolute necessity to ensure you are still whole and healthy by the time we get to The Other Side of the pandemic. A recent article by Rebecca Pope-Ruark in Inside Higher Ed lays out several doable strategies for college teachers managing their own stress as they tend to the needs of their students, and is worth a read. If you only have five minutes, these four questions she poses may steer you in the direction of prioritizing your own well-being:

  • What fills your cup and gives you energy? What can you do from home to recreate these energizing activities or moments?
  • How might you design a morning routine that eases you into work at the start of your day and an afternoon ritualthat shuts down your workday?
  • What activities can you plan for the times you are “off the clock” (for example, taking a walk, doing a puzzle or paint-by-number, playing a game with your children)?
  • What can you not do? What can you put on hold for the time being so that you can focus on priorities and well-being?

If you have a favorite tip for taking care of yourself in these oddest of days, the Teaching & Learning Collaborative is all ears, and happy to compile a treasure chest full of these lifesaving nuggets. Send your shareable tip(s) to Karen Eifler, eifler@up.edu.

 

TLC Tip of the Week: The Mindset of the Class of 2024

This is not so much a teaching tip as a snapshot of our incoming first year students. For years, Beloit College published a list of things first-year students had ALWAYS and NEVER known, to provide instructors with historical touchstones, and help us avoid making embarrassingly out-of-date pop culture references in class. The operation moved to Marist College last year and is now known as the Marist Mindset. Some highlights of this year’s list:

  • The Class of 2024 will explore race relations beyond Black Lives Matter, to grasp how Whiteness has shaped bias and influence in American culture today
  • The Harry Potter series has been banned somewhere in the US their entire lifetime
  • The necessity of personal protective equipment (PPE) will inform fashion trends for the next couple of seasons
  • They are keenly aware of major threats to the health of our society created by a global pandemic and global climate crisis, but the value and veracity of science in our national dialogue is increasingly questioned.

For this year’s full Marist Mindset list, click this link.

TLC From The TLC: Teaching Tip Of The Week

The Teaching and Learning Collaborative (TLC) would like to share a teaching tip of the week with a video reflection on “What is the Core of a UP education?” (as a follow-up on the Core curriculum revitalization). For past TLC teaching tips of the week see the Teaching and Learning Hub, which also has a list of other brief teaching related videos from UP faculty for anyone looking for collegial ideas and inspiration.

Core Matters: Fine Arts, History, and Math

Three new essays have been posted on the Teaching & Learning site as part of the Core Matters series, which offer richly thoughtful explanations of the role each discipline plays in our University core curriculum. Learn about a discipline you might not yet have pondered: Nicole Leupp Hanig and Mead Hunter discuss Fine Arts 207; Brad Franco explores history; and Stephanie Salomone explains the role of mathematics.

Previous essays have covered literature, environmental science, chemistry, and psychology.

TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Managing YOUR Stress as a College Instructor

The “UP Way” of being here for our students is unparalleled. Done with our whole minds, hearts and souls, it can also take quite a toll on us as teachers. As we head into the amazing perk of Christmas Break, the Tweet version of this TLC teaching tip is TAKE THE BREAK! The longer version is available in this brief article from the American Psychological Association. You’ve been told countless times on airplanes to put on your own oxygen mask before trying to help others. That goes for college instructors too! These are the 10 tips suggested by the APA:

  • Eliminate as many stressors as possible, and it’s almost always possible to stay away from campus for a few days, go email-free for hours at a time.
  • Cultivate social support. Swap meals with a friend so you each get a night off from cooking. Say yes to an invitation or two to enjoy a cup of coffee or happy hour.
  • Seek good nutrition: no particular diet is required here; just aim for a rainbow of colors on your plate. Maybe the long break gives you a chance to try new recipes or restaurants your can’t in the bustle of the semester.
  • Relax your muscles through stretches, a warm bath, a massage, etc. when the rest of the world is working.
  • Meditate, pray, be mindful of a given moment. Light a candle and allow yourself to be taken into its bright flame.
  • Flex your muscles. A brisk walk to enjoy the lights in your neighborhood, perhaps? The research on the link between moderate enjoyable physical movement and de-stressing is unambiguous.
  • Protect your sleep. Just do it. Seriously.
  • Get out in nature. This one combines several other suggestions on this list, and we live in a part of the world where we are spoiled with choices on natural areas to enjoy.
  • Choose your own pleasurable activities and do them. Sing along to holiday songs while driving, binge-watch The Crown, savor a novel, paint some pottery.
  • Reframe your thinking. If you feel yourself spiraling into imagining worst-case scenarios, stop and put your mind elsewhere. Set realistic expectations for yourself. Strive for acceptance of situations outside of your control. Here’s a novel way to disrupt harmful mental loops: alphabetize your favorite books or spice rack in your head.

You know this! None of these are rocket surgery, and it’s quite likely you dispense similar advice to your students when they are anxious. Take your own sage advice; you are every bit as important as those worthy young souls you tend so conscientiously.

For more information contact Karen Eilfer at eifler@up.edu.

TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Helping Students Get More Out of Group Assignments

In this  6-minute IGNITE-funded video, Naveen Gudigantala of the Pamplin School of Business Administration offers portable ideas for helping students learn more from group work. He also offers tips on avoiding common pitfalls of student collaborations.

For more information, contact Karen Eifler at eifler@up.edu.

A Conversation on Why Pronouns Matter, Oct. 2

On Wednesday, October 2, all are invited to bring a lunch and explore the background of why so many syllabi and email signatures include ‘his/him,’ ‘she/her,’ or ‘they/their.’ The Teaching & Learning Collaborative will host a brownbag lunch conversation around the question “Why do pronouns matter?” in the Murphy Room from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The conversation will be facilitated by Alice Gates, social work, who will provide a bit of input and then offer vignettes and dilemmas for further consideration by the group. No universal answers are promised, but a better understanding of why what people choose to call themselves matters may emerge from this session.

Email Karen Eifler (eifler@up.edu) if you have logistical questions about this very informal gathering.

TLC from The TLC: Cultivating World Citizenship

UP aims to cultivate world-citizenship in its students; are faculty up to the task?  In this week’s Teaching & Learning submission, Lars Larson reviews the book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things are Better Than you Think that can help orient our global imaginations more accurately.

For more information contact Larson at larson@up.edu.

Untethered Lecture Capture Workshop, April 3

The Teaching & Learning Collaborative will host one more peer-led workshop from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3, in the Murphy Room of Franz Hall. Come hear Carolyn James, mathematics; Jeffrey White, Learning Commons; Rebecca Smith, education; and Lorretta Krautscheid, nursing, offer tips and pitfalls of the newly popular approach to teaching content-heavy courses, dubbed “untethered lecture capture.” Bring your lunch and find out why this strategy has captured so many teachers’ attention and what users wish they had known before they started with ULC.

For more information contact Karen Eifler, Garaventa Center, at eifler@up.edu.