UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

TLC from the TLC

TLC From The TLC: Collaborative Learning Techniques, More

The shift to remote courses has given us the opportunity to revisit how we support student learning in our classes and other academic learning assistance programs. In this TLC blog entry, Jeffrey White shares collaborative learning techniques and learning strategies that peer-assisted learning facilitators deploy in the Learning Commons new PAL program. These same techniques and strategies have long been used in teaching and can support online learning, engagement, and interaction in the classes we teach.

TLC Tip of the Week: Difficult Conversations and Liberal Arts Ideals

During a challenging time in a challenging year many of us may be having difficult conversations in the classroom (or in other spaces). While there is no magic formula for making those conversations into constructive educational opportunities, there are lots of possible recipes. With suggestions and links to resources, this week’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative Tip of the Week takes the form of a Teaching and Learning – Core Matters blog post by core director and psychological sciences professor Andrew Guest offering ideas about connecting difficult conversations, and these challenging times, to educational opportunities in the spirit of the liberal arts.

TLC From The TLC: Literary Thoughts for Covidian Times

As the distanced Fall 2020 semester enters its eleventh week, the spirits of UP professors may be low. For this week’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative post, Lars Larson offers this link of quotations drawn from literature for reflecting on our aims and our selves.

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

TLC From The TLC: Trauma-Informed Teaching Resources

Most of us are spending more time on camera than ever before, while teaching and learning via Zoom and other platforms. According to Melanie Gangle, accessible educational services, many students, both with and without disabilities, are experiencing significant difficulties remaining on-camera for the entire duration of live class meetings. This can be due to issues ranging from distractibility, to anxiety, to trauma, to self-consciousness (of a humble/insecure home, disruptive family members, etc.). These difficulties interfere with student engagement and content learning.  Since the remote format of courses this semester is a necessity, not a choice, please consider making allowances for the difficulties this format creates for many students.

This article by Karen Costa, an independent faculty development facilitator, provides contextual information about trauma-informed teaching and then provides simple, concrete examples of practices that support student engagement without requiring cameras to be turned on.

Interested in further resources on trauma-informed teaching during the pandemic?  The Chronicle of Higher Education compiled resources this summer that are still relevant. Find them at this link.

I offer the above resources in the context of tremendous gratitude for the excellent teaching and ongoing support you provide for students, in so many ways, every day. If you have questions or would like to discuss further, please contact me at gangle@up.edu.

TLC From The TLC: Learning Commons’ New PAL Program

While faculty across the country plan courses, teach, and meet with students during office hours, there are nationally thriving peer-assisted learning communities of practice from which educators can learn or revisit approaches for engaging students in higher education. Learning Commons director Jeffrey White shares the first of a two-part series on how the Learning Commons’ new PAL program can inform us as we interact with students and learning in virtual environments and plan for an eventual return to face-to-face teaching and learning. See this link for more.
For more information contact the Learning Commons at white@up.edu.

TLC From The TLC: Accessible Education Services Resources

Does it seem like you have more students in your classes who have an Accessible Education Services (AES) accommodation plan?  Your intuition is correct, and it’s not just you, according to AES manager Melanie Gangle. Accessible Education Services is experiencing slow but steady growth, and is currently serving over 350 students with disabilities. This equals about 8.5 percent of the student population, and the vast majority of these students experience a non-apparent disability. The following resources and tips from AES are designed to support faculty in facilitating accommodations and accessibility in your teaching.

Did you know that Accessible Education Services has a Faculty Toolbox in PilotsUP for faculty regarding AES accommodations for students? Here you will find information on faculty responsibilities regarding accommodations, as well as tips on facilitating accommodations working with students with specific types of disabilities.

Are you looking for more general resources to support student learning in your course? Given the nation-wide growth in clinically significant anxiety and depression among college students, Kristel Gallagher and Shevaun Stocker developed a Guide to Incorporating Social-Emotional Learning in the College Classroom, which features a curriculum containing short weekly activities for students to complete outside of class  (apart from an initial activity for the first class day), suitable for adapting and adding to any course curriculum. These activities are based on exercises from the Greater Good in Science Center’s website, based at UC Berkeley.

Do you have questions about accommodations for a specific student in your class? Please reach out to Gangle at gangle@up.edu, or Susan Ayres, AES access counselor, at ayres@up.edu for information and technical assistance regarding student-related accommodation questions.

TLC Tip of the Week: Meet With a Librarian

Could students in your classes use some extra assistance with finding good sources for their papers or presentations? Or maybe you would appreciate some literature searching leads for your own research project.  Make an appointment using this link to meet with a librarian!  Appointments are a great way for you or your students to get personalized and focused assistance with a research question. Librarians assist with questions about any aspect of the research process, including: defining a topic, choosing the best places to search, creating effective search strategies, narrowing searches, evaluating sources, accessing full text, and citing sources.

Use the online Make an Appointment system (linked from Get Help/Contact Us and many other library web pages) to see the availability of reference librarians. All the librarians assist with questions in any subject area, or use the blue “i” icon to identify and select a librarian who specializes in your discipline. Next, choose a date and time that works for you, and then fill out a brief form to tell us about your research question. After submitting the form, the appointment is automatically added to the librarian’s calendar, and both you and the librarian will receive an email confirmation.

For more information about the library’s meet with a librarian service, please contact Stephanie Michel (michel@up.edu, x7418). We hope to meet with you or your students soon!

TLC From The TLC: Welcome To The Study

When students come to the Learning Commons for content tutoring, they often could use more work on how to study in general as well as the content area. How one approaches studying in one discipline varies from other disciplines, and how one approaches studying often impacts the grade earned by a student. The Learning Commons is launching a new pilot program to support students’ metacognitive approaches to studying. You can learn more about the program at this link.