One of our goals as a Center is to engage SU faculty in conversation around the deeper questions of academic practice, based on national and international research into higher education. Events are open to all SU faculty.
Please note: Two of the workshops below are tele-workshops organized by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). An SU host will facilitate a brief conversation at the end. Learn more about NCFDD.
Improving student performance by addressing student and teacher misconceptions about learning
LUNCHTIME WORKSHOP
Thu, Jan 15 | 12:30-1:50 | Student Center 160 | Lunch provided
Presented by Stephen Chew, PhD (Professor and chair of psychology at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama)
Co-sponsored by Student Academic Services, Housing and Residence Life, and University CORE.
This lunchtime presentation examines common misconceptions among both students and teachers that undermine student learning.
Students often overestimate their level of understanding, mistakenly believe they can multi-task effectively, and select poor learning strategies. Teachers often believe that student engagement, “active” learning, and struggle are critical to teaching effectiveness when these concepts have serious limitations.
In this session, our guest presenter will discuss and demonstrate some key cognitive principles that must be addressed for any pedagogy to be effective. Finally, he will describe a series of videos he has developed to help students learn to study effectively based on cognitive research.
Stephen L. Chew has been a professor and chair of psychology at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama since 1993. Trained as a cognitive psychologist, one of his primary research areas is the cognitive basis of effective teaching. Stephen was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 1998 as part of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). His research interests include the use of examples in teaching, the impact of cognitive load on learning, and the tenacious misconceptions that students bring with them into the classroom. He is the creator of a widely used series of YouTube videos for students on how to study effectively in college (http://www.samford.edu/how-to-study/).
Stephen was awarded the Buchanan Award for Classroom Teaching Excellence from Samford in 1999. In 2005, he received the Robert S. Daniel Teaching Excellence Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology as the outstanding teacher of psychology at four-year colleges and universities. He was named the 2011 Outstanding Master’s Universities and Colleges U.S. Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He regularly serves as a keynote speaker and workshop leader at conferences on teaching in general and on the teaching of psychology in particular.
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Classroom facilitation skills: Before, during, and after
HALF-DAY WORKSHOP
Tue, Jan 27 | 9:30-1:30 | Casey Commons | Lunch provided
OR
Wed, Jan 28 | 9:30-1:30 | Casey Commons | Lunch provided
Facilitated by Suzanne de Janasz (Thomas F. Gleed Chair of Business Administration, Albers School of Business & Economics)
Many professors have heard about faculty moving from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side,” eschewing the traditional lecture format in favor of more participative approaches to boost student learning. But how exactly do we put that idea into practice? What facilitation approaches might be most effective before, during, and after an interactive class session?
In this hands-on extended workshop, you will first engage in discussion on the art of classroom facilitation—a student-centered approach that involves relinquishing control and allowing class sessions to evolve naturally. And then you will have the opportunity to learn, practice, and receive feedback on your own facilitation skills using a highly experiential format.
This session provides you the chance to hone your classroom facilitation skills and to consider the benefits and challenges of being a facilitator as opposed to a lecturer.
Suzanne C. de Janasz, Ph.D. is the Thomas F. Gleed Endowed Chair of Business Administration at the Albers School. A former faculty member at IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland) and Fulbright scholar (Warsaw, Poland), Suzanne has taught leadership, negotiation, and organizational behavior to students and executives on five continents. Her research is focused on mentoring, careers, work-life balance, and leadership, and she blogs regularly for Huffington Post. Suzanne has also led numerous workshops on classroom facilitation in both North America and Europe.
In addition to working with various Seattle nonprofits, Suzanne regularly volunteers for HERA in London, helping equip formerly trafficked women with the skills and confidence to become entrepreneurs.
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A dialogue with Sherman Alexie: Creating inclusive environments for Native American students
CANDID CONVERSATION
Tue, Feb 3 | 4:00-5:30 | Faculty Lounge, 6th floor Lemieux Library | Appetizers & drinks provided
Co-sponsored by Dr. Christina Roberts, Program Director for Indigenous Initiatives at SU
As SU faculty consider various approaches to "Inclusive Excellence," we also need to consider inequities in student success and how to close achievement gaps by creating opportunities for underrepresented students. Recent literature about Native American student success in higher education points to the importance of maintaining familial connections and a student's ability to function bi-culturally.
So what resources do faculty need to make excellence inclusive of Native American, Alaska Native, and Indigenous students? How do we support these students toward success at Seattle University? Join local author Sherman Alexie in a candid conversation about working with Native American students.
** This event is now full to capacity. If you wish you be placed on the waiting list, please fill out the registration form. **
Intersections
RESEARCH SANDBOX
Fri, Feb 6 | 3:30–5:00 | Wismer Center (Loyola 400) | Appetizers & drinks provided
“Research sandboxes” are a chance for us as faculty to meet over drinks and appetizers to think creatively about our scholarship on a variety of topics that cross disciplinary boundaries.
Our focus for this session is “intersectionality” – that complex interaction of cultural, social, and biological categories that can lead to very different experiences of privilege, discrimination, and stereotyping, and that can be applied in many fields of study. Two specific examples of intersectional research to be shared at this event are:
- How do age and race impact career success? Studies have found (a) that minority executives ascended the corporate ladder later than their white counterparts, and (b) that in some industries, age is stereotyped such that older workers are less desirable, regardless of race. Few researchers have examined leadership opportunities and work experience at the intersection of race and age. Holly Ferraro (Management, Albers) sets out to do so.
- Seattle is a dynamic city that is lauded for its progressive politics and environmentally oriented population. However, these progressive politics also contribute to gentrification and marginalize and/or pathologize communities that are rendered abject. In 2010, Krista Comer, scholar of the American West, expressed that critical regionalism offers literary scholars an opportunity to consider contact zones and to theorize "the intersections of cultural imaginaries, everyday life, and structures of place-d feeling." Christina Roberts (English, Arts & Sciences) is building upon these ideas in her intersectional analysis of our shared city.
Whether intersectionality is a key theme of your own research, a new area you’re developing, or simply one you’d like to learn about and experiment with in conversation, please join us for a convivial and thought-provoking gathering.
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Atmospheric pressure? Post-sabbatical strategies for successful re-entry
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Wed, Feb 11 | 12:30–1:50 | Casey Commons | Lunch provided
Facilitated by Jacquelyn Miller
Academic transitions, such as re-entering university life after a sabbatical, are often times of uncertainty and stress for faculty. Returning to one's regular university routine following months of unscheduled freedom to focus on research, course redesign, and exploring new areas of interest can be jarring and sometimes daunting in terms of increased work expectations and social interactions with students and colleagues.
During this roundtable discussion, you will have an opportunity to reflect on this period of life and to share with others how you perceived your re-entry transition as well as offering some of the professional and personal strategies that enabled you to make this transition meaningful and productive. You’ll also be able to make suggestions about the kinds of pre- and post-sabbatical faculty development work that would ease your experience next time around.
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The art of saying no
NCFDD TELE-WORKSHOP
Tue, Feb 17 | 12:30–1:50 | Casey 517 | Lunch provided
NCFDD Facilitator: Kerry Ann Rockquemore
SU Hosts: David Green & Jacquelyn Miller
Are you confused about when to say "yes" and "no" to other people's requests? Do you often say "yes" to requests without realizing the impact that response will have on your time and productivity? Do you find yourself feeling angry and resentful during the academic year because you've said "yes" too often?
You're not alone! Many faculty (pre- and post-tenure) find it incredibly difficult to sort out when, why and how to say "NO." In this tele-workshop, you will learn:
- The biggest mistake faculty make in responding to requests
- How to identify and disrupt problematic patterns
- Our favorite strategies that you can implement immediately so you can add "no" to your vocabulary
Kerry Ann Rockquemore, PhD is President and CEO of the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity. She is the author of two important books as well as over two dozen articles and book chapters on multiracial youth. After becoming a tenured professor in sociology, her focus shifted to improving conditions for pre-tenure faculty by creating supportive communities for writing productivity and work/life balance. Her award-winning work with under-represented faculty led to the publication of her most recent book: The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure Without Losing Your Soul.
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Putting yourself on the map: Fulbright awards for international research or teaching
PANEL DISCUSSION
Wed, Feb 25 | 12:30–1:50 | Casey Commons | Lunch provided
Facilitated by Jacquelyn Miller
Co-sponsored by the Office of Global Engagement
If you are interested in international research and/or teaching opportunities, a Fulbright award is a good way to fund your academic work. At this event, a panel of three recent Fulbright award recipients will share their motives for applying for a Fulbright, insights into the application process, and tips on how to gain the most from your experience as a Fulbright ambassador as well as addressing questions from the audience.
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How to write proposals that get funded and papers that get cited
NCFDD TELE-WORKSHOP
Tue, Mar 3 | 12:30–1:50 | Hunthausen 110 | Lunch provided
NCFDD Facilitator: Joshua Schimel
SU Hosts: David Green & Jacquelyn Miller
Communicating in science is not just to tell us what you did and found, but to use that information to create new understanding-to tell a story about nature works. Writing science is about distilling the key messages and giving them to your readers so that the critical pieces are in the right places and are clear and compelling. In this workshop we will discuss how we adapt different "story structures" to different types of science writing-for example why the essence of a paper is the conclusions and so uses a structure that builds to the conclusions, while the essence of a proposal is the questions and so "if you haven't told them in first two pages, you haven't told them." We will work though examples illustrating how to frame the key pieces of a story: the opening, challenge, action, and resolution. I use concepts on writing and on being a writer from the best writers on writing, but adapt them to the unique challenges we face as working scientists trying to get our messages across in a world that is saturated with publications-how to write proposals that get funded and papers that get cited.
Dr. Joshua Schimel is Professor of Soil and Ecosystem Ecology at UC Santa Barbara. His scholarship focuses on how soil microbes drive ecosystem functioning, with major efforts in Arctic ecosystems and in California Mediterranean climate ecosystems. He is Chief Editor of Soil Biology & Biochemistry and has served on review panels for NSF, NASA, DOE, and other funding agencies. He is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. His long-term interest in science communication led to the publication of his manuscript, Writing Science: How to Write Papers that Get Cited and Proposals that Get Funded, published by Oxford University Press.
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