Commonwealth Connections: Instructor Days

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

In this session, attendees will learn activities, strategies, and suggestions for strengthening student engagement with learning through real life application of concepts. The focus will be on examples from economics and supply chain courses, and will include online resources and ideas for partnering with local businesses.

Presented By:

• Dr. Zelhia Ozdogan – Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics, School of Business Administration, Harrisburg
• Mark Capofari – Lecturer, Project and Supply Chain Management, Lehigh Valley

Facilitator: Laura Ramp

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

What can a grade convey? In our classes, we track student proficiency in each course learning objective and allow students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of each objective. This gives students the chance to continue working on skills past traditional deadlines such as exam dates, and it gives instructors more detailed information about student progress. We will discuss how we have implemented these alternative grading techniques in our math courses, ways to test-drive these techniques in a traditionally graded course, and how to build learning objectives and track student progress using Canvas.

Presented By:

• Dr. Kristen Pueschel – Assistant Teaching Professor of Mathematics, New Kensington
• Gabe Kramer – Lecturer of Mathematics, Behrend

Facilitator: Kim Wick

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room C

Join us to learn how instructors enliven their course content by adopting elements of gamification (game-based learning) and other strategies to their course design. You will learn how instructors revamped their courses to include game-like content including: 1. “Choose your own adventure,” where students must collect points by completing work from a menu of assignment choices 2. Redeveloping an entire course to model a popular game platform 3. Using an escape room model to engage students in content and problem-solving in a fun and interactive way

Presented By:

• Dr. Tammy d’Artenay – Associate Teaching Professor and Adviser, Biology, Shenango
• Dr. Lara LaDage – Associate Professor, Biology, Altoona
• Jessica Saalfield – Assistant Professor, Psychology, Schuylkill

Facilitator: Kellen Sines

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room D

The cost of course materials greatly impacts our students and their opportunities for learning given their limited resources. This presentation will include the OER and Creative Commons as well as many other examples for replacing course materials with free or more affordable student options. Most importantly, we will announce the new initiative to “pledge” a commitment to organically spreading this initiative, actively engaging in the process, and identifying this issue as a priority on our campus. The pledge will be hosted on a PSUGA site and faculty will encourage others to participate through social media and other event avenues. Lastly, we will engage in a collective conversation across campuses to address efforts by others and a path for future Open Educational Resources (OER) as a Tool for Inclusivity across the Commonwealth Campuses.

Presented By:

• Dr. Jennifer Breese – Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity, Greater Allegheny
• Larry Dupak – Lecturer, Information Sciences and Technology, Greater Allegheny
• Andrew Marshall – Reference & Instruction Librarian, Greater Allegheny
• Bryan McGeary – Learning Design and Open Education Engagement Librarian, Greater Allegheny

Facilitator: Allain Daigle

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

To enhance student ownership over their learning experience, students evaluated their own learning processes and had a voice in decisions related to course design and delivery. Whenever possible, changes recommended by a majority of students were implemented and evaluated for their impact on student learning.

Presented By:

• Kurt Lindboom-Broberg – Lecturer, Biology, New Kensington
• James Laurie – Assistant Teaching Professor of Business, Berks

Facilitator: Amanda Price

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

This session will explore solutions allowing students to receive helpful feedback to homework, quizzes, and exams while minimizing academic dishonesty by looking at 2 tools: MyOpenMath and Gradescope. MyOpenMath is an open source tool to deliver online interactive content to students. It has an integration with the Canvas gradebook. Gradescope, also integrated with Canvas, is a tool that helps instructors grade problem sets and other assignments more quickly and consistently while still allowing for detailed feedback.

Presented By:

• Kimberly Schultz – Lecturer, Mathematics, Brandywine
• Dr. Nasibeh Zohrabi – Assistant Professor, Engineering, Brandywine

Facilitator: Matthew Bodek

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room C

Adapting our classrooms to the needs of our students is an important aspect of good teaching and learning. In this session, you will hear about strategies to address the dynamic needs of students coming out of pandemic teaching and techniques that benefit all students through Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Through a variety of carefully planned approaches, we have designed experiences to meet students where they are and set them up for success.

Presented By:

• Darlene Young – Instructor, Mathematics, Schuylkill
• Nicole Moschberger – Education Program Associate, Continuing Education, Lehigh Valley

Facilitator: Nathan Hollister

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room D

The presenters will share the formation of groups in diverse courses (one is capstone) and provide steps to help faculty from group formation, to assigning tasks, to individual and peer assessment, as well as best practices, learned from successfully operating teams in their courses.

Presented By:

• Dr. Parhum Delgoshaei – Assistant Teaching Professor of Systems Engineering, Engineering, Great Valley
• Dr. Hessam Taherian – Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, Harrisburg

Facilitator: Robin Gill

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

This session will outline how two instructors revamped their grading processes for better student learning outcomes and more efficient grading by the instructors. Join us to learn how emphasizing student effort in grading rather than on accuracy helps students master high-level scientific reading and how students create graded videos sharing their process for solving chemistry problems.

Presented By:

• Dr. Ashley Russell – Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Behrend
• Mary A. Ritchey – Assistant Teaching Professor in Chemistry, York

Facilitator: Kellen Sines

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

Faculty play a critical role in student support. In this session, the presenters will share several strategies to take advantage of their unique opportunities to interact their students, helping their students boost self-confidence and develop a positive sense of belonging.

Presented By:

• Jodi Gill – Lecturer, Criminal Justice, Beaver
• Kendra Wolgast – Assistant Teaching Professor, Social Sciences, Mont Alto
• Carol Evans – Lecturer of Biology, Fayette

Facilitator: Daonian Liu

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room C

In this session, Dr. Petko and Dr. Powless will share their experiences using flipped classroom techniques to promote active learning in their courses. Both presenters found increases in student learning after employing student-centered approaches in biology and business courses. Join us to gain ideas of techniques to utilize for creating an engaging classroom environment for your students.

Presented By:

• Dr. Seth Powless – Assistant Teaching Professor of Business, Beaver
• Dr. Jessica Petko – Associate Professor of Biology, Science, York

Facilitator: Dani McCauley

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

This session will highlight two projects designed to enhance student learning through real-world, workplace applicable project-based instruction. During this session, you will learn more about how one instructor uses X-Culture to guide a semester-long experiential project that focuses on simulating team collaboration in a business context. Join us to learn about how another instructor partners with their local campus and community to provide students with clients to solve actual real-world, workplace problems in a business-like context.

Presented By:

• Lori Reno – Assistant Teaching Professor of Business, Hazelton
• Dr. William H. Johnson – Professor of Management, Business & Management, International Business, and MPM programs, Behrend

Facilitator: Kellen Sines

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

Student mental health is an increasing concern for college campuses to grapple with, especially post-COVID. Join this session to learn how two professors spearheaded the creation of a course called “Balancing Wellness.” This course combines kinesiology with creative writing, art, music and theater and the students studied the effect each on wellness. The course also features guest lecturers from across campus to enrich our lectures. Join us as we explain how we created the course, share student voices, and highlight course outcomes.

Presented By:

• Dr. Terri Stiles – Lecturer, English, Abington
• Stefani Abreu – Instructor, Kinesiology, Abington

Facilitator: Lindsay Wood

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room C

This session will explore the use of available communication channels to help students pinpoint the areas needed for improvement. It will discuss the use of rubrics and pre-crafted responses rather than typing these responses over and over.

Presented By:

• Dr. Dusan Ramljak – Assistant Teaching Professor of Information Science, Great Valley
• Dr. Thomas Kramer – Lecturer, Baccalaureate Business Program, Baccalaureate Project and Supply Chain Management Program, Mont Alto

Facilitator: Shirley Campbell and Matthew Bodek

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room D

This session will share our ideas and experiences with the integration of online and physical audiences in hybrid classes utilizing tools such as Zoom and Nearpod, and we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of the hybrid environment.

Presented By:

• Dr. Dan Mallinson – Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration, School of Public Affairs, Harrisburg
• Dr. Nonna Sorokina – Assistant Professor, Business, Scranton

Facilitator: Griff Lewis

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

Description coming soon.

Presented By:

• Natalya Vodopyanova – Assistant Teaching Professor, Corporate Communication, Wilkes Barre
• Jeannette Lang – Assistant Teaching Professor, English, Altoona

Facilitator: Kim Wick

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

Students may be hesitant to participate when topics feel controversial or sensitive to them. In this session, faculty members share how they have adopted adaptive strategies that encourage discussion by helping students feel comfortable and respected in the classroom.

Presented By:

• Nancy Funk – Assistant Professor, Integrative Arts, Mont Alto
• Raquel Lodeiro – Assistant Teaching Professor of Spanish, School of Humanities, Harrisburg

Facilitator: Sarah Kettell

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room C

In order to ensure that we are teaching all of our students and not just the ones who are like us, it is critical that we learn about and account for their diverse backgrounds. In this session, you will hear about ways to gather information about the demographics of your classes as well as methods for making your syllabus more inclusive. From these approaches, we have been able to develop classroom environments that are equity-minded and put students first.

Presented By:

• Jacquelyn Atkins – Assistant Teaching Professor, English & Women’s Studies, DuBois
• Dr. Denise Ogden – Professor, Marketing, Lehigh Valley

Facilitator: Nathan Hollister

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room A

Joshua Parcha and Lori Reno discuss and share examples of successful implementation of creative assessments in their courses and its benefits to students achieving learning objectives.

Presented By:

• Joshua Parcha –
  Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication, Corporate Communication, Hazelton
• Lori Reno – Assistant Teaching Professor of Business, Business, Hazelton

Facilitator: Susan Loy

Join on Zoom: Zoom Room B

This session will introduce collaborative group work that required students to get out of their seats and participate in problem-solving activities.

Presented By:

• Mary Ann Smith – Lecturer, Biology, Schuylkill
• Joan Smeltzer – Assistant Teaching Professor in Mathematics, Science, York

Facilitator: Julie Meyer