Intentional Teaching:
Active, Multimodal, Engaged
Thursday, January 18th, 2024
The Office of Faculty Development, CITS Instructional Development, and Online and Continuing Education have partnered with colleagues from across campus to host a full-day, on-campus conference. Join us to…
- discover new assessment and engagement methods.
- network with your peers from across campus.
- showcase innovative teaching and learning practices taking place at UMass Dartmouth.
A light breakfast and lunch are included with registration.
Conference Agenda:
8:00 am – Check-in & Complimentary Breakfast
Charlton College of Business Lobby
8:45 am – Welcome Remarks
CCB 149
Jay Zysk, Director, Office of Faculty Development
Keri Green, Director of Instructional Technology
9:00 am – Concurrent Sessions
Faculty Learning Communities at UMass Dartmouth: Learning from Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
CCB 149
Serra Fels, Caroline Gelmi, Katie Krafft
This session will reflect on the lessons learned by faculty that participated in the 2022-23 Faculty Learning Community, and on the different benefits and opportunities that faculty learning communities provide to participants. There are often few opportunities for faculty to experience and learn from each other’s classrooms and pedagogies outside of formal observations, and Faculty Learning Communities offer a chance to visit colleagues’ classrooms for solely reflective and enjoyable purposes. The discussions and reflections that arise from such exchanges can be transformative for our teaching, for our sense of community on campus, and for our ongoing experiments with new approaches to teaching and learning. The Faculty Learning Community will run again in Spring 2024, and so part of this session will be devoted to collectively discussing further creative approaches to faculty learning community activities and possibilities.
Voices on the Other Side: Student Perspective on Teaching and Learning
CCB 247
Thomas Hertweck and student presenters
A panel of current students from a variety of disciplines will share their experiences as users of our teaching and learning innovations, as well as provide vantages on the many challenges facing students today to help faculty mold course design and efficacy—to the betterment of both constituencies.
Integrating Mind-mapping in Teaching and Learning to Build Meta-cognitive Skills
CCB 248
Uloma Onubogu
Mapping can be a powerful innovative teaching tool involving a graphical representation of ideas and concepts organized around a central theme or topic. It helps learners of various subjects and disciplines enhance visualization and understanding of complex concepts, relationships, and data. Mind mapping can be effectively utilized in all teaching and learning environments, including online. Mind mapping is effective for building metacognitive learning skills, empowering students to take control of their learning, and achieving a deeper understanding of learning content. Mind mapping promotes learning success through enhanced creativity, active engagement, critical thinking, and memory retrieval. It can also foster positive learning outcomes through collaborative learning, reflective practice, and use as a study tool, Integrating mind mapping into educational and instructional practices can enhance the overall learning experience for students.
Artificial Intelligence and Generative Artificial Intelligence
CCB 340
Eiichiro Kazumori
Generative TA: Ensembles of (Quasi) Multi-modal Large Language Models For Practice Questions and Exams
Developing practice and exam questions are crucial elements in effective learning for students. They are essential tools for reinforcing learning, allowing students to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios. This application aids in solidifying understanding and improving retention. Nevertheless, the current method of homework and exams faces significant issues. First, traditional assignment problems are increasingly compromised by the proliferation of online resource-sharing websites. These platforms provide students with easy access to solutions, enabling them to complete assignments without fully engaging with the material. Second, advanced A.I. tools like ChatGPT have further exacerbated this challenge. Students can now input homework and exam questions into these A.I. models and receive detailed answers, bypassing the learning process. This reliance on external aids undermines the integrity of academic assessments and hinders the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential in academic and professional settings. A novel method of generating homework and exam questions using an ensemble of (Quasi) Multi-modal Large Language Models will be presented.
Yi Liu
On the Integration of Generative AI in Student Learning: A ChatGPT Case Study in Software Engineering Education
This study investigates the feasibility of applying generative AI, specifically ChatGPT, to the student learning process. Focused in the context of a software engineering class, a case study explores ChatGPT as a tool for problem clarification, modeling assistance, system design feedback, and implementation support in a project on modeling, designing, and implementing a solution using finite state processes and concurrent programming in Java. A survey designed for the case study collects insights into students’ experiences with ChatGPT at different stages of the project. Student feedback on using ChatGPT and their performance on the project are analyzed to understand the impact of generative AI on the learning outcomes. This pilot study serves as a foundational exploration of the feasibility of integrating generative AI in the student learning process, and its findings aim to potentially enhance the approach in further designing and expanding the incorporation of generative AI tools like ChatGPT in software engineering education.
10:00 am – Concurrent Sessions
Faculty Strategies for Dealing with Disruptive Behaviors
CCB 247
Kimberly Scott
Student behaviors have been increasingly challenging for faculty. Psychological distress/mental health, student accessibility/disability concerns, general student conduct, outbursts, threatening behavior, and a general lack of respect for faculty and students in class give pause to faculty who endeavor to create engaging and safe learning environments. This is also impacted by learning losses suffered during the pandemic. This workshop will explore trends in student behaviors and proactive steps faculty can take to manage challenging behaviors.
Panel Session on Blended Teaching and Learning
CCB 340
Caroline Gelmi
Designing Interactive Lectures for Blended Learning
Learn how to use Perusall, a digital annotation tool, to create interactive lectures for blended courses. Digital interactive lectures make space for substantive student commentary and analysis and can produce more robust conversation than traditional face-to-face lectures. They can also be used to effectively bridge the online and face-to-face portions of a blended course and to help students understand how the different elements of their coursework are connected. This presentation will cover advice on how to design interactive lectures and how to use Perusall to create them.
Elisabeth Arruda, Catherine Villanueva Gardner, Kristen Abatsis McHenry
Intentional Uses of Instructional Technology for Blended Learning
Join us to consider the creative, intentional, and inclusive uses of instructional technology. A consideration of interdisciplinary uses of instructional technology in blended learning. Kristen will showcase Creating Inclusive Assignments using Padlets in Interdisciplinary Courses. Catherine will discuss Sound and Inclusivity. Elisabeth will offer Collaborate and Elevate: Transformative Formative Assessments.
Session Materials:
Collaborate and Elevate
Sound and Inclusion
11:00 am – Concurrent Sessions
Mentoring Undergraduate Students for Research
CCB 149
Vijaya Chalivendra, Tracie Ferreira, Michael Sheriff
The topics for the discussion include advising vs. mentoring; the roles and responsibilities of a mentor; strategies for successful mentoring; and addressing challenges in mentoring.
A Multidisciplinary Team-Based Approach to Addressing Climate Change in Fall River
CCB 247
Stephanie, McGoldrick, Jonathan Mellor
Anthropogenic climate change is already seriously impacting communities around the world through higher temperatures, stronger storms, and more variable weather patterns. These impacts are predicted to increase especially in the coastal communities of New England. Solutions to the challenges will require engineers and designers in New England to work alongside city officials to develop infrastructure that is resilient to climate extremes while also providing economic development. Traditionally, our engineering and interior architecture students have had little chance to work in multidisciplinary teams on real-life projects – a critical skill they will need to develop as they transition to the workforce. To address this need, we developed and co-taught two independent service-learning courses (CEN 460/560 and IAD 401) which collaborated on a novel service-learning design project for the City of Fall River. The culmination of the class will be their formal presentations at the Fall River Government Center on December 13, 2023. Project outcomes, successes and challenges, and feedback from student reflection essays will be shared during this session. Students’ work will also be shared to highlight the impressive designs that they have created through this experience.
Gamification in Teaching and Learning with Kahoot!
CCB 248
Julie Bowman, Firas Khatib, and Instructional Development
Have you heard UMass has a license with Kahoot!? Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share, and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes! In this session, you will hear from two faculty who have integrated Kahoot! and gamification into their courses and how it has impacted their teaching and student engagement.
12:00 pm – Chancellor’s Remarks & Complimentary Lunch
Chancellor Mark Fuller
Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room
12:30 pm – Keynote
Intentional Tech: Principles and Practices for Student Engagement
Dr. Derek Bruff
Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room
Session Description:
As technologies, teaching modalities, and students change, navigating those changes can pose new challenges and new opportunities for faculty and other instructors. In this session, we’ll explore several teaching principles for guiding our use of educational technology, principles that can help us make intentional and effective use of technology to foster student engagement and deep learning.
Speaker Biography:
Derek Bruff is an educator, author, and higher education consultant. He directed the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching for more than a decade, where he helped faculty and other instructors develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching. Bruff consults regularly with faculty and administrators across higher education on issues of teaching, learning, and faculty development. Bruff has written two books, Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching (West Virginia University Press, 2019) and Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009). He writes a weekly newsletter called Intentional Teaching and produces the Intentional Teaching podcast. Bruff has a Ph.D. in mathematics and has taught math courses at Vanderbilt and Harvard University.
Learn more on Derek’s website.
2:00 pm – Provost’s Closing Remarks
Provost/Vice Chancellor, Ramprasad Balasubramanian
Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room
Conference Sponsors
Please email us at tlconference@umassd.edu with any conference-related questions.