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Learning-Centered Teaching
It’s About Engagement
CETL Scholarly Teaching provides a robust set of professional development opportunities supporting the It’s About Engagement (IAE) initiative. This initiative aims to increase capacity at the university for High Impact Practices focused on three forms of experiential learning—undergraduate research, service-learning, and internships/co-ops. The initiative constitutes KSU’s 10-year Quality Enhancement Plan, which is mandated by SACSCOC for accreditation purposes. CETL was instrumental in the process to develop this initiative. Our role is now to support the faculty development arm of the initiative.
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CETL Scholarly Teaching’s programming for IAE is intended to boost and expand existing faculty capacity in designing and facilitating meaningful undergraduate research, servicelearning, and internships/co-op experiences for students.
2021 - 2022 PROGRAMMING ELEMENTS
• IAE Workshop series: Seven workshops per year on a 5-year plan • Six additional workshops targeting reflective practice for learning • Online resources for IAE course design • Custom programming on demand for colleges and other units • Engagement-focused individual consultations
FUNDED PROGRAMS
• Travel Grants to attend IAE-related conferences (not funded in 2021-2022 due to
COVID-19) • Three Faculty Learning Communities (year-long development opportunities) • Course ReDesign Institutes - This year, we offered a week-long Service-Learning
Course ReDesign Institute with 13 participants. We were able to fund (again) an additional institute focused on Undergraduate Research. • Reflection Ratings Norming Session (training sessions for faculty who score student reflection narratives to quantify learning in IAE courses) • Scholars for Reflective Practice in Learning Program (inaugural cohort with seven faculty completing all aspects of the program and four additional faculty fulfilling a subset of activities) The inaugural group of CETL Scholars for Reflective Practice in Learning began their work late last year developing a deeper understanding of the research and theory that supports reflective practices in learning. This year they extended that work, in collaboration with their IAE college liaisons, to develop custom supports and online resources for their colleges.
2021-2022 REFLECTIVE SCHOLARS
• Megan Adams - Bagwell College of Education • Sara Evans - Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences • Richard Halstead-Nussloch - College of Computing and Software Engineering • Ali Keyvanfar - College of Architecture and Construction Management • Rebecca Shi and Julianne Vega - College of Science and Mathematics • Kei Tomita - Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences
ATTENDEE FEEDBACK ON IAE WORKSHOPS
100
the Hi g hest Ratin g Percent of Respondents that Gave
80
60
40
20
0
15
01 02 03 04
Other Institutional and USG Teaching and Learning Initiatives
Beyond supporting individual educators and courses, CETL is proud to support college and university-wide initiatives that move KSU’s pedagogical agenda forward and align us with the priorities of the University System of Georgia. In addition to supporting KSU’s Quality Enhancement Plan, It’s About Engagement, which you can read about in the previous page, we have supported a number of other initiatives. Here are a few examples.
MOMENTUM UNIVERSITY AT THE USG
In summer of 2021, the University System of Georgia developed plans to create self-paced professional development courses for USG faculty on a variety of topics related to the Momentum Approach to student success. MomentumU@USG courses are written by faculty developers within the system who have expertise in the area the course supports. KSU CETL’s Hillary Steiner and Mandy McGrew were among the first group of eight selected as content developers for MomentumU@USG. Their courses on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and Inclusive Teaching, respectively, were the first two courses to be completed for this emerging program.
CHANCELLOR’S LEARNING SCHOLARS AT THE USG
The USG has just concluded a very ambitious, cross-institutional faculty development program, called the Chancellor’s Learning Scholars (CLS). The Scholars, nominated by each USG institution, underwent statewide training, then recruited other faculty on campus for a semester-long Faculty Learning Community on pedagogical issues. In the final year of this program, KSU had three Chancellor’s Learning Scholars. CETL is proud to have supported this system-wide program in two ways, by designing and delivering parts of the statewide training and by providing workshops for the Faculty Learning Communities.
CLS Name Department/School FLC Topic
SUSTAINABILITY FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH GEORGIA TECH
In the Fall of 2021, the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS) and the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Georgia Tech collaborated with Kennesaw State University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to facilitate a multi-institutional Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on teaching with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. CETL’s Educational Specialist Mandy McGrew, along with GeorgiaTech co-facilitators Carol Subiño Sullivan, assistant director for Faculty Teaching and Learning Initiatives with CTL, and Rebecca Watts Hull, a service-learning and partnerships specialist with SLS, supported five instructors at Georgia Tech and four at KSU in the integration of sustainable development practices in their courses. Members of the group then presented their work at the 2022 USG Teaching and Learning Conference in a workshop titled “From HIPs to SDGs: Why the UN Sustainable Development Goals should be in your course and how to get started.”
CETL FELLOWSHIP FOR ASSESSMENT IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE OFFICE OF CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT
CETL partnered with the office of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (CIA) to enhance the role of assessment on campus. We jointly designed a fellowship position housed in CETL but collaborating with CIA to support the integration of assessment practices with curriculum design and instruction at KSU. Following a successful search, Dr. Kim Cortes, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was appointed as the CETL Faculty Fellow for Assessment of Teaching and Learning. The vision for the position includes supporting the development of faculty and campus leaders who understand assessment as a comprehensive, integrated, scholarly teaching process and who can work across disciplines with other faculty on projects that build assessment skills and help them share data-driven stories of continuous improvement in teaching and learning.
The Inclusive Excellence initiative, spearheaded by the College of Science and Mathematics, is a 5-year $1,000,000 grant funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, focused on increasing retention and graduation rates across all groups of students. CETL is proud to support this initiative at various levels. The CETL Executive Director is a Co-PI on the grant and sits on the steering committee. In the trenches, CETL-Scholarly Teaching in partnership with the CSM Dean’s Office offers a yearlong Faculty Learning Community culminating in a Course Redesign Institute. This year, the faculty learning community transitioned to support course coordinators in a “train the trainer” model to expand potential impact.
In 2019, then-provost Kat Schwaig established Faculty Success as a unit within CETL to provide integrated faculty development in all areas of faculty professional life. So far, we have organized our work in 6 key areas:
• Onboarding
• Scholarship productivity
• Preparing for annual and multi-level reviews
• Community and well-being
• Leadership development
• Awards and funding
We approach this work as a team of formally trained professional coaches who work with faculty one-oneone and in groups to help them identify professional goals that draw upon their strengths and values, develop plans informed by the literature on educational and organizational development, and reflect on progress.
We are proud of the programs we adapted, expanded, and built this year, based on formal assessments of our units’ first two years. We piloted a hybrid New Faculty Orientation to adapt to the university’s evolving pandemic needs. We also piloted a second level of the Provost’s Faculty Leadership Program at the request of the provost. We expanded our Mutual Mentoring Groups and Faculty Success Coaching programs to advance the new Community pillar of the R2 Roadmap. We revamped the Tenure Faculty Enhancement Program to better support the Research pillar of the R2 Roadmap. We also returned for a second year as co-directors of the USG’s Leadership Developers Institute. Overall, our participation rates increased and participant satisfaction across programs was exceptionally high.
Onboarding
CETL supports the onboarding of new faculty and administrators through mutual mentoring groups and orientations. This year, we facilitated our second summer Online Orientation for New Chairs, Deans, and Directors. We learned from offering online orientations in the previous pandemic year that faculty appreciated the convenience of Online options for orientation. With this in mind, we responded to the call to return to campus by redesigning our Fall New Faculty Orientation (NFO) as a 3-day hybrid event with one day of face-to-face community building and teaching workshops, one day of Online concurrent sessions pertaining to logistics and resources, and a half-day of Online workshops regarding promotion and tenure and research. We also piloted two new programs, a condensed face-to-face Spring New Faculty Orientation and a Reflect, Connect, and Learn webinar series for Early Career Faculty.
In this area of focus, we were most proud to bring together a community of representatives of 35 units from across the university to accomplish our orientations’ goals, which were to, 1) help new faculty and administrators to develop an understanding of KSU’s mission and culture; 2) provide them with an overview of available resources and policies that can help them achieve their professional goals; 3) provide an opportunity for new faculty to complete essential onboarding activities in one place; 4) facilitate connections with faculty and staff across both campuses; and 5) lay the groundwork for an energizing, productive, and successful career at KSU.
Overall, the attendance and satisfaction ratings for the orientations were outstanding. The early career webinar series that we offered throughout the year did not attract enough registrants, so we look forward to redesigning our ongoing early career offerings next year. For details on how we support faculty at all career points, including early career, through Mutual Mentoring Groups (MMGs), see the MMG section of this report. Featured Speaker(s)
NEW FACULTY ORIENTATION FEATURED UNITS
• American Association of University
Profressors • Academic Affairs • Academic Affairs & Mathematics • Burruss Institute • Campus Services – Card Services,
Parking, Textbooks • CARE Services • Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning • Counseling and Psychological Services • Department of Career Planning and
Development • Department of Public Safety and
University Police • Digital Learning and Innovation • Division of Diverse and Inclusive
Excellence • Division of Global Affairs • Faculty Senate • Human Resources • Legal Affairs • Library System • Office of Research • Office of Sustainability • Office of the Ombudsman • Office of the President • Office of the Provost • Office of the Registrar • Office of Undergraduate Research • Part-Time Faculty Council • Student Athlete Student Success
Services • Student Conduct and Academic Integrity • Student Disability Services • Teacher Resource and Activity Center • Travel - Office of Fiscal Services • University Information Technology
Services
