SET Archive

Jacob Brewer (Health, Human Performance, and Recreation)

Teresa Bachman (Physical Therapy) 

Jerilyn Callen (Occupational Therapy)    

Tuesday, February 6, 11:30am-12:30pm

Online Only

Online teaching brings many challenges and opportunities. Courses with synchronous components (instructor and student present together virtually at the same time) may seem like face-to-face courses simply transferred to the computer screen, but making the most of this format requires intentionality and willingness to try new things. In this session, a panel of recognized excellent online faculty will share their approaches to synchronous online teaching, exploring what works, what doesn’t, and why. 

Rebecca Flavin (Political Science)

Emily Hunt-Hinojosa (Office of Engaged Learning)

Tammy Adair (Biology)

Mona Choucair (English)

Jennifer Good (Modern Languages and Cultures) 

Friday, February 16, 1:30-2:30

Hybrid Event

In-person: Moody 104

Zoom link be sent to registrants

The College of Arts and Sciences is debuting a new Engaged Learning Core Requirement in the 2024-2025 academic year. Courses from any college or discipline are eligible to be part of the Engaged Learning Distribution List, which will feature courses that prepare Baylor students for worldwide leadership and service through learning that allows students to apply knowledge in spaces beyond the traditional classroom. Join members of the ATL and Baylor’s Office of Engaged Learning for this SET that will help faculty think about ways to transform learning objectives in traditional courses into engaged learning opportunities. 

Michelle Herridge (ATL)

Christopher Richmann (ATL)

Chloë Sells (ATL, Chemistry)

Hunter Kulesza (ATL, Higher Ed)

Tuesday, February 27, 2pm                                      

Hybrid Event

In-person: Moody 104

Zoom link be sent to registrants

With the advent of ChatGPT, artificial Intelligence has steamrolled into higher education. Instructor reactions have ranged from avoidance to prohibition to embrace. In addition to learning objectives, curriculum concerns, student abilities, and AI’s capabilities, pedagogical decisions and policies regarding AI should be also consider how students actually perceive and use AI. This session reports on a recent survey of Baylor undergraduates investigating their perceptions, use, and experiences with AI in coursework. Participants will learn under what conditions students view AI use as cheating, their reasons for using AI, their expectations of their instructors, and more.

Susan Blair (Occupational Therapy)

Tuesday, March 12, 2pm 

Hybrid Event

In-person: Moody 104

Zoom link be sent to registrants

This project sought to establish the effectiveness of an engaging and interactive online resource for faculty to integrate multigenerational awareness into classroom structure in face-to-face or hybrid environments. The presentation discusses the utilization of creative and engaging integrative learning resources such as generational interviews and opportunities for self-reflection to enable faculty to maximize multigenerational collaboration and communication. This translates into opportunities to address diversity and inclusion while preparing students for fieldwork/capstone and clinical experiences.  Of note, the generational interview videos were described as an effective, engaging and “thoughtfully curated” method to expose all students to the similarities and differences between generational groups. Qualitative data suggests that the teaching strategy appears to have positively impacted the ability of the faculty to provide multigenerational awareness education by exposure to this course. The results of the Faculty Pre- and Post Enrolment surveys provided relevant information to support the need for such a teaching strategy in today’s multigenerational academic, clinical, and work environments.

Tuesday, March 19, 3:30pm 

Moody 104 (In Person Only)

The Baylor Libraries Teaching Fellows Program encourages the use of rare books, archives, and other special collections materials in Baylor graduate and undergraduate curricula. In this session, fellows will present interactive poster discussions on how the use of special collections materials enhances teaching and learning in their courses. Attendees will leave the session with ideas for incorporating special collections into their own courses and prepared to apply for a summer fellowship.

Lara Hwa (Psychology and Neuroscience)

Ben Schwartz (Psychology and Neuroscience)

Michelle Herridge (Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Wednesday, March 27, 11am-12pm

Hybrid Event

In-person: Moody 104

Zoom link be sent to registrants

Faculty often rely on their own intuitions and popular wisdom about learning. Unfortunately, much of this “wisdom” is misleading or simply not supported by cognitive science. Does everyone have a distinct learning style? Does practice really make perfect? How much do we remember by hearing versus explaining to someone else? This session will expose the common learning myths and analyze the teaching practices associated (often unconsciously) with these myths. Participants will be equipped to resist the pull of myths while also becoming familiar with cognitive science that forms a stronger foundation for pedagogy. 

Sarah Varga (Communication)

Thursday, April 11, 2:00pm

Hybrid Event

In-person: Moody 104

Zoom link be sent to registrants

Have you wondered how those professors who seem to "just have it" are able to command a classroom every semester? Are you confident in your explanation of content but baffled by students’ lack of engagement or misunderstanding? This interactive session will focus on how we as content experts can more effectively engage students. We’ll look at common challenges and student frustrations, and simple adjustments we can make to improve the learning environment. You will leave with practical tips you can implement to capture student attention, aid in understanding, and further present yourself as a confident and compelling expert.

Jocelyn McGee (Social Work)

Wednesday, April 17, 2:30pm

Hybrid Event

In-person: Jones 200

Zoom link be sent to registrants

Contemplative Pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning that encourages deep learning through facilitating focused attention, reflection, and heightened awareness. There is evidence that contemplative pedagogy not only serves to enhance students’ capacity to learn course content across multiple disciplines, but it can also transform the ways in which students learn about and understand the world leading to greater compassion, creativity, and connection. This SET will explore research on the value of infusing contemplative pedagogical practices in the classroom. Participants will also receive instruction on how to use specific contemplative pedagogical practices in their own classrooms based on experiences with Baylor students. 

Marcie Moehnke (Biology)

Educational institutions have sought to reduce inequities across students over several years, but even with these interventions, many underrepresented groups are still falling behind in STEM courses.  In particular, first-generation students are one of the most at-risk subpopulations in Baylor Genetics courses.  In the fall of 2022, two sections of Genetics courses were reformed using evidence-based practices in an attempt to improve overall student grades and to close the achievement gap between first-generation and non-first-generation college students. This seminar will describe the interventions used and present the results of this study.

Burt Burleson (University Chaplain)

Michele Stover (Chemistry and Biochemistry)

Students want to engage and learn in class, but they often fear the judgement of their peers and professor. In this SET, I will show you the current interactive software we are using in General Chemistry to address this issue. I will present preliminary results that show an increase in learning outcomes and a decrease in DFW rates. 

Mikeal Parsons (Religion) 
Patricia Killen (Pacific Lutheran University)

In this session we will share findings from a grant project that tested the connection between theological heritages and teaching practice. This work was part of an exploration of a larger question: Does grounding questions of heritage, identity, and mission in the central work of teaching and learning offer a fruitful standpoint for rethinking identity and mission in the current context of higher education and the on-going changes in religious identity and belonging in the United States?  We concluded that the work of teaching and learning is a fruitful place from which to initiate conversations about their respective institutions’ theological heritage, identity, and school mission. We invite participants to consider the possible implications for pedagogy and institutional identity at a place like Baylor.

Karenna Malavanti, Meredith Palm, Hugh Riley, JoAnn Tsang (Psychology and Neuroscience) 

The process of education instills and reinforces habits of mind and practice. With instructor intentionality, these habits can be virtuous. The A&S revised core curriculum aims to "inspire moral, intellectual, and spiritual virtues." This year, four faculty received the Core Curriculum Virtues Recognition Award. In this session, these awardees will describe how they incorporated empathy in their course and encourage participants to imagine the role of virtues in their own teaching.

Karenna Malavanti, Meredith Palm, Hugh Riley, JoAnn Tsang (Psychology and Neuroscience) 

Due to social media offerings like Instagram Reels and TikTok, the current generation of college students has been conditioned to devote their attention in 15-20 second bursts. How can educators expect to hold their attention for an hour-long lecture? How can we convince them to devote adequate time to their assignments when the allure of instant gratification via online content is so strong? In this SET, KJ Mikulencak and Hannah Mei Smith discuss their experience with incorporating hands-on activities into a traditional instructional writing assignment using LEGO Bricks and a laser cutter. They will show how the incorporation of hands-on learning and exciting new technologies improved class attention, enthusiasm, and results. *NOTE: It is strongly recommended that this SET be attended in person, as it includes some hands-on elements. Online participants will not be able to fully enjoy the hands-on experience but are welcome to participate in the presentation portion.*

Christopher Richmann (Academy for Teaching and Learning) 
Ryan Ramsey (Religion, Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Grades are the dominant lens through which students experience college academics. Yet little research, aside from alarmist statistics-based interpretations of “grade inflation,” has explored grades historically. This seminar will present original research in Baylor’s archives, revealing grading as a dynamic historical phenomenon and uncovering students’ perceptions of grades across the century (ca.1850-ca.1950) in which grading became common and standardized in American Higher Education. In addition to answering basic historical questions related to grading (e.g., When did Baylor instructors start using letter grades? How was grading “on the curve” first introduced?), this research identifies students’ critiques of grading practices that echo concerns of modern educational scholarship: transparency, relation to learning, and cheating. The presentation aims to prompt participants’ reflections about the meaning and value of grading in their own classrooms.

Ben Schwartz (Psychology and Neuroscience)

Thursday, February 2, 2023

For this seminar we will look at mechanisms of learning and memory formation in the brain. We will follow that with a discussion on strategies we can employ in the classroom that leverage these mechanisms to promote learning.

Lenore Wright (Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Thursday, February 16, 2023

What does innovation mean in today’s teaching culture? The ATL co-facilitated a series of conversations about teaching innovation in 2021-22. Our aims were threefold: (1) define innovation in teaching, (2) identify barriers to a sustained culture of innovation in teaching, and (3) envision a framework for institutionalizing innovation in teaching. Group discussion was guided by Damon Centola’s book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen (2021). This SET will recap prior discussions and elicit new insights for understanding innovation in teaching. The seminar will also gauge participant interest in reinitiating dialogue about innovation in teaching. So grab a seat, weigh in on future innovation conversations, and suggest some of the “big things” of teaching today.

Lauren Kirby (Student Athlete Center for Excellence)
Krista Smith (Student Athlete Center for Excellence)

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

This session will focus on the student-athlete experience and how faculty and staff can best support their academic journey. Participants will hear a panel of current student-athletes talk about navigating their Baylor academic and athletic experiences. Faculty and staff will walk away with a deeper understanding of what supporting student-athletes can look like through examples of what has helped current student-athletes succeed in the classroom. 

Christopher Richmann (Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Thursday, March 16, 2023

The dominant protocols, practices, and environments of higher education were established in an era of a fairly homogeneous student body. Today’s students, however, are shaped by myriad backgrounds, experiences, and identities that interact with learning processes. This session will consider the ways our instruction may unintentionally exclude or bypass our students, offering evidence-based suggestions for how we can better teach every student through intentional course design, classroom environment, and interactions with students. In the process, we will interrogate shibboleths like accommodation and inclusion as well as pedagogical practices like lecture, discussion, and exams. Envisioning an evolving journey rather than checking off boxes, we will finally explore ways faculty can share ideas both simple and systemic and promote magnanimous teaching in departmental culture.

Jared Alcántara (Truett Seminary)

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

This seminar equips participants to pursue best practices in interculturally competent teaching. Now more than ever, our classrooms need teachers who see difference as an opportunity rather than a threat, and who acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills that empower them to teach students of different backgrounds and identities. Some of the themes that will be explored in this seminar include how to develop greater cultural self-awareness, how to practice curiosity toward cultural others, how to design and deploy learning plans that normalize diversity as a gift, and how to recognize and reduce “stereotype threat” among minoritized students.

Devan Jonklaas (Chemistry and Biochemistry)

Monday, April 17, 2023

Sometimes the best pedagogy comes through humor. Humor, expressed through a medium students know so well like memes, can oftentimes make points more clearly to students. They can also provide memorable moments for content which students will carry forward. In this SET, Devan Jonklaas lays out some favorite teaching tools and memes and offers timely advice for faculty who hope to integrate humor into their classrooms. Though it may sound silly, he demonstrates through data how this fun teaching tool has genuine and tested pedagogical benefits.

Graduate Students from EDL 6302: Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Teaching effectiveness is a lively area of research, with all the nuances and complexities of other disciplines. Faculty strive to be successful teachers but often lack the time or training to explore and interpret the scholarship that can positively impact their teaching. Students in the graduate seminar on teaching and learning in higher education have synthesized literature on core questions for college teaching and produced brief, non-technical, open access “teaching guides.” Participants will hear and discuss their work on a range of practical pedagogical issues.

Dave Bridge (Political Science)
Allyson Irom (Modern Languages and Cultures)
Julie King (Environmental Science)
Jerolyn Morrison (Art and Art History)

Friday, September 9, 2022

The process of education instills and reinforces habits of mind and practice. With instructor intentionality, these habits can be virtuous. The A&S revised core curriculum aims to "inspire moral, intellectual, and spiritual virtues." This year, four faculty received the inaugural Core Curriculum Virtues Recognition Award. In this session, these awardees will describe how they incorporated courage, respect, compassion, and humility in their courses and encourage participants to imagine the role of virtues in their own teaching.

Joshua Been (University Libraries)
Kristina Benham (History)
Heidi Hornik (Art and Art History)
Nicole Kenley (English)
Daniel Watkins (History)

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Humanities scholarship has long prized "close reading" of texts. Increasingly, however, scholars have embraced digital tools for mining, analyzing, and visualizing texts and other data to gain new insights. Such methods are not only for high-level scholarship. In this session, faculty from English, Art, and History will share teaching strategies built around digital humanities tools. Participants will learn about simpler open-access tools and our library support for more sophisticated programs. By integrating digital humanities tools into our teaching, students encounter subjects in unexpected and impactful ways.

Stephanie Boddie (Social Work, Truett Seminary, and School of Education)
Anne-Marie Schultz (Philosophy)
Heather White (Art and Art History)

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Teaching is a multivalent endeavor, incorporating insights, practices, and behaviors from a range of human experiences. Whether consciously or unconsciously, instructors frame their teaching practices through analogy to experiences outside the classroom. These metaphors both help us construct meaning and determine the boundaries of what is possible. What effect do our notions of “covering” material or “drilling” students have on our teaching? And what might change if we more intentionally pursue metaphors for teaching based on our personal values and the values of our disciplines? In this session, participants will hear how the metaphors of gallery, gardening, and more can reorient the learning experience and shape our teaching in surprising ways.

Jonathan Miles (Biology)
Brian Thomas (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Thursday, October 13, 2022

STEM courses and curricula prioritize the data, methods, and theory for advancing and applying disciplinary knowledge. But recent events (e.g., global pandemic), Baylor’s Christian mission, and broader contextual appreciation of our fields press educators also to address the social aspects of our disciplines. For students to be educated “for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment,” they should engage with the humanist and humanitarian dimensions of the sciences in their ethical, historical, and theological perspectives. In this session, participants will discover examples of Baylor STEM faculty engaging social issues with students and will brainstorm paths for introducing these perspectives at both course and curricular levels.

Elizabeth Petsios (Geosciences)

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Many students perceive a conflict between their faith commitments and the theory of evolution, potentially weakening their engagement with STEM fields that deal with evolutionary concepts. While theologians argue that faith and evolution are not mutually exclusive, research into how people make judgments suggests that, often, more than facts and rationale are necessary for helping change students’ minds. Students’ perceptions of their instructors—and in particular, their perception of their instructors’ religiosity—may play an important role in mediating students’ sense of conflict between their faith and evolutionary concepts. In this session, participants will learn about ongoing research into this correlation, brainstorming and discussing ways to increase comfort levels with evolutionary concepts among students who identify as religious.

Michelle Herridge (Academy for Teaching and Learning; Chemistry)

Friday, November 11, 2022

Often, we are encouraged to incorporate new evidence based instructional practices (EBIPs) and try new things in our classrooms. Sometimes we get immediate feedback that it worked (or didn't!), but other times we have only limited impressions or intuitions about how it impacted students' learning or engagement. This session will present some of the assessment strategies you can use to determine whether it's worth your time, showcase some tools that can help manage assessment, and highlight some recent articles on the impacts of EBIPs and active learning.

Coretta Pittman (English)

Thursday, November 17, 2022

In many ways, teaching is a labor of love. Sometimes, the labor part of teaching comes from certain kinds of content areas I teach. For instance, I teach courses on race and writing. The teaching writing part is easy, the teaching race part is hard. In this session, I reveal how labor and love for my vocation and student learning come together in sometimes magical ways and other times difficult days.  In short, with a series of mini vignettes I will share what I have learned about teaching race and writing with the hope that some of my experiences will offer insight for others.  

Jon Eckert (Educational Leadership)

Monday, January 24, 2022

During the pandemic, we all learned technologies for instruction. But how do we know if we’re using the right tools in the right ways? This session will present original research findings and facilitate discussion on the use of a wide range of technologies aimed at improving student engagement and feedback, including lightboard technology, Mentimeter, Gimkit, Pear Deck, Slido, and Mural. Hear from Baylor faculty how these technologies facilitated learning for Baylor students.

Carroll Crowson (CASE)
Jeffrey Olafsen (Physics)
Jeff Strietzel (Educational Leadership)
Meaghann Wheelis (Institutional Research)

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Big data and artificial intelligence are part of our daily lives, holding promise to enhance our everyday experience even while we critically evaluate their uses. Student data is increasingly a factor in helping students on their academic journey, and its possibilities are not limited to student success offices. Faculty, too, can responsibly use available student data to support student learning. In this session, we’ll peek under the hood to understand the model scoring that Baylor currently uses and explore how it informs student success work. Most importantly, you will learn how to find meaningful data about your students based on access you already have to steer every student you work with to success.

Paul Anderson (Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate)
Maria De Mesa (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Nicole Kenley (English)
Karenna Malavanti (Psychology and Neuroscience)

Over the last two years, instructors were asked to create and teach online courses that were developed under stress of a rapid transition from in-person to online teaching. Traditionally, online course design is a systematic process that involves ideation and revisioning which takes time. In this session, we will hear from the 2021 Summer Learning Design Fellows, who will share their insights on developing quality online learning experiences. They will also share design strategies that transferred well from their online courses to their in-person courses.

Tranquility Cowen (Senior Coordinator for Fraternity and Sorority Life)

 

Baylor University hosts over 40 fraternities and sororities, with 25% of Baylor undergraduates participating in Greek Life. Fraternities and sororities form a foundational experience for many students, providing opportunities for leadership, academic excellence, service, friendship, and spiritual growth. Yet many faculty are unaware of how these organizations holistically impact a student’s experience. In this session, participants will learn about the rhythms, activities, and commitments involved in fraternity and sorority life, equipping Baylor instructors to better interact with students and connect their courses to these key extra-curricular experiences.

Monique Ingalls (Church Music)
Sarah Kienle (Biology)
Moises Park (Spanish)
 

Instructors often envision a narrow range of options when devising learning assessments. Quizzes, exams, research and reflection papers, and presentations are our go-to methods for tracking student learning. However, when we think “outside the assessment box,” a world of possibilities becomes available. Instructors who experiment with alternative assessments find that these options motivate students, are more enjoyable to grade, reduce academic dishonesty, and connect student learning to crucial authentic contexts. In this session, a panel of Baylor faculty will showcase their experiments with alternative assessments, and participants will brainstorm and get feedback on their own alternative assessment ideas.  

Julie DeGraffenried (History)
Stephen Sloan (History)
Elizabeth Dell (English)
Joe Fulton (English)

In recent years, Baylor has intensified its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Faculty have distinct opportunities to address one key aspect of DEI: making pedagogical decisions that help students encounter diverse experiences and perspectives. Moved in part by the diversity and inclusion commitment of the unified Core Curriculum, two faculty teams created new primary-source readers (published with Baylor Press) for Common Courses in history and English. Participants will hear and discuss how foregrounding diversity in content decisions opens new pedagogical possibilities in support of Baylor’s commitment to diversity.

Nathan Alleman (Educational Leadership)
Sarah Madsen (Educational Leadership)
Byron Newberry (Mechanical Engineering)

Teachers in higher education, regardless of field or discipline, must attempt to manage the intersection of disciplinary expertise, classroom oversight responsibilities, and daily human interactions with students in a way that results in an optimal relationship for learning. Ideally, students would be justified in believing their teachers to be an appropriate combination of expert, fair and organized, and admirable. But teachers may also struggle at times to find the right balance in one or more of these areas. This session will present findings from interviews with expert university teachers on the interrelated aspects of teacher authority, suggesting a useful framework for faculty development.

Graduate Students in EDL 6302: Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Teaching effectiveness is a lively area of research, with all the nuances and complexities of other disciplines. Faculty strive to be successful teachers but often lack the time or training to explore and interpret the scholarship that can positively impact their teaching. Students in the graduate seminar on teaching and learning in higher education have synthesized literature on core questions for college teaching and produced brief, non-technical, open access “teaching guides.” Participants will hear and discuss their work ranging from how to write a syllabus, to what to do on the first day of class, to effective lectures and discussions, and more.

Heather Hudson (Health, Human Performance and Recreation)
Deborah Shirey (Nursing)
Meagan Soltwisch (Nursing)

Historically, most healthcare education programs focus on teaching students’ specific content which has led to siloed learning and patient care.  A true intentional focus on building interprofessional collaborative skills was not always apparent, valued, or possible. Interprofessional education (IPE) has specific learning competencies that are designed to aid students in learning how to practice collaboratively when credential as a healthcare provider.  Our team explored if students from a FNP and a MAT program perceived interprofessional education skills as valuable.  While this session will introduce and focus on providing information about IPE, anyone from any discipline can benefit from discussing the value of teaching students collaborative skills.  

Shaun Eide (Information Systems)

Before ever stepping foot into your class, your students have already formed their expectations about your course. These beliefs may or may not be an accurate foreshadowing of the course. Unless disrupted, these initial beliefs will guide students’ interpretation of their experiences throughout the semester. In this SET, we will explore tools and strategies that can be used to effectively assess students’ beliefs. Upon understanding these beliefs, we will explore how to provide experiences to disrupt erroneous beliefs in a constructive manner.

Michelle Herridge (Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Grading takes place in all of our classrooms and has historically been a "necessary" component of education and learning. This may not be true, and in this seminar, we will discuss what it means to assess students for understanding, what the point of a grade really is, and some alternatives to traditional grading - such as contract grading, standards-based grading, and ungrading. We invite professors from all departments to have a discussion about what a classroom without grades might look like. Participants are encouraged to bring a list of assignments from their course for analysis.

Amy Ames (Career Services)
Andy Hogue (A&S Dean’s Office)
Dennis Horton (Religion)
Amy Rylander (Career Services)
Julia Daniel (English)

As students reach the end of their undergraduate experience, they have particular needs and concerns. Instructors can do many things—in and out of class—to help prepare students for life after college. Join us for a panel discussion with faculty and career services staff exploring professionalization, critical thinking skills, preparation for graduate school, and other distinct considerations for students nearing graduation.

Jacquelyn Duke (Biology)

Steve Gardner (Economics)

Jodien Johnson (Sociology)

Textbook selection is serious business. We look for the textbooks we believe most suitably support the course’s learning objectives, especially if they come with valuable ancillary materials. For many Baylor students, however, the cost of acquiring required textbooks often exceeds their financial means. Far too many start the semester without crucial resources or even go without for the entire class. Fortunately, this economic barrier is not insurmountable. In this seminar, we will hear from a panel of Baylor faculty who have successfully replaced expensive course materials with open textbooks and other zero- to low-cost alternatives.

Lyndsay DiPietro (Academy for Teaching and Learning)

Yvette Garcia (Religion)

Large courses present distinct pedagogical and logistical challenges. Teaching large courses online can be even more challenging, especially in terms of instructor-student and student-student interaction. Although experts generally recommend online courses be no more than 20 students, pandemic realities have confronted many instructors with larger online courses. This session will provide guidance for engaging students both synchronously and asynchronously, managing administrative load that comes with large online courses, and developing a sense of community and connection for students. Presenters will offer examples from and foster idea-sharing for both humanities and STEM courses.

Leslie Hahner (Communication)

Dana Dean (Biology)

Renee Michalski (Psychology and Neurosciences)

Lance Littlejohn (Mathematics)

In fall 2020, about 10% of Baylor undergraduates were taking all their courses online. These students report lack of a sense of community and belonging–leading to lower retention and added learning challenges. These concerns are exacerbated by the fact that minority students are over-represented in the online-only group. Many Baylor faculty, however, thoughtfully and intentionally help foster connections for online students. This SET is devoted to learning from those instructors whom Baylor’s online-only students consistently identified as helping them succeed and feel like they belong.

Danielle Williams (English)

Eric Holleyman (Religion)

Melanie Nogalski (Baylor Interdisciplinary Core)

This year, freshman embarked on a college experience that nothing could have fully prepared them for. Not only are they missing much of the traditional “college experience,” but they face challenges for learning and interacting with faculty in crucial moments of their higher education experience. Unlike their more advanced colleagues, they did not have the experience and relationships from previous years to help them navigate the strange world of college during a pandemic. What does all this mean for teaching freshman? In this session, a panel of faculty with roles dedicated to freshman success will share what they have learned from working with freshman in the classroom, advising, and first-year writing.

Baylor Libraries Teaching Fellows

The Baylor Libraries Teaching Fellows Program encourages the use of rare books, archives, and other special collections materials in Baylor graduate and undergraduate curricula. In this session, fellows will present lightning talks on how the use of special collections materials enhances teaching and learning in their courses. Attendees will leave the session with ideas for incorporating special collections into their own courses and prepared to apply for a summer fellowship.

Christina Iluzada (Information Systems)

Tony Talbert (Curriculum and Instruction)

What did students experience when they had to transition abruptly to online classes in spring 2020, and what can their perceptions teach us about community in online classes and learning during the time of COVID-19? This presentation will describe our mixed methods multiple case study, which analyzes students’ perceptions of their in-person flipped class experience that became an online-only experience during the spring semester of 2020, due to COVID-19. Each of the four cases presented will highlight students’ sense of course satisfaction and cognitive learning in their in-person class compared to their online class.

Amy James (University Libraries)

Instructors can find themselves in a mid-semester rut. Daily class sessions can run on “autopilot” and lose connection with course goals. This SET will focus on making your next class great by creating clear, session-specific learning objectives. Participants will learn how to work backward to design learning objectives based on what students should know or be able to do by the end of an individual class session. The focus will be on taking the big picture methods for creating course goals and making them applicable to each class period. Participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm and get feedback on objectives for your next class.

Laila Sanguras (Learning and Organizational Change)

Kevin Magill (Curriculum and Instruction)

Lakia Scott (Curriculum and Instruction)

Brooke Blevins (Curriculum and Instruction)

Although teaching courses centered on issues of diversity is more important today than ever before, it is not without challenges. In today’s racially and politically polarized nation, faculty colleagues from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction embrace these opportunities to spur meaningful dialogue and effectuate change through culturally sustaining pedagogies. This session features a panel discussion about teaching diversity courses under three different perspectives (White male, White female, and Black female), but with the same goals: critical inquiry, social justice and advocacy, and education for freedom. Following the discussion, the presenters will share specific ideas for how to support, recruit, and retain both students and faculty of color.

T.J. Geiger (English)

Even as instructors frequently use writing as evidence of students’ performance in a course, student writing also generates artifacts of promise—evidence of learning in process, signs of things yet to come. Writing itself is an opportunity for learning. Drawing on insights from research about writing across the curriculum, learning transfer, and meaningful writing experiences, this SET will present instructors with ideas and practices for using writing to support student learning in low-stakes ways and in formal assignments. Participants will also consider how writing may serve as a form of engagement.

Beth Barr (History)

Mona Choucair (English)

Rishi Sriram (Educational Leadership)

Jason Whitt (Honors College)

Faculty often focus on courses, curricula, and other formal aspects of educational experience, but much of student success and wellbeing correlates to students’ experiences outside the classroom. Like the formal learning experience, extra-curricular life has been upended by COVID-19. Baylor’s Faculty in Residence (FIR) are in a fortunate position to experience pandemic adjustments alongside students, witnessing how their lives have adapted and how their learning has been affected. In this SET, a panel of FIR will describe what they’ve learned from living with students and reflect on implications for teaching and interacting with students.

Laine Scales (Social Work)

Student collaboration, projects, discussion, and other forms of group work significantly enrich the learning experience. Although many instructors’ notions of group work are tied to the face-to-face class setting, the basic principles of group work apply online. Accounting for the shift in context in online teaching, this session will offer suggestions on making good teams, supporting student working groups, and assessing both group dynamics and students’ products. Participants will also receive tips for handling live breakout discussions and asynchronous online discussion groups that support group work.   

Philip Jenkins (History and Institute for Studies of Religion)

Jason Pitts (Biology)

Anne-Marie Schultz (Philosophy and Baylor Interdisciplinary Core)

COVID-19 presents an unparalleled opportunity for instructors to practice the integrated and holistic education that is at the heart of Baylor’s liberal arts tradition. Not only is the study of pandemic “relevant” for our students, but it is a window into the deepest concerns at the intersection of the natural world and human meaning-making. No academic discipline escapes its reach. In this SET, distinguished Baylor colleagues will discuss approaches and perspectives on exploring pandemic with students through the materials of philosophy, literature, history, religion, biology, and more.

Nicole Kenley (English)

Jon Lawson (Biology)

Mia Moody Ramirez (Journalism, Public Relations and New Media)

Discussion as a pedagogical tool helps students refine, articulate, and argue their knowledge, exposes students to varied viewpoints, and provides instructors insight into student comprehension. Instructors can enlist technological tools for discussion—not only as a matter of necessity for online classes but to expand and enrich the learning experience in hybrid and face-to-face courses, as research shows that online discussions encourage deeper reflection and greater participation than traditional classroom discussions. In this SET, a panel of Baylor faculty teaching a range of course types will discuss the varied technologies they have used to facilitate discussion. Participants will have opportunities to brainstorm and will be directed to further resources to explore discussion technologies in more depth.

Malcolm Foley (Truett Seminary)

Laura Hernandez (Law)

Sam Perry (Baylor Interdisciplinary Core)

Education aims to foster critical thinking in students, an aim that requires students to examine complex issues. These complex issues can include thorny moral problems, controversial social practices, and culturally sensitive topics: immigration, race relations, and gender equality. Teaching culturally sensitive topics is especially challenging in an era of social upheaval and polarization. Although critical thinking transcends religious commitments, Christian higher education can equip students to approach controversial issues with humility and compassion. This SET will present varied approaches to teaching culturally sensitive topics through historical, rhetorical, and legal perspectives, sparking participants’ imaginations and encouraging exploration of effective ways to teach complex issues in other disciplines.

Brianna Lemmons (Social Work)

Karenna Malavanti (Psychology and Neuroscience)

Thomas Spitzer-Hanks (Baylor Interdisciplinary Core)

The shifts in teaching and learning we have experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been disruptive and difficult. Although some students have been frustrated and some instructors have been discouraged, many faculty have found in this crisis unexpected potential to refine and improve teaching. The collective trauma may impel us to ask questions about our students that have never occurred to us before. The loss of contact time with students may re-center our teaching around learning objectives rather than content and assignments. The interruption of our normal routines and practices may press us to more intentionality, transparency, and support for our course objectives. In short, COVID-19 may make us all better teachers. Join an interdisciplinary panel of Baylor faculty as they discuss the work in progress of their own teaching in light of the pandemic and the hopeful ways even crisis can strengthen the mission of transformational education.

Perry Glanzer (School of Education)

Lori Kanitz (Institute for Faith and Learning)

Wes Null (Provost’s Office)

Ken Van Treuren (Mechanical Engineering)

As many instructors are administering assessments online, they must consider implications for academic integrity. In making assessment decisions, instructors will benefit from a robust picture of academic integrity broadly and online aspects specifically. In this session, participants will hear a range of perspectives, addressing factors contributing to academic dishonesty, instructors’ role in fostering students’ wisdom and virtue, institutional ramifications, and tools of interest to students and faculty.   

Meredith David (Marketing)

Christopher Richmann (Academy for Teaching and Learning)

The well-documented phenomenon known as “Zoom fatigue” is especially prevalent and costly for instructors. As we come to the mid-point in the semester, faculty who are regularly using Zoom (or other videoconferencing tools) for classes or student meetings can evaluate their habits and approach to these tools, ensuring a balanced and healthy practice that benefits instructor and students. This session will describe the varieties of Zoom fatigue and their causes, giving tips for reducing or eliminating tiring elements of Zoom use generally and with students specifically. Participants will be equipped with tools for tracking Zoom use and mental energy and tactics for creating space on Zoom for enlivening interactions rather than draining encounters.