Faculty Development

faculty in workshops

CxC faculty development activities provide opportunities for faculty to

  • explore, reflect, and discuss topics surrounding communication-intensive teaching and learning, and
  • collaborate with others across and beyond our campus interested in teaching, service, and research innovation.

 

Note: CxC faculty development sessions are open to all LSU faculty, instructors, and graduate teaching assistants; however, if space becomes limited, priority will be given to faculty teaching certified Communication-Intensive courses.

Fall 2018

Conducting Mid-semester Pulse Checks: How are you and your students fairing? 

Monday, September 24 | 3:30 - 4:30pm | B2 Coates

In C-I courses, we use feedback loops to help students learn, but what about creating feedback opportunities to help us, as teachers, learn? Join the conversation on how college teachers can intentionally create opportunities early in the semester about what’s working well (and not so well) to inform our teaching practices and enhance students’ learning. Such efforts spur incredible dialogue and engagement with students (a key factor in student motivation and retention), and give us the opportunity to model the critical communication skill of giving and receiving constructive feedback.

 

C-I Faculty Meet-Up: Teaching Conference Proposal Collaborations

Wednesday, September 26 | 3:30 - 5:00pm | B2 Coates

The annual Teaching Professor Conference is coming to New Orleans in June 2019! The local nature of the conference provides LSU faculty the opportunity to collaborate and collectively showcase how various C-I practices are implemented across disciplines. To facilitate proposal collaborations, CxC is hosting a C-I faculty meet-up where you can connect with C-I faculty, brainstorm presentation ideas, and begin drafting collaborative proposals. 

 

ePortfolios: Best practices for successfully mentoring Distinguished Communicators

Thursday, October 18 | Noon - 1:30pm | B2 Coates

LSU CxC has one of the few ePortfolio programs in the nation that is student-centric and transcends disciplines. Mentoring students in developing effective ePortfolios can sometimes be challenging, but doing so greatly benefits our students and us as teachers. Hear from seasoned faculty who will share lessons learned and best practices for supporting students in developing effective ePortfolios to successfully earn the LSU DC Medal, and ultimately achieve post-graduation goals of either getting into graduate school or landing their dream job.

Reserve your seat!

 


Spring 2018

CxC Studio Sandbox Day

Friday, January 5, 2018 @ 10am - Noon

Join us for CxC Studio Sandbox Day where you can pop into one of the four CxC Studios to tinker with communication technologies, network with other C-I faculty, visit with the Communication Peer Mentors who support your students, and/or work with our team to tune-up your C-I course assignments and assessments.

 


Fall 2017 

Faculty Roundtable Discussion: Teaching (not just assigning) team/group collaboration and communication skills in the C-I classroom

Monday, October 16 @ 11:00a-Noon in B2 Coates Hall

 

Faculty Lightning Rounds: Ideas for the C-I classroom

Tuesday, November 7 @ 1:30-2:30p in B2 Coates Hall

 


Spring 2017

Spring 2017 Faculty Learning Community Meet-up

Session #4: Balancing Depth vs. Coverage

Group A: Monday, 4/17, 11:30a-12:30p in 104 Design Bldg. (you’re welcome to bring your lunch!) / Group B: Tuesday, 4/18, 1:00-2:00p in 104 Design Bldg. 

Reference Resources: What is a flipped classroom? What is just-in-time teaching? Just-in-Time Teaching as Interactive Pedagogy. Peer Instruction and JITT at University College. Roosevelt. Three Evolving Thoughts about Flipped Learning. Potential Discussion Questions: How do you find the balance between coverage versus depth of learning? Are you using blended learning, just-in-time teaching or flipped classroom techniques? What has worked? What, for you, needs further refining to be viable? In addition to pre-taped lectures and video content, what are some other ways you utilize flipped and/or JITT approaches?

Session #3: Connecting Your Research Interests and Teaching 

Group A: Monday, 3/20, 11:30a-12:30p in 104 Design Bldg. (You’re welcome to bring your lunch!) / Group B: Tuesday, 3/21, 1:00-2:00p in 104 Design Bldg. 

Reference Resources: Teaching While Learning: What I learned when I asked my students to make video essays. Teaching to Enhance Research. Linking Teaching & Research. Potential Discussion Questions: Where does (or can) your interests, research, and teaching overlap in the C-I classroom? How do you balance your teaching, research, and service load? How might you turn your C-I classroom into a research project to advance teaching scholarship within your discipline?


Session #2: Managing the Feedback Loop/Applying Formative Assessment

Group A: Monday, 2/20/17, 11:30a-12:30p in 104 Design Bldg. (you’re welcome to bring your lunch!) / Group B: Tuesday, 2/21/17, 1:00-2:00p in 104 Design Bldg. 

Reference Resources: Online Discussion Forums as Assessment Tools. Four Strategies for Effective Assessment in a Flipped Learning Environment. Scaling Up Courses. Characteristics of High-Quality Formative Assessments. Teaching Students How to Manage Feedback. Potential Discussion Questions: How do (or wish) you would manage the C-I feedback loop? Are you leveraging feedback as a true student learning tool? What are your time management strategies? Are there specific tech tools or skills you use or wish you had?

Session #1: Maximizing the First and Last Five Minutes of Class

Group A: Monday, 2/6/17 11:30a-12:30p in 104 Design Bldg. (you’re welcome to bring your lunch!) / Group B: Tuesday, 2/7/17, 1:00-2:00p in 104 Design Bldg. 

Reference Resources: Three Focusing Activities to Engage Students in the First Five Minutes of Class. Small Changes in Teaching: The Last 5 Minutes of Class. The Flipped Classroom Unplugged: Three Tech-Free Strategies for Engaging Students. Inside Higher Ed: Small Teaching with James Lang. Potential Discussion Questions: How do you use the first and last 5 minutes of class? What role does/could reflection play in your course? What 5-minute break activities do you use throughout class to check-in with your students and their understanding? What concerns do you have about making such activities work?

 


Spring 2015

Responding to and Assessing the Writing of ESL Students 

International students who have English as a Second Language (ESL) enrich our classroom and studios by bringing a cross-cultural perspective to projects and assignments. However, when we begin to assess non-native students’ texts, we often feel unprepared to address the complicated concerns that emerge. Join us for a CxC-sponsored panel discussion where we’ll explore ESL proficiency levels, culture, acceptable adaptations and more.

Thursday, January 22, 12:00-1:00 p.m., College of Design: Room 104

Providing Useful Feedback on Students’ Oral Communication Presentations 

Oral presentations are an effective way to increase students’ learning of course content while honing their speaking skills. Even so, we sometimes hesitate to assign presentations because we feel ill equipped to provide critical, useful feedback.

This interactive workshop, conducted by a Communications and Performance Studies instructor, will focus on providing quick in-class feedback to students, creating efficient rubrics, and implementing assessment activities which increase student engagement and encourage self-evaluation.  Participants will leave with concrete tools aimed at facilitating a collaborative community of peer responders.

Wednesday, March 18, 12:30-1:30 p.m., 137 Coates Hall (HopKins Black Box)  **Registration is limited to 25 people.

 


Fall 2014

Learning Forward and Backward: Using Reflective Writing in Research Projects to Foster Students’ Critical Thinking

If you are integrating any type of research project into your course, this is the session for you! Self-directed learning is question-driven rather than topic or thesis driven. With this teaching and learning approach, students develop and explore a researchable question, or line of inquiry, to make meaning and create new knowledge rather than searching for “The Answer.”

Tuesday, September 23, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 

Integrating Speaking Activities to Support Student Success

Are you looking for ways to include innovative, engaging speaking activities to foster deeper learning among your students? Are you eager to help students advance their ability to verbally communicate concepts and ideas to specific audiences? Are you looking for something other than the traditional in-class presentation model? Then join us for this faculty workshop, formatted like speed dating, focused on developing speaking-intensive assignments which go beyond the traditional in-class presentation model.  The format will allow for participants to collect new ideas from a range of assignments.

 

Wednesday, October 22, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 

Speak to Me: Providing Audio and Video Feedback to Students

Feedback is critical to student success and we are constantly looking for ways to make the feedback process more efficient for you and more effective for students. Join us for this hands-on workshop in which you’ll practice using Jing, an audio and video feedback tool that allows you to create a voiceover video response to student work.  This simple, free, and easy-to-use technology advances the learning process, saves time, and improves students’ active listening skills. This is a Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOL) workshop.

 

Thursday, November 13, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 


Spring 2014

Effective Feedback Strategies

Whether you are serving as an LSU Distinguished Communicator Advisor or a Communication-Intensive instructor, the level of feedback you provide and how you manage this in your workflow is critical to your success and the success of your students.  During the January CxC Faculty Lunch & Learn next week, we will discuss effective ways to give feedback to students throughout the C-I learning process, including helping DC candidates with digital portfolios.

 

Wednesday, January 22, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 

 

TED Talks: Leveraging them in the College Classroom 

Sure, there are some great TED talks that can help supplement our course content, but what about using TED talk videos to help students become better presenters?  Join us for a discussion on ways to strategically use TED talks in (and outside of) your speaking and visual C-I classrooms.  We will cover the top four tenants of good public speaking in any discipline, and take a look at some segments of TED talk videos that can help students learn these skills though observation.  It is a teaching approach that is sure to up the caliber of your students’ presentations!

 

Tuesday, February 25, Noon-1pm, 225 Peabody Hall

 

To Work Well in Teams… 

More than mastery of content knowledge, employers want to hire college graduates who can work effectively in teams (AAC&U Survey).  But team work requires many skills—interpersonal, management, communication, to name a few.  Students can learn to function more productively in groups—and faculty should teach them how.

Whether you’re often disappointed in the quality of group work in your class, or especially if you have developed successful teaching strategies for group work you’d like to share, this is the session for you!  It is the perfect time to think about how you want to teach and to organize group assignments for next semester.

Wednesday, April 23, 12:30-1:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 


Fall 2013

Responding to Student Work in Progress: Part I, Feedback Strategies

Do you hesitate to assign written, spoken, or visual work because you are uncertain how to respond to and assess student projects?  In this first of two workshops on assessing student projects, we will discuss strategies for formative evaluation (giving feedback on drafts or practice sessions when students are still shaping their work).  You’ll get tips on  setting priorities for feedback, deciding the means by which to respond (track changes, spoken comments, conferences), involving peers in the feedback process, praising good work, using minimal marking to flag errors in usage and mechanics as the project nears completion, and  designing and using rubrics to make responding quicker and more reliable.

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 12:30-1:30 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall

 

Evaluating and Assessing Student Work: Part II, Grading Strategies 

Do you hesitate to assign written, spoken, or visual work because you are uncertain how to evaluate and assess student projects?  In this second of two workshops on assessing student work, we will discuss strategies for summative evaluation (giving feedback on final drafts or presentations).  You’ll get tips for setting priorities for comments and ways to convey what’s effective or not effective and why, for analyzing errors in usage and mechanics, and for using rubrics to standardize grading.  Part I is not a prerequisite for attendance to this session.

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12:00-1:00 p.m., 225 Peabody Hall – RSVP Now!

 


Spring 2013

“Using Your iPad for Business,” hosted by the CxC College of Business Studio

How can you get the most from an iPad in a business setting? There are hundreds of thousands of apps available – how do you pick the ones that will help you be more productive? Dave Paradi, MBA has been leveraging his iPad to get work done on the road and in this webinar he will share some of the ways you can make best use of an iPad for business use.  This session will cover a variety of tips and trick, such as accessing files using cloud storage, syncing iPad and desktop files, MS Office apps, delivering PowerPoints from the iPad, marking up PDFs, and more!

Tuesday, March 26, 12:00-1:30 p.m., 1700 Business Education Complex

 

“Looking for the Pedagogy in Blended Course Design,” hosted by CxC Music & Dramatic Arts Studio

The proliferation of blended/hybrid initiatives and resources is heartening and furthering a delivery model that is reaching maturity. However, there is still much to be examined about what organizations promote as models for designed blended courses and how these models are enacted by practitioners. Dr. Patricia McGee, associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, will present the findings from three studies examining blended best practices, pedagogical practices, and learner preparedness. She’ll also address mission directly by sharing a range of pedagogical strategies and best practices that are directly aligned with learner success through the axiomatic use of technology to support and facilitate learning.  This session will focus on the following themes: (a) identifying effective practices that relate to course priorities; (b) adopting a layering strategy for organizing the blend; (c) utilizing a learner-centered approach in course components; and (d) identifying needs of the blended learner.

Monday, March 18, 12:00-3:00 p.m., 245 Music & Dramatic Arts

 

“STEM Teaching Methods That Work,” hosted by CxC Engineering Studio 

Numerous surveys and reports have documented that far too many college students either fail or become bored with science and technology courses, abandoning plans to major in STEM fields.  Dr. Steve Benton, senior research officer at the IDEA Center, will explore the relationship between teaching methods and learning objectives in STEM education. The idea behind this analysis is that the right approach to learning objectives and teaching methods could lead to meaningful improvements in STEM education.  This session will cover the following questions:  Which learning objectives are emphasized in STEM classes? How much learning are students reporting on those learning objectives? Which teaching methods might be employed to support greater student learning? What are student and course characteristics in STEM courses? How can this analysis be used to improve the success and learning of students enrolled in STEM courses?

Wednesday, March 13, 1:00-2:00 p.m., 2301 Patrick F. Taylor Hall

 

It’s Tech Training for You!

Do you wish you knew more about innovations in Office 2013?  Would you like to assign your students multimedia projects but know that some lack basic technology skills that you don’t have time to teach?  Well there’s a great resource just for you and your students – lyndaCampus! Via lyndaCampus, you and your students can access free software, business, and creative skills training 24/7 on more than 1,600 different programs?  Tutorials are broken down into small, 3-5 minute videos so you can get right to the specific function you need to learn, or you can take advantage of some of the professional tutorials like how to choose the best font.  And you can do it all while sitting in the Quad or wearing your fuzzy slippers!  Join us for this fun session to learn more about the resources within lyndaCampus.  We’ll talk about how you can build a customized playlist of tutorials related to your course, reducing the tech-teaching and troubleshooting in the classroom; track students’ usage of the assigned tutorials; and use lyndaCampus as your own personal/professional development tool.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 12:30-1:30 p.m., 104 Design Bldg.

 


Fall 2012

Special Session by the LTC: “Flipping the Lecture”

Do you want your students to more comfortable with applying their knowledge or solving problems? Then your classroom may be ready for a flip! Join us for this faculty development session where we will explore the concept of “flipping the classroom,” a technique that refers to reversing traditional instructional approaches so that students use out-of-class time for viewing lectures and readings (formerly in-class lectures) and in-class time for interactive lessons and application learning (formerly out-of-class homework). Through this strategy, the classroom becomes a place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning, maximizing the scarcest learning resource—time.

Nov. 19, 2:30-3:30p, 210 Choppin Hall

 

Engaging Students Inside & Outside the Classroom, co-sponsored by FTC

Nov. 1, 12-1p, 109 LSU Library

 

Copyright Chat 

An exploratory conversation about copyright as it relates to images, audio, videos, and other resources students frequently incorporate into slide presentations, posters, websites, and other commonly assigned Communication-Intensive projects.

Sept. 13, 12:00-1:30p, 225 Peabody Hall

 


Spring 2012

Writing for Deeper Learning

A review of LSU’s NSSE data and implications for teaching and developing writing assignments in the disciplines.

Wednesday, March 14, 12:30-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Think Video!

Designing student assignments that enhance critical thinking, organizational and communication skills, and deeper learning of course content using “alternative video projects.” (*This is NOT for the professional filmmakers or screenwriters!)

Tuesday, Feb. 14, 12:30-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 


Fall 2011

Energizing Writing Projects

See how LSU faculty are empower students to write for a global audience and publish research to Wikipedia.
Resources: Teaching with Wikipedia

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 12:30-1:30, 104 Design Building

Taking a Look Outside and In

Join the discussion with top employers about the challenges LSU grads face when communicating in the workplace and how LSU faculty might help further improve students’ communication skills.

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 12:00-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 


Spring 2011

Harnessing the power of PowerPoint as a Visual communication tool (not a bulleted outline)

Tuesday, April 12, 12:00-1:00, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Tips, tricks & lessons learned from teaching C-I courses

Friday, March 11, 12:30-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Helping student writers in your “non-writing” courses.

Resource:  Perceived Roadblocks to Transferring Knowledge from FYC to Writing-Intensive Major Courses: A Pilot Study

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 12:30-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 


Fall 2010

Teaching students the basics of copyright and fair use laws when using artifacts found via the internet

Thursday, Nov. 18, 12:00-1:00, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Energizing Writing Projects

See how LSU faculty are empower students to write for a global audience and publish research to Wikipedia.

Resources: Teaching with Wikipedia

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 12:30-1:30, 104 Design Building

 

Effective techniques for integrating peer review for writing, speaking, and other C-I assignments

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 12:30-1:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 


Spring 2010

Faculty Demo & Discussions: Using Pen Displays for Teaching & Learning

Resource:  Wacom products

Wednesday, April 21, 11:30-12:30, 151 Coates Hall

 

Using Portfolios in the Classroom for Learning, Teaching, and Student Assessment

Monday, March 22, 11:30-12:30, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Team-Based Learning

Small Group Learning’s Next Big Step (CxC sponsored live webinar by Educause Learning Initiative)

Monday, March 8, 12:00-1:00, 202 Coates Hall

 


Fall 2009

Teaching Effective Visual Communication in Non-Art Classes

Thursday, Nov. 19, 12:00-1:00, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Using video-based projects to teach course concepts, while improving students’ critical thinking and communication skills

Tuesday, Oct. 27, 12:00-1:00, 225 Peabody Hall

 

Effectively using Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom to Improve Students’ Learning

Resource: Web 2.0 Classroom Tools

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 11:30-12:30, 225 Peabody Hall