Instructional videos can help learners to spend extra time on learning tasks. You have probably seen many of your peers using something called “screencasting” to teach. Screencasting allows you to record what is going on on your screen which you would like to show to students. For instance, you can go through your PowerPoint slides, demonstrate the navigation of your class sites, or show how to use a software your major requires students to learn.

Here are a few options for producing screencast sessions:

• Keynote on a Macbook allows you to add voiceover on slides and then export the content into a movie.  The benefit of doing so is the ability for you to change your narration one slide at a time.

• Camtasia is a professional screencasting software which you can use to record. It has really powerful tools for editing. It is not free, but ACU still have a few licenses left if anyone is interested in using it.

• Jing is a free application which you can use to record screen sessions for up to five minutes. One great benefits of this software is that instantly generates a URL that you can copy and share with students. You can use it to document a problem you encounter and share it with the Adams Center or IT. It may be more efficient than describing the problem in text. We found it to be the most convenient way to record quick demo videos you do not intend to reuse anyway.

• Screencast-o-matic is another free web-based application that you can use to record up to 15 minutes of content. Its strong advantage is its ability for you to add a video of you talking alongside to add a personal touch. It also offers some basic tools for editing. Its disadvantage is that it is not yet possible to use with Google Chrome. Screencast sessions produced with Screencast-o-matic can then be published to YouTube or downloaded to use locally.

• Quicktime player also has the option for you to record screen sessions. Videos thus produced can be downloaded locally or uploaded to a host of web storage sites. This is an application you can use right now, as you probably have the software on your computer.

• Adobe Spark Videos can also be used to narrate over slides that are turned into pictures.  You can also develop your slideshow on the fly, using graphics from the computer or search for them within the app.  Please note that Adobe requires you to keep your talk on each slide very short.

Tips:

• Consider limiting the length of your videos. Many screencast services provide free recording for a limited time, such as five minutes or fifteen minutes. However, it is desirable to break down long lectures into shorter units anyway for reasons related to attention span and the possibility of technical issues when longer sessions are produced.

• Focus on producing sessions around concrete concepts or activities. This will help you to index, categorize and reuse some of these sessions, and help your students to search and retrieve them if you tag or name them based on the content you have discussed. Though this does not seem to be a big deal at the beginning of your use of screencasting sessions, you will soon find that your content adds up and you do not want yourself or your students to get lost when trying to find a particular screencast video you have previously recorded.

• Find the time and space for recording. Interruptions during recording can be annoying. Try to do so when you have a quiet environment, or find a time when few people are around, or put a note on your office door saying that you are recording.

• Test before you record. You do not want to get in a situation when you found that the entire 10 minutes of your recording was done while you have not turned your audio or video on. Always start by recording a short test video, and play back to make sure everything works before you record the real video.

• Prepare your computer for recording. It is a good idea that you stay focused on your recording with minimal distraction from your computer. Before recording, make sure you organize your desktop to move items away from the recording screen. Keep a clean desktop. Move items to a folder that cannot be viewed directly and try to use a clean, non-distracting background. Before recording, you should also close programs that may show pop-up content such as calendars reminders, mail notice and any other programs that may push notifications to your recording screen.

• Make your video “timeless”. If you intend to produce a high-quality video that will be re-used semester after semester, try to avoid references that are specific to the current semester, references like “last week we discussed…” “tomorrow we will cover…”. Recording a good video takes time and lots of preparation and such investment will bring greater return if you can reuse them in future semesters.

Do you have any other suggestions for screencasting?  We’d love to hear them.  Share your experience in the comments!

At the Staff PreSession in August 2018, Berlin Fang, the Adams Center Director of Instructional Design, received one of the two Outstanding Staff Member of the Year awards for the 2017-2018 school year. President Schubert read these words about Berlin before presenting the award:

“This person is brilliant, kind, and has a killer sense of humor. His office is always filled with people looking to him for help; sometimes they even line up outside of his door! His ability to take complex topics and make them operational is invaluable in his role. He is always trying to grow in his own knowledge as well, and brings cutting edge trends and information to ACU. In his spare time, he works to build relationships with and support international students on our campus, helping them find community and mentoring them. This person truly allows God to use his strengths, knowledge, and talents to bless those of us at ACU, and we are blessed to have him here.”

All of these words are true and the Adams Center is blessed and so fortunate to have Berlin as part of our staff. Congratulations!

Welcome back! Join us as we kick off a year of thinking and learning at Faculty Fusion on Friday, August 17, 2018. Friday morning we’ll offer sessions on various teaching strategies, and then, on Friday afternoon, we’ll have an extended training session with Sally Gary, focusing on extending hospitality and welcome to our students. We look forward to thinking and learning with you. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided.

You can RSVP for activities here, by emailing rsvp2ac@acu.edu, or by calling the Adams Center at 325-674-2455. Registering saves your spot in each session and allows us to know how many to expect. We look forward to seeing you!

8:30-9:00 Continental Breakfast: Adams Center
9:00-9:50 Session 1

The Dangers of Teacherless Online Courses: Humanizing Your Online Classroom
Berlin Fang
You have probably heard — or even experienced — some “teacherless” online courses that reduce the learning experience to reading and quizzing, including little interaction and community building. Join us to learn ways to “humanize” your online courses by adding more social presence while enhancing learning.

Socratic Seminars: Cultivating Critical Thinking
Jenn Rogers and Julie Douthit
The Socratic seminar method is an interactive seminar model used to promote critical thinking that provides a safe environment where students can engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue. Join us to hear how we’ve used it in our classroom and learn techniques to integrate into yours.

Igniting Creativity in your Classroom: Adobe Education Exchange
Marisa Beard
The Adobe Education Exchange helps ignite creativity in classrooms worldwide by connecting the education community through professional development, teaching resources, and peer-to-peer collaboration. Everyone at ACU has access to Adobe Education Exchange — come to find out how it can enhance your teaching and learning experience.

10:00-10:50 Session 2

“But I Read the Chapter Four Times…”: Overtly Incorporating the Science of Learning in your classroom
Lory Chrane and Amy Boone
Students often enter our classrooms with little understanding of how they learn. Join us as we dispel student studying myths, explore the science of how the brain learns, and consider ways to help students master material.

Wit and Wisdom from 2017-2018 Teachers of the Year
Andy Little, Rodney Ashlock, John Boyles, John Homer, Andrew Huddleston, David Perkins
ACU has excellent teaching all over campus. Join us for a panel discussion and conversation on excellent teaching, where we’ll talk about both successes and flops.

What did you read during your summer vacation? Laura Carroll
Come to find out what we’ll be reading in our three reading groups this fall and share what’s been on your reading list this summer, from heady academic reads to pulpy beach fiction.

11:00-11:50 Session 3

“But I Read the Chapter Four Times…”: Overtly Incorporating the Science of Learning in your classroom
Lory Chrane and Amy Boone
Students often enter our classrooms with little understanding of how they learn. Join us as we dispel student studying myths, explore the science of how the brain learns, and consider ways to help students master material.

Socratic Seminars: Cultivating Critical Thinking
Jenn Rogers and Julie Douthit
The Socratic seminar method is an interactive seminar model used to promote critical thinking that provides a safe environment where students can engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue. Join us to hear how we’ve used it in our classroom and learn techniques to integrate into yours.

Video Lectures with Camtasia: Learning Studio
Faculty across campus are producing video lectures to present content, introduce a project, or demonstrate new skills. Come to hear from faculty who use video to support student learning and the software that makes it all possible.

LUNCH

1:00-4:00 Session 4

Fostering Belonging: Creating hospitable classroom spaces for LGBTQ students: Sally Gary and Laura Carroll
As a faith-based university, it is essential that our classrooms are spaces of belonging for all students. Not only is belonging essential to the ability to learn, it allows us to model Christ in our classrooms, and it creates an environment of trust among students and faculty.

Please join us as Sally Gary and Laura Carroll lead an afternoon of Christ-like conversation, grace-filled dialogue, and respectful disagreement, where we will consider how to welcome others well at ACU.

The conversation with Sally Gary will continue on Saturday morning at the Adams Center from 9:30-noon, including table discussions with staff and students.

Teaching in Pajamas: Online Teaching Summer Camp

May 29-30, 2018

Online courses are becoming increasingly attractive for colleges due to the flexibility they provide, space they save, and the opportunity faculty have to reflect on multiple modes of delivery. However, online teaching is much more than just putting your slides online and having a few online discussions. Good course design is essential to student learning outcomes: how can you keep technology from being a hindrance? what is appropriate load? Is the course accessible? How do I orient students to the course? To answer these and many other questions, we invite you to come to these two-day camp (Tuesday, May 29-Wednesday, May 30, 2018), during which the Adams Center will work with you to help make your online course more effective, efficient, and appealing. Click here for your packing list. Please RSVP to rsvp2ac@acu.edu or call (325) 674-2981 to reserve your spot.

Camp Packing List:

-Your syllabus (digital and paper)
-A laptop computer
-Smartphones, iPads, or other devices you use to access a course
-Assessments you usually require in class
-Assignments you usually require in class
-Any pills that may help with allergies to technology
-In lieu of bug spray and itch relief, make sure your computer and devices are “bug-free” and ready to use. If needed, work with Team55 before the camp, as we will not be able to fix specific computer problems during the camp. Specifically, check if you have updated your Flash, Browser, Operating Systems, etc.

Summer Faculty Institutes

ADVANCING AS AN ACADEMIC: Moving Toward Tenure and Promotion
May 15- May 17, 2018
The workshop will be lead by Kara Poe Alexander, Director of the Baylor University Writing Center and accomplished scholar. The sessions will run from 12:00-3:00 Tuesday, 9:30-3:00 Wednesday, and 9:30-1:00 Thursday.

Sessions include:
1.The Art of Getting Published in Scholarly Journals
2.Creating Effective Writing Groups
3.Making Your Case for Tenure/Promotion
4.Looking Ahead: Drafting a Five-Year Plan and Setting Goals

You can go ahead and RSVP by emailing rsvp2ac@acu.edu for ADVANCING AS AN ACADEMIC here or call 325-674-2455. Looking forward to having you there!

DIGITAL STORYTELLING WORKSHOP
May 15 – May 17, 2018

The Learning Studio will also be hosting a Digital Storytelling workshop May 15-17. This three-day workshop leads you through the process of creating a media project. Participants will learn media storytelling strategies as they develop skills in audio recording and image/video editing, so we hope you’ll join us even if you’ve never worked with media before.

Here is a quick summary of the workshop:
DAY 1:  Talk about the elements of story, begin sharing stories and working on scripts
DAY 2:  Gather images, begin editing stories and recording audio.
DAY 3:  Finalize editing and production and screen all films. (should be finished early-afternoon)

There are a limited number of slots, so please RSVP today if you can join us by emailing rsvp2ac@acu.edu or call 325-674-2455.

Lunches will be in the Adams Center and then all participants will be invited to a final dinner Thursday night (optional).

See the video above to hear from faculty who participated in past workshops. Hope you can join us.

The transformational power of Study Abroad for our students is inextricably linked to place. One of the ways that scholars talk about the theory of “place” is that it sets the stage for human encounters. As ACU students live and study in the communities of Leipzig, Montevideo, and Oxford, they embody these encounters – when they explore, worship, and learn, even buy groceries – and through them begin to consider other versions of themselves and the world.

In anticipation of the Leipzig Villa Grand Opening, the Adams Center, the CAS Dean’s Office, and the Center for International Education wondered what kinds of faculty conversations and experiences could happen in Leipzig to further our goals for study abroad, especially in light of the experiential learning focus of the strategic plan.

One of the purposes of the trip was to give faculty the opportunity to experience places that are part of students’ curriculum, such as a city walking tour and excursions to Wittenberg and Buchenwald. However, most of the work of the trip was spent in making connections in the Leipzig community and thinking deeply about outcomes of Study Abroad, how to increase student participation, and what obstacles need to be addressed.

On our first afternoon in Leipzig, we considered what it means to think about a city as a text – to encounter Leipzig intentionally and incarnationally, not as tourists. We talked about cultivating habits of attention, mastering the vocabularies needed to interpret a place, and connecting small details to larger historical, political, and sociological questions.

On Wednesday, the President/Rector of HTWK, Leipzig University of Applied Science, welcomed us, and we toured science labs and media production spaces, in anticipation of partnerships for ACU faculty and students studying in Leipzig.

On Thursday, we applied design thinking principles to consider high-impact practices for our students and to be frank about obstacles for students, faculty, departments, and degrees.

On  Friday, as we wrapped up, faculty were all over Leipzig meeting with potential partners in hospitals, engineering labs, art galleries, and student service providers.

As one might imagine, the time in Leipzig was full of conversation between faculty, administrators, advisors, and trustees: about Leipzig, about our disciples and connections among them, and about the dreams we have for our students and their opportunities to change the world.

(Don’t forget that the Leipzig Faculty Fellow is an opportunity to participate and cultivate these conversations in Leipzig.)

The Adams Center will host 5 Reading Groups this Fall. If you have questions or would like to register you may call Tammy at 325-674-2023 or send an email to rsvp2ac@acu.edu. Times and dates are below.

Faculty Fusion 2017 — August 18

Transform

Join us in thinking about transforming our teaching, our students, and ourselves this year in the Adams Center. We’ll kick off our year with Faculty Fusion on Friday, August 18, 2017, 8:30am-1:00pm. Come for breakfast, learning, and lunch!

You can RSVP for activities here, by emailing rsvp2ac@acu.edu, or by calling the Adams Center at 325-674-2455. Registering saves your spot in each session and allows us to know how many to expect. We look forward to seeing you!

8:30-9:00 Continental Breakfast: Adams Center

9:00-9:50 Session 1

Using screencasting to give students feedback (The Woods) — Berlin Fang

If you find that you spend too much time typing feedback, only to be ignored by students, perhaps you should try using screencast to give feedback to students.  Research shows that students perceive such feedback favorably. Students are also more likely to use such feedback to improve their work. Come to this session to learn how to create screencast feedback and use it to improve student learning!

Engaging Spiritually with Students (The Classroom)  — Amy Boone

What are college students thinking about faith? What are they wondering? What frustrates them about religion? Come explore tangible ways to engage spiritually with students in and out of class.

Introduction to Specifications Grading (Bamboo Room) — Suzie Macaluso

In this session we will introduce you to Specifications Grading as developed by Linda Nilson. We will look at syllabi from Specifications graded courses and actual assignment details. Following this introduction there will be a book group that meets throughout the semester in which we discuss the book and workshop course syllabi to include Specifications Grading.

10:00-10:50 Session 2

20/20 Innovation Grants: What We Learned in the First Year (The Classroom)

In this session, you’ll hear from a few of the 2016/17 recipients of the 20/20 Envisioning the Future of Education Teaching and Innovation Grants about their projects’ successes and failures and what we learned from those. In addition, find out how you can apply for future 20/20 grants.

What did you read on your summer vacation? (Bamboo Room) — Laura Carroll

Come find out what we’ll be reading in our three reading groups this fall and share what’s been on your reading list this summer, from heady academic reads to pulpy beach fiction

Using screencasting to give students feedback (The Woods) — Berlin Fang

If you find that you spend too much time typing feedback, only to be ignored by students, perhaps you should try using screencast to give feedback to students.  Research shows that students perceive such feedback favorably. Students are also more likely to use such feedback to improve their work. Come to this session to learn how to create screencast feedback and use it to improve student learning!

11:00-11:50 Session 3

Media Spaces for Students and Faculty (Bamboo Room and Learning Studio) — Kyle Dickson and Melissa Henderson

Interested in assigning a media project or sharing audio or video with your class? Come see the redesigned One Button Studio and media production suites upstairs in the Learning Studio. We’ll share tips for teaching with media and describe how we provide training and web resources to support your students.

Designing Assignments for Student Success (The Woods) — Laura Carroll

Research indicates that that creating transparent assignments “boosts students’ success (and especially underserved students’ success) significantly in three important areas: academic confidence, sense of belonging, and mastery of the skills employers value most when hiring.” Join us to learn about the principles of transparent assignments and to have a chance to think about your own assignments.

Engaging Spiritually with Students (The Classroom)  — Amy Boone

What are college students thinking about faith? What are they wondering? What frustrates them about religion? Come explore tangible ways to engage spiritually with students in and out of class.

12:00 Lunch: Adams Center

In a recent Adams Center session on making classrooms welcoming places for international students, Lucy Dawson from the Center for International Education, Dr. Carly Dodd (Professor of Communication), Dr. Monty Lynn (Professor of Management) and Dr. Lori Houghtalen, Assistant Professor of Engineering and Physics) and Berlin Fang shared some challenges faced by international students studying at ACU, as well as possible solutions.

We have found that these are the top four challenges international students face.  We will also share a few strategies to help address these challenges:

1. Learner participation in the classroom:  International students may have difficulty participating in classroom discussions due to language barriers, varied cultural expectations, limited understanding of social norms and lack of prior exposure to group discussions.  Group projects was also mentioned as particularly challenging for international students, perhaps due to the lack of welcome by domestic students and a hesitation to contribute by international students.
2. Academic integrity: Some international students may have limited understanding of how their professors define academic integrity. Sometimes they lack training in proper citations in academic work.  There is also a concern that some students do not know the boundary between individual work and group work.
3. Expectations for assignments and assessment: Among international students, there is often confusion on the number of assignments, and confusion about some academic jargon such as “outcomes” and “rubrics”.  Some show frustration over the speed of professors’ speech or the volume of assigned reading.  Participants mentioned international students had not been taught how to “scan” readings, and perhaps had vocabulary to look up, which also impeded reading speed.
4. The use of resources: There is a lack of awareness of university resources that could be really helpful for international students.  Among these are the Writing Center, the Speaking Center, research help, and the Counseling Center.  Tutoring is provided to students who may be struggling with an academic subject, but sometimes there is variation between tutor knowledge and the faculty’s lecture.

The panelists discussed many solutions, best practices, and tips for faculty to make their classroom more hospitable to international students.  Here are some highlights from this discussion:

1. Use technology to break barriers:  As some international students have a greater ability to read and write, than to listen and speak, including some discussions online may help relieve the pressure to speak in public in a different language. Some materials, such as the course rubric and reading materials should be shared online as well for constant access.
2. Develop a relationship with the students outside of class, and use office hours creatively: ACU faculty use many types of “office hours” techniques to build one-on-one relationship with students, which can be especially helpful for students. One professor mandates a 10-minute meeting with every student to get to know them. Some use walking sessions to have a “mobile” office hour around campus. Some have designated a “help desk” at the library to meet with students in a less threatening environment.
3. Consider offering a specialized orientation for your class.  For instance, provide some training related to reading academic resources (reading strategies). Provide training on using the library website or citation management tools such as Zotero.  Provide training or tours of various university resources such as the writing center, pointing out specific assistance that can be given, and some that cannot be given (for example assistance that crosses into academic integrity violations).
4. Explain social norms:  It is important to explain classroom social norms, including proper class etiquette, appropriate assertiveness, and social spaces.  The key is to help international students form a good sense of boundaries while still feeling encouraged to learn and socialize.

Please also check out this presentation for further tips and more information about this session.  Faculty and staff are welcome to contact Berlin Fang (bxf13b@acu.edu) or Lucy Dawson (lld09a@acu.edu) regarding international students in the classroom at any time.  

Veronica Whitt, the international student services coordinator, can also meet with students individually to help them find the support resources they might need, so please feel free to refer students to her for assistance (vdw09a@acu.edu).

Additional Reading:

• Group work by the Higher Education Academy

As the semester draws to a close, I would like to send a few important reminders as you wrap up your Canvas courses and get ready for the new semester:

1. Read this post for ideas about calculating final grade.
2. Remember to check and change (if needed) the end dates of your courses while you have access.  Check this tutorial for details.
3. Request course for your new semester. Check the tutorial here.
4. If you haven’t chosen the copy option in the previous step, don’t worry.  You can still copy a Canvas course from another shell after a new course is created.  Check instructions here.
5. If you intend to crosslist your courses for the new semester, follow instructions here.
6. We try to put all Canvas tutorials together in this page. You might want to bookmark it for future reference.

If you use Speedgrader in Canvas to mark student assignments, remember that some students may not know where to find your feedback. Here is a tutorial to help you see instructor feedback from a student view. Feel free to share the link to the video if needed: https://youtu.be/97QYgFKw7RM

Professors can also tell whether a student has viewed the feedback from the Speedgrader, as shown below.

Creating a syllabus is a daunting task.  Once created and shared with students, does your course actually reflect what you have written in the syllabus?  Having the course one way and allow the course to deviate is like a builder having a blueprint for a house and then you deliver an apartment or mobile home to the customer.  (I am not sure if this metaphor works, but I hope you get the idea.) This is especially problematic when you put content in a learning management system. Here are three main problem areas and some suggestions.

Content:

Most syllabi describe a list of topics presented in a particular order.  Make your course reflect that. When using your LMS to organize your course, do not use the course space as a landfill to dump everything without a particular logic to it. Use modules to organize your content in folders.  Arrange the folders in chronological or topical orders as you have described in the syllabus.

Dates:

In the syllabus you may have a course calendar marking the dates of readings and course activities, but your course may not show some of the due dates, or show old due dates you inherited from the last iteration of the course.  This would almost always cause confusion. I would recommend that you set the dates in LMS for activities that you can assign dates, which will create calendar events, which in turn will be tied with personalized notifications students receive.

Grades:

Last but not the least, the most frequent problem is the mismatch between syllabus and course in grades. In your syllabus you may have categories for various types of assignments. Each category may be worth a certain percentage of the total grades.  For instance, quizzes will be worth 20%, papers 30%, exams 40%, In many courses online we find that the grade book does not reflect what you say in the syllabus.  You can fix that by creating categories and weigh them according to your syllabus. If you have done that, your grade book will automatically calculate grades (including final grades) for you and the students. This really helps students to keep track of their progress all the time. You will save yourself time by not having to calculate the grades with Excel or calculator.

If you use letter grades, remember that the default grading schema of your LMS may not be what you have described in your syllabus. For instance, your LMS may make 95%-100% worth A, while you have 90%-100% to qualify as an A. Usually you can create your own schema to reflect descriptions in the syllabus. For instance in Canvas, you can define your own schema from course settings.

Once you get these problems straightened out, I promise that you will have fewer housekeeping emails, greater student satisfaction and more quality time with your students.

If you want any help aligning your course with your syllabus, contact the Instructional Team for help.

The Adams Center will host 4 Reading Groups this Fall. If you have questions or would like to register you may call Tammy at 325-674-2023 or send an email to rsvp2ac@acu.edu. Times and dates are below.

As we prepare to begin a new school year, the Adams Center staff would like to reflect upon and share with you the variety of work we did in 2015-2016. Click on the link below to see our end of year summary and learn about some new projects.

Adams Center 2015-2016 Summary Report

We look forward to 2016-2017 and the opportunity to support you in your teaching, scholarship, and the ways you live out the mission of ACU and God’s calling everyday.