Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement

Who among us has not had moments of frustration staring out at a sea of young faces beaming looks of boredom or, worse, staring glassy-eyed into their phones? This session brings together Smeal instructors and instructional designers to share experiences and discuss creative connection strategies for today’s higher education classroom.

RESOURCES:

• PPT: Approaches for Reaching Gen Z
• Related Smeal Academy Session: Active Learning Strategies

Skilled staff and professors must possess technical expertise AND communication skills that generate interest in their areas of expertise. This could mean the difference between success (or failure) in the classroom, earning a grant, or garnering support from the community at large regarding why your work matters. This session introduces the strategies required to garner audience interest and support. Andy Gustafson is a professor of Leadership Communication in the Smeal College of Business. He has taught Penn State MBAs for almost 30 years. In addition to the work that Andy does with the college, he has also provided Communication Consulting for firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanely, Lockheed-Martin, McDonald’s, and PNC.

This session was designed to provide tips and strategies to put the finishing touches on your Canvas courses for the upcoming semester. This session covers some Canvas basics, provide a checklist of must-do items before publishing your course(s), and share tips and strategies for a successful start to the semester. New this year: speakers discuss best practices for creating a positive first impression and first-day strategies for faculty based on Sarah Rose Cavanaugh’s book The Spark of Learning, which we read for the Smeal Academy Book Club. This session will help you ensure a strong Fall kickoff.

RESOURCES:

• Session Slides
• Beginning of Semester Checklist
• How to Change Notification and Profile Settings in Canvas
• Request a Canvas Master Course
• How to Create a Grade Posting Policy in Canvas
• Residential Instruction Syllabus, Part 2
• Activity for First-Year Students
• We Connect Sticker Name Tags – Chad Littlefield from We Connect published a video on icebreakers for college students.
• Smeal Academy Podcast

A recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse revealed that college students want their professors and advisers to be very involved in promoting their mental health and well-being. What does that mean for us in higher education? This session shares some easy teaching strategies that you can implement today to support students that might make your job a little easier too.

RESOURCES:

• Session Slides
• Inside Higher Ed Article
• Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
• PSU Red/Yellow/Green Folders

Did you know there’s a new Faculty Senate guideline in Policy 42-27 stating that “Instructors should provide, within reason, pedagogical and curricular necessity, the opportunity for a day consisting solely of remote asynchronous instruction on a November election day?” This session shares some strategies and best practices for asynchronous instruction and contingency planning for those days and times when plans change, and instruction must go on.  This session is designed for instructors and staff who support Canvas courses.

RESOURCES:

• Session slides
• Sample announcements
• Penn State Voting Resources

Are you on the lookout for new case studies for your course or interesting content to support curriculum and independent research? Would you like to help students better understand business practices while developing a business plan of their own? Are you interested in publishing interdisciplinary case studies? If so, this session covers SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Business Cases are free to Penn State Faculty, Staff, and Students through Penn State Libraries.

SAGE Business Cases bring business to life—inspiring students and researchers to develop their own best practices and prepare for professional success. Tailored to meet the various needs of librarians, faculty, and students, these cases cover a variety of in-demand subjects including entrepreneurship, accounting, healthcare management, leadership, and social enterprise. In this session, we will provide in-depth instruction on using SAGE Business Cases to illuminate real-life business scenarios and theories and understand their application outside the classroom.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Review the SAGE Business Cases collection and explore how it is curated and developed
• Create a user profile, save searches, and build custom lists of content
• Search, browse, and filter to find specific cases in the platform
• Link cases into learning management systems, websites, and LibGuides
• Use learning objectives, teaching notes, and other supplemental materials to enhance course instruction

The first 30 minutes cover the benefits (and more) with the rest of the time dedicated to Q&A, sharing how cases and simulations might be used to enhance your courses!

With a career at Penn State dating back to 1984, Dr. Brett Bixler brings almost four decades of instructional design experience to his role as an instructional designer on the eLDIG team. The session discusses how teaching and learning with technology has evolved during his career as he discusses whether or not our brains work like snow globes (to paraphrase the Far Side): You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It’s like that.

RESOURCES:

• Session Slides
• SME Video (in presentation)

The session explores strategies and tools to increase student engagement and take your content creation to the next level. We discuss faculty- and student-created content as well as tools and tips to enhance your course media game while maximizing the accessibility of your course content.

RESOURCES:

• Session Slides:
  • Tips and Tricks for Creating Impactful Presentations
  • Student-Created Content
• NCDAE Cheatsheets
• Web Accessibility Contrast Checker
• ThingLink (vendor website)

This session was designed to help faculty and staff who support faculty to put the finishing touches on Canvas for the upcoming semester. We cover some Canvas basics, a checklist of items that you don’t want to forget before publishing your course(s), and some best tips and practices to get the semester off to a great start.

Link to Session Slides

Link to Session Slides

Engaging Students via Microlearning

Are your students mentally stuffed to the gills from your course content? There are things you can do to help them!In this interactive Smeal Academy session, we’ll look at Microlearning (providing small, bite-size chunks of information in a timely manner) and how you might apply it to your course content. We’ll look at the theory behind Microlearning, provide some examples, and see how to apply it in Canvas.

Helpful Resources

• 4_Step_Microlearning
• 56 Tiny Tips for Microlearning Mastery
• 7taps Microlearning Use Cases

Join us for a Microsoft Bookings Lunch & Learn facilitated by Jessie Sorensen and Carrie Marcinkevage. Several members of the Smeal College of Business utilize MS Bookings for admissions, coaching/advising, and individual appointments. Participants are invited to share their tips and tricks for maximizing MS Bookings’ value and use.

Please note that rather than a first-time training for MS Bookings, this facilitated sharing session assumes basic knowledge and use.

Are your students stifling yawns over your course content? Want to add some easy-to-use motivational tools to turn those yawns into gasps? In this session, we’ll look at over a dozen micro-engagements that will kick your course up a notch without breaking the bank or your clock.

Our busy lives pull us in so many directions. Taking time to relax, reconnect with ourselves, and reset is critical for being able to show up for others. In this session, we share a wide variety of resources you can use every day to feel calmer, more centered, and refreshed.

Links Shared in Presentation:

• Let’s Take a Mental Vacation
• Burnout by Amelia and Emily Nagoski
• Consider a Two-Song Practice
• Box Breathing
• Creative Expression
• 20-Second Hug Research