CCT Grant Winners Fall 2021
Teaching Circle
Winter Term Book Discussion: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Peer Instruction
Tech Tools: Introducing YuJa
Research Resources: Research Guides
Canvas Corner: Preparing for Winter Term

The Commission on College Teaching is pleased to offer this end-of-term edition of our newsletter to share teaching resources, training events, and teaching grant opportunities. Have a safe, warm, and wonderful winter break!

CCT Grants

Congratulations to Dawn Taylor and Caroline Doty! In our fall round of grant funding, they were awarded $1,200 to develop an open educational resource for Cell Identification for Medical Fields.

Do you have an idea for a project? CCT is now accepting applications for the winter round of grant funding. The next application deadline is Monday, March 7.

Teaching Circle

AVPAE and CCT hosted the first cross-campus teaching circle on Friday, December 3, from 12–1 p.m. on both campuses. Faculty enjoyed a free lunch and discussions about hybrid teaching and improvisation were discussed.

Look for the next Teaching Circle in Winter term, where we will again host in-person gatherings will be held on Klamath Falls and Portland-Metro campuses, linked by Zoom so you can chat with distant colleagues or join in remotely. Lunch will be provided.

Winter Term Book Discussion

Tuesdays, from 2–3 p.m. A separate in-person meeting will be organized on the Portland-Metro campus, too. We will plan to meet in-person with an option to join remotely via Zoom.

Understanding how you and your students think can make you a better teacher. This book by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explores how we think — and how biases and intuition can often lead us astray.

An individual has been described by a neighbor as follows: “Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful but with very little interest in people or in the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail.” Is Steve more likely to be a librarian or a farmer?

If you said, "librarian," then you should read the book and join our discussion to find out why you are wrong! We will cover a few chapters — roughly 50 pages — each week and attempt to complete the book by the end of the term. If you are interested in reading the book and joining the discussion, please email jesse.kinder@oit.edu, ashton.greer@oit.edu, or lindy.stewart@oit.edu. You can purchase a copy of the book, or request a copy from the library.

- - Buy a copy at amazon.com (print, audio, or eBook).
  - Request a copy from the OIT Library.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Peer Instruction

What is peer instruction? Orginally developed for Physics but adopted in a variety of disciplines, this approach to teaching has been shown to lead to increased learning during classes. Students answer questions, discuss, and then answer again, typically improving on the second attempt. Peer instruction also includes peer dialog as well as classroom instruction. Read the paper about one of the original implementations in Physics at Harvard with more than 3000 citations here:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.457.3304&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Tech Tools: Introducing Yuja

YuJa is a video management software suite for education that enabled Lecture Capture, Video CMS, Video Conferencing, Video Proctoring, Live Streaming, Digital Accessibility, Digital Compliance, and Digital Asset Management. YuJa will be providing support to OIT as part of this adoption.

https://www.yuja.com/

Research Resources: Research Guides

Research guides support students’ online research needs. Found through the library home page, they point students toward the best resources for doing research, provide instruction for using those resources, and give students access to additional help.

You can link directly to relevant research guides in your Canvas courses to help your students find quality information for their assignments and connect with a librarian if they need help. Explore currently available guides on our Research Guides page. There you'll find general research guides for most of the major subjects taught at Oregon Tech, or your librarian can create a customized research guide for your course — focused on the types of work students will do in your class. If you'd like to pursue a customized research guide, contact your liaison librarian. You can find your librarian on our new guide to Library Services for Faculty.

Canvas Corner: Preparing for Winter Term

Merging Classes in Canvas
Canvas Updates
Respondus 4.0 123

Merging Classes in Canvas

For Winter Term classes- remember if you want to merge your courses you must request that no later than the week before the terms begin. Click here for the link to submit a request.

Canvas Updates

Assignments: Submission Feedback Indicator
List View Dashboard Conference Links
Speedgrader - Assignment Text Entry Word Count
Studio - Custom Group Sharing

Respondus 4.0

A software tool for creating and managing exams that can be published directly to Canvas. You can find more information through the Faculty Training Course - Respondus

Commission Members

If you have resources, questions, comments, or ideas for CCT, please reach out to our team:

Dawn Taylor | Medical Laboratory Science (Co-chair)
Jesse Kinder | Natural Sciences (Co-chair)
Lindy Stewart | Business Management
Kevin Brown | Communication
Tracy Scharn | Librarian
Carrie Dickson | Online Learning
Laurie Yates | Business Management
Cecily Heiner | Computer Systems Engineering Technology
Sophie Nathenson | Humanities and Social Sciences
Ashton Greer | Civil Engineering
David Johnston | Natural Sciences
Yuehai Yang | Natural Sciences
Alishia Huntoon | Humanities and Social Sciences
Clairise Tapken | Student Representative
Justin Ringle | Student Representative
Dina Battaglia | Associate Vice Provost for Academic Excellence