Primarily Education-Focused Sessions and Resources

Backing Up With Backchannels (Online Learning Consortium Webinar)

Date: May 27, 2015
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Location: GEB A304

Presenter: Julia VanderMolen (Assistant Professor in College of Health Professions at Grand Valley State University)

Overview:

Students need instructor guidance to use virtual platforms for academic purposes. Faculty cannot rely on their students’  “so called” digital native status to know how and what to do with technology. Just a few years ago, no one had heard of “backchanneling”, nowadays, it has become mainstream.

Students’ desire to participate in the backchannel is increased if they have a sense of community within the channel, which is most easily built through social interactions and shared experiences. Learn the role of the backchannel in a collaborative learning environment.

This topic will be of interest to online and blended learning faculty and educators. Participants will learn about student and faculty benefits from backchannels, ways to use backchannels in the classroom and what tools to use for backchanneling in online and blended classroom.

To register to attend this session go to: http://tinyurl.com/olc-backchannels

Online Discussion: Practices to Boost Learning & Engagement (Magna Online 40-Minute Seminar)

Session Archive Available

Date: Session took place April 28, 2015

Presenter: Lolita Paff, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Business & Economics at Penn State Berks)

Overview:

Online discussion is a great way for students to connect and learn. But you can’t just set up a board and leave it there. Students need responses to their work to keep growing and learning. An unmonitored discussion board can lead to huge headaches and not much learning. This means you need effective strategies to keep students on task and promote truly educational online interaction.

Online Discussion: Practices to Boost Learning & Engagement will show you how to coach students toward meaningful discussion. By the end of the seminar, you’ll have the insights and tools you need to:

•    Employ alternative strategies to promote interaction and develop students’ online discussion skills
•    Compare and apply different discussion board formats to increase student interest and engagement
•    Identify and manage techniques to empower students as facilitators of online discussion

Links to the session recording and materials are available within the Professional Development course within Blackboard. Enrollment instructions for the Professional Development course can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/profdevenroll

OLC: 8th Annual Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium 2015

Session Archives Available

Conference Dates: Took place April 22nd – April 24th, 2015 in Dallas, TX

Conference Overview:

As emerging technologies continue to be embraced and are changing the way people socialize and learn, we are presented with new opportunities for leveraging emerging technology and pedagogy to shape the next generation of teaching and learning. But emerging technologies are reshaping more than pedagogy. Wearable technologies, analytics, an increased appreciation for openness, connected learning, global collaboration, social technologies and the increasing need to encourage experimentation in order to innovate are also impacting how we train, support, and incentivize faculty; design learning environments; and lead within a higher education organization.

The all-star line up of speakers for the Online Learning Consortium’s ET4Online 2015 will provide you with provocative and meaningful insight about how emerging technologies are impacting higher education and recontextualize our academic experiences within an agile, fluid world.

A complete list of  recorded sessions can be found at: http://olc.onlinelearningconsortium.org/conference/2015/et4online/streamed_sessions

Information related to accessing session archives from this conference are located in the Professional Development within Blackboard. Enrollment instructions for the Professional Development course are located at http://tinyurl.com/profdevenroll.

Please contact Kristy Conger (kconger@uthsc.edu / 901-448-2253) if you need assistance accessing the session archives.

Professional Sessions

Biomedical Informatics Group (BIG) Meeting

Date: May 29, 2015
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (Lunch will be provided)
Location: 910 Madison, Room 502

Speaker:  Charisse Madlock-Brown, PhD, MLS (Assistant Professor Dept. of Health Informatics and Information Management at University of Tennessee Health Science Center)

Topic: A Framework for Emerging Topic Detection in Biomedicine

Session Overview:

Policy makers, funding agencies and researchers need tools for emerging trend analysis of scientific research. Emerging topic detection algorithms have the potential to assist researchers in maintaining awareness of current trends in biomedical fields – a feat not easily achieved with existing methods. Though topic detection algorithms for news cycles exist, several aspects of this particular area make applying them directly to scientific literature problematic.

This work presents a framework for emerging topic detection. It builds upon the probabilistic burst detection algorithm developed by Kleinberg. Characterization of bursts over an extended planning horizon by discipline was performed to understand what a typical burst trend looks like in this space to better understand how to identify important or emerging trends.

AIHC Leadership Webinar Series – Developing Interprofessional Champions in the Clinical Environment: Opportunites for Preceptors

Session Archive Available

Date: Session took place May 8, 2015

Overview:

Interprofessional education is becoming increasingly common in health professions’ pre-licensure curriculum.  As part of this education, students need “real” opportunities to see interprofessional collaborative practice role modeled and to practice “real” interprofessional team-based care.

This webinar responds to the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation’s recent call for aligning interprofessional education and clinical practice redesign to achieve the Triple Aim.  We need preceptors (aka clinical educators) and clinical sites developed where students experience both interprofessional practice and education in live patient care environments.

This webinar will feature two university approaches for developing preceptors to be interprofessional champions in the clinical environment.  Each case study will provide information on their approaches and materials, lessons learned and strategies for success.

Objectives:

1.    Identify the need for developing preceptors to align interprofessional education and clinical practice redesign.
2.    Compare and contrast two cases studies that feature a variety of approaches and materials for preceptor development.
3.    Discuss common barriers, lessons learned and strategies for success regarding development of preceptors that are interprofessional champions.

The recording and materials for this session are available at: https://nexusipe.org/resource-exchange/developing-interprofessional-champions-clinical-environment-opportunities

Toastmasters Brain Builders UTHSC Chapter

Date: Every Tuesday
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Location: The Urban Child Institute, 600 Jefferson Avenue, 1st Floor, Conference Room 4

If you would like to become an engaging public speaker, improve your skills as a teacher, seminar speaker or when presenting professionally to your colleagues, joining a Toastmasters club will allow you to reach your goals fast in a professional environment. A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing workshop in which participants hone their speaking and leadership skills in a no-pressure atmosphere. Free parking is available and everyone is welcome!

For more information about Toastmasters contact Detlef Heck (dheck@uthsc.edu) or Bill Howell (atenra@comcast.net).

Additional Resources

2014: The Year of Active Learning at UTHSC
To access a variety of active learning resources visit https://academic.uthsc.edu/faculty/2014.php

UTHSC’s Faculty Resource Center
View schedule of professional development opportunities and read out latest blog post at https://uthsctlc.wordpress.com/