Faculty Focus Live

The first day of class is filled with emotions. Whether or not you feel confident, calm, and collected, doesn’t mean your students are feeling the same way. So how do you use the first day to foster a zest for learning? How do you make sure they know you care? How can you decrease their stress they may be feeling?

In today’s episode, we’ll cover some teacher-tested activities for the first day of class and how you can make slight tweaks to make meaningful strides in relieving student mental health concerns and stress on the first day. By setting the stage on day one, your students will be invested, interested, and ready for your class!

Recommended resources:

• Free report: Icebreakers (Your Class Won't Find Cheesy)
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Use the First Day to Set the Tone for a Semester of Learning?
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Do I Release My Students' Natural Zest and Curiosity for Better Learning?
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Intentionally Create a Course that Boosts Learning and Decreases Student Stress?

This episode is sponsored by the Teaching Professor Online Conference. Learn teaching practices you need to help your students succeed in the comfort of your own space! 

Do you remember your first year as a college student? Were you nervous, scared, excited, lonely, happy, sad? Maybe you felt all of these emotions, which is a lot for anyone to take on. Add to that figuring out your class schedule, where things are on your campus, the dialogue of instructors using words you’ve never heard before. 

Today, we’re going to focus on how you can continue to support first-year students in their educational journey. We’ll talk about being purposeful in your course design from studying habits to evaluations, and then we’ll talk about discussion board labs for first-year students to help them engage in discussion and increase their confidence in their abilities. Lastly, we encourage you to ask your students: What’s working well and what do we need to change? What do we need to improve upon? How can we continue to better meet what you need? These questions and tactics can help your first-year students become more successful and confident.

Recommended resources:

• 20-Minute Mentor: How Do I Create a Class that Supports First-Year Students?
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Use the Discussion Board to Stimulate Engagement and Build Confidence for First-Year Students?
• Magna Seminar: Practical Ways to Support First-Generation College Students in the College Classroom

Today we’re going to talk about student mental health, infusing applicable humor into the classroom, emotion science, and collective effervescence. 

By implementing temperature checks and reflections, you can assess how your students are feeling. Include a mental health check question like, What did you do to take care of yourself this week? And then at the end of the reflection, ask your students, Is there anything else you’d like to share? 

You’ll be asked to consider the question, If you held the higher ed magic wand, where would you start to create a humor climate? What would you do? What would your colleague do? 

Additionally, we’ll cover emotion science. That is, when we feel bad, we can't learn as effectively. And when we feel good, it benefits our learning. Lastly, we’ll go over collective effervescence, which represents the synchrony we feel when we are together and in communication with one another. Flower Darby explains, "We want to extend this sense of belonging to our students, no matter who they are, no matter their personality, their preferences, their identities. We want all of our students to feel like they belong so that they can thrive in our classes."

Recommended resources (Please note, the resources used in this specific episode are from last year's Teaching Professor Online Conference. For similar and new content, register for this year's Teaching Professor Online Conference):

• Teaching Professor Online Conference
• Applying the Surgeon General's Model for Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing in Higher Education
• Increasing Student Engagement, Persistence, and Success Online Using Emotion Science
• Using Humor and Levity to Enhance the Online Learning Environment

In today's episode, we will explore the topics of resiliency, stress management, wellbeing, and grit. Stress definitely has a significant impact on our wellbeing and overall mindset, so we'll discuss work-related stressor strategies including the benefits of a 10-year journal and the concept of "eating the frog" in the morning.  We will offer valuable insights on fostering resilience and utilizing tools like appreciative inquiry, growth mindset, and grit in overcoming teaching challenges. By implementing these concepts into our teaching practices and daily lives, we can cultivate more happiness and better navigate the emotional costs of daily stressors. 

Recommended Resources:

• FREE 20-Minute Mentor: What Can I Do to Manage and Reduce Academic Job Stress? (Special offer ends Friday, June 2, 2023)
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Apply a Resilient Mindset to My Teaching Practice?
• Magna Online Course: The Wellbeing Elixir
• Wellbeing Webinars (different wellbeing topics each month for only $25!)

 Don’t forget! Expand your love of teaching at the Teaching Professor Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 9-11, 2023. Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of your school year: a conference to network, learn, and refocus on why you got into teaching in the first place! 

Here’s to having a little fun in class. Here’s to using creativity to connect with students and connect students to the content. Here’s to playing games in the classroom. Your lecture doesn’t have to snooze students to sleep😴. Today, we’re going to talk about how to foster creativity and connection in the classroom; we’ll talk about how to use tools such as AutoDraw, Pixlr, and ThingLink to strengthen student engagement; and lastly, we’ll talk about specific games you can use to engage students with the content and with you.

Recommended Resources:

• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Introduce Creativity to My Classes to Build Connection with Students
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Inspire Creative Confidence in the Classroom?
• 20-Minute Mentor: What 5 Play-based Activities Can I Use to Create an Active, Learning-centered Class?

 Don’t forget! Expand your love of teaching at the Teaching Professor Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 9-11, 2023. Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of your school year: a conference to network, learn, and refocus on why you got into teaching in the first place! 

Every now and then it’s important to take a step back to self-reflect and listen to advice from other educators. With an exhausting past few years, here’s your reminder that your purpose as an educator is so impactful and so important. Today, we’ll talk about mindful teaching and how you can use the acronym HEARTS to be mindful of your presence as an instructor. And then, Ken Alford will talk about his 40-year teaching career, the best advice he’s received, and how you can experience more career satisfaction and effectiveness. We hope you can take these tips and techniques as a reminder that you are not alone – we are rooting for you.

Recommended Resources:

• Magna Online Seminar: Contemplative Pedagogy for Purposeful Teaching
• 20-Minute Mentor: What Are 14 Strategies to Take My Teaching Career from Good to Great?
• 20-Minute Mentor: What is the Best Teaching Advice I Ever Received?

Don’t forget! Expand your love of teaching at the Teaching Professor Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 9-11, 2023. Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of your school year: a conference to network, learn, and refocus on why you got into teaching in the first place!

There’s been a lot of chat about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of higher education. From concerns about academic integrity to prohibiting this all-knowing AI, but today, I want us to see AI from a different perspective.

What if you could use AI at your university to help students experiencing food insecurity and connect them with resources? What if you could use AI for your syllabus and lesson plan ideation? What if you could minimize the temptation to cheat? In this episode, Jeremy Caplan, Flower Darby, and Liz Norell discuss how educators can embark on this new technological journey.  Additionally, we'll meet Reggie, Ocean County College's virtual chatbot who can communicate with students and better meet their needs.

Remember, both of these Magna Online Seminars are 20% off with coupon code PODCAST20. You don't want to miss out on these full, one-hour discussions!

Recommended Resources:

• Facing the Future: Educators Discuss Teaching in the Era of ChatGPT
• Using an AI Chatbot: Programmed for Success
• FREE Special Report: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education

Have you ever been asked this question by a student: Will this be on the exam? Do I need to know this?

In today’s episode, Maryellen Weimer will offer evidence-based study strategies that you can implement into your course to help prepare students for exams. Rather than cramming the night before, you can encourage students to take more responsibility in their review techniques and redesign exams to promote learning.

Recommended resources:

• Magna Online Seminar: An Integrated Approach to Student Exams
• Magna Online Seminar: What are Five Methods that Help Students Become More Effective Learners?
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Make My Exams More About Learning, Less About Grades?

We’re going to talk about community, swift trust, and storytelling. Whether you teach an online or in-person class, you want your students to feel as if they are entering a community where they are welcome, safe, and can share ideas among each other. You want to establish common interests and a sense of togetherness because they are going to be solving problems together, they’ll be investigating and exploring topics, they’ll share knowledge and maybe even challenge each other respectfully. So, today we’ll talk about ideas to foster a sense of community, how swift trust can be applied in an educational setting, and finally, how a storytelling activity with a sticky note or penny can inspire students to share their own stories.

Recommended Resources:

• Magna Online Seminar: 7 Indispensable Strategies to Build Community in Your Online Courses
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Earn Swift Trust in My Online Classes?
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Harness the Power of Story to Create Classroom Community?

Don't forget! Expand your love❤️ of teaching at the Teaching Professor Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 9-11, 2023. Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of your school year: a conference to network, learn, and refocus on why you got into teaching in the first place!

Today, we're going to talk about racial justice, the relationship between food and culture, and a type of plan-do-check-act cycle for diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

To start, Santos Felipe Ramos explains how food is so intertwined with culture that it makes for an effective method of inquiry into racial identity and racial disparities, in his seminar, Understanding Racial Justice Through Food Studies. Additionally, Stephanie Delaney offers a multi-step process for narrowing DEI work from a huge multi-generational project into something obtainable each week.

Recommended Resources:

• Magna Online Seminar: Understanding Racial Justice Through Food Studies
• 20-Minute Mentor: How Can I Pace DEI Work to See Subtle Gains Now and Significant Gains in the Future?

Don't forget! Expand your love❤️ of teaching at the Teaching Professor Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 9-11, 2023. Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of your school year: a conference to network, learn, and refocus on why you got into teaching in the first place!