Faculty Development: Faculty Development Sessions

 

WRITING GROUP CHALLENGE

 

You are invited to join the FDC's Writing Group to get your important work done in a space with like-minded individuals! Whether you need to work on your articles, books, grants, book chapters, or other writing projects, you will be challenged to commit to your most important goals and receive encouragement, accountability, and much more along the way.

Facilitator: Dr. Firm Faith Watson, Director, Faculty Development Center

When: Tuesdays, February 25; March 11, 25; April 8, 22; 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.       

Where: Via Zoom

Register: 2025 Spring Registration

THE ACTIVE LEARNING SERIES: FROM PLANNING TO PRACTICE

Session 1: Active Learning Made Simple: Practical Tools to Engage Your Students

Are you interested in engaging your students in learning beyond listening, reading, and memorizing?

This session will provide practical tools to help you create engaging and collaborative classroom experiences. Participants will explore strategies that inspire deeper student engagement and critical thinking while being easy to implement across any discipline. This session will equip participants to do the following:

• Design an active learning activity tailored to the course objectives.
• Facilitate student-centered discussions that encourage critical thinking and collaboration.
• Implement low-preparation strategies to increase student participation in any classroom setting, including helpful technologies.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of active learning techniques in achieving specific learning outcomes.

Presenter: Dr. Firm Faith Watson, Director, Faculty Development Center

When:  March 13, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.                

Where: Via Zoom

Register: 2025 Spring Registration

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Session 2: Active Learning Strategies for Deeper Engagement in Online Learning 

How can you foster active engagement in an online classroom environment?

In this session, participants will explore practical strategies for integrating active learning into online courses, with a focus on creating an engaging, student-centered experience. This session will equip participants to do the following:

• Develop strategies to integrate active learning into online environments, enhancing student interaction and engagement.
• Create scaffolding techniques to build student confidence and readiness for active learning activities.
• Incorporate technology to support active learning effectively.
• Design asynchronous and synchronous activities that engage students in critical thinking and collaboration.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of online active learning techniques and make data-driven adjustments.

When:  March 27, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.               

Where: Via Zoom

Register: 2025 Spring Registration

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Session 3: Designing a Lesson Using Active Learning Techniques

How can you structure your lessons to maximize student engagement and participation?

This session will focus on the step-by-step process of designing a lesson plan that integrates active learning techniques. This session will equip participants to do the following:

• Design a lesson plan that incorporates a variety of active learning techniques.
• Develop interactive activities that encourage student participation and engagement.
• Align active learning strategies with learning objectives to ensure targeted outcomes.
• Create opportunities for student reflection, collaboration, and peer feedback within the lesson.
• Evaluate and adjust the lesson design based on student needs.

Presenter: Dr. Firm Faith Watson, Director, Faculty Development Center

When:  April 10, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.               

Where: Via Zoom

Register: 2025 Spring Registration

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EXPLORING YOUR MENTORING NEEDS

 

Have you ever wished you had more structured guidance in your professional journey? If you could design the perfect support network for your career, who would be in it?

Mentoring is essential in any area of life including our careers. Finding the right team of mentors to support our goals and needs can be challenging. This session will introduce you to a network of supports you may/may not have that help you navigate your career and life journeys.

Objectives: 

1. Define what mentoring maps are
2. Explain the value of mentoring maps in fostering professional development
3. Distinguish between various types of mentoring relationships 
4. Identify mentoring relationships that they need to achieve their career goals

Presenter: Dr. Esther Malm, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

  ANNOUNCEMENTS  

 

GENERATIVE AI PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS  Are you interested in honing or developing your generative AI skills? Eastern Kentucky University is offering a Generative AI Professional Development series that is open to all faculty, staff, and interested students, free of charge. The schedule and registration links are below (all times Eastern). If you don’t receive a confirmation email from fctl@eku.edu within 24 hours, or if you have any questions, contact Dr. Lisa Blue, Director of Artificial Intelligence Strategies, Eastern Kentucky University at lisa.blue@eku.edu or (859) 622-2462. All Spark Talks and workshop sessions this semester will be recorded, and everyone who registers will get a follow-up email with the recording link as soon as it’s available.

Spark Talk: Integrating AI in the Classroom - Policies, Assignments, and Student Learning This session will explore the intentional integration of artificial intelligence into the classroom to enhance student learning and critical thinking. Topics to be discussed will include: 1) the creation of an AI policy designed to set clear expectations and boundaries for student use, 2) the description of an innovative AI-specific assignment and how the design follows the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TiLT) framework, ensuring clarity in purpose, tasks, and success criteria, 3) the importance of asking students to assess AI-generated outputs for accuracy, as well as the need to revise and improve outputs, and 4) the session will conclude with a discussion about transformative assignments that demonstrating the potential of AI to redefine learning in today’s classroom Register: Non-EKU participants can sign up here. When: March 12, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time Presenters: Dr. William Thornburgh

 

THE FACULTY DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY

 

Good news! We have organized the Faculty Development Academy (FDA), a virtual space (via Canvas) for you to access on-demand professional development resources in areas that include, but are not limited to, the following: Strategies for Teaching and Learning, Teaching Well With Technology, Scholarly Activities, Promotion and Tenure, Leadership, Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance.

What else is in this FDA for me?

In this self-paced academy, you have opportunities to do the following:

1. Access on-demand resources (e.g., session recordings and handouts)

2. Reflect on your learning (including personal application or plans to apply what you learned), and earn badges and certificates

Access the FDA featured sessions and more by self-enrolling in the FDA via  Canvas: https://murraystate.instructure.com/enroll/WTGYHH

 

ACCESSIBILITY AND USABILITY RESOURCE SITE

 

Murray State subscribes to Quality Matters (QM), a non-profit organization that is focused on helping faculty with continuous improvement of online and blended courses. 

QM created a research-based rubric to help faculty determine the quality of their online and blended course design. 

The QM rubric standard number 8 indicates that "The course design reflects a
commitment to accessibility and usability for all learners."

To help you meet this standard, the QM community built the Accessibility & Usability Resource Site that addresses key accessibility and usability concerns such as:

• Universal Design
• Alternative Text
• Video captioning
• Accessible MS Office products
• …And more

The resource also includes forums that provide you with the opportunity to connect directly with accessibility experts. It also includes videos with step-by-step guidance to help you increase the accessibility of your course.

• Register for Free Access and help spread the word about this resource.
• Free for Members: Accessibility & Usability Resource Site

If you do not yet have a QM account, please follow the steps below.

1. Click on the MyQM link (located at the bottom of the Quality Matters home page) 
    
2. Enter your Murray State e-mail address.  If you have an existing account, you may sign in or request a new password if needed. Alternatively, you may check "No, I am new here" and follow the prompts to create an account. 

  FDC OPPORTUNITIES, RESOURCES AND SERVICES

Murray State University has subscribed to Quality Matters (QM), a non-profit organization focused on helping faculty with continuous improvement of online and blended courses.

Quality Matters created a research-based rubric to help faculty determine the quality of their online and blended course design.

Subscription Benefits includes (but are not limited to):

• Access to the QM fully-annotated higher education rubric.
• Access to the web-based automated rubric tools, for informal (unofficial/internal/ self) course reviews for the development and improvement of online or blended courses.
• Discounts on QM professional development, official QM-managed course reviews, conferences, and events.
• Ability to create MyQM accounts which gives all faculty and staff access to our tools and resources and their personal QM Activity, including certificates of training and/or course certification.

Access the QM Automated Rubric Tool

Faculty may conduct self-reviews of their online courses using the QM’s self-review tool. These reviews will be seen by only the faculty who conducts the self-reviews (unless the faculty decides to share the reviews).  There is no limit on the number of self-reviews that each faculty may conduct. To access the self-review tool, complete the following steps:

1. Visit www.qualitymatters.org  
2. Create a MyQM account: Click on the MyQM link (located at the bottom left of the Quality Matters home page)
3. Enter your Murray State email address. If you have an existing QM account, you may sign in or request a new password if needed. Alternatively, you may check "No, I am new here" and follow the prompts to create an account.
4. Once your account is created, you may access the self-review tool by clicking on the following links that are located on the left menu: My Tools → Course  Review System, and then select Start a Self-Review (from the bulleted list below the Welcome message).

SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTIONAL FEEDBACK (SGIF)

Need feedback to improve your students’ learning experiences and potentially improve your end-of-course ratings? ​

You might be interested in participating in the FDC's Small Group Instructional Feedback (SGIF).

About SGIF: SGIF provides the opportunity for faculty to work with a facilitator to gather feedback from groups of student in their course (for about 25-30 minutes) about what is helping them learn and what could be improved. It also places extremes student opinions in context which, in turn, increases the validity of students' feedback and improve students' motivation.

Facilitator:  Firm Faith Watson, Director, Faculty Development Center

When:   Midway in the semester 

Register:  https://tinyurl.com/SGIF-Registration

View Flier: https://tinyurl.com/SGIF-Flyer

1-on-1 Consultations

 

Do you need individual help (e.g., to design your face-to-face, online or blended courses)?

Please reach out to Dr. Firm Faith Watson to arrange one-on-one virtual  consultations at fwatson2@murraystate.edu. 

 

 

Does your department have a need that the FDC could help you to meet?
The Faculty Development Center offers customized sessions that cater directly to your department's needs. Contact Dr. Firm Faith Watson at fwatson2@murraystate.edu to make arrangements.