Dear Colleagues,
I hope your first week of classes was wonderful. It is exciting to have our campuses full and energetic again! I enjoyed seeing so many of you and our students at Fall Fest! I encourage you to check in with your students and see how the semester has started with them.
As we continue in the fall semester, several training and development opportunities are included in this week’s newsletter. I encourage you to attend and participate when you can.
Student Success: Building a Culture of Care
We will share quick tips to build a culture of care in your classroom this fall as we collaborate to impact student success. This week’s focus is personalized support.
When we create opportunities to understand our students, we can better meet their unique needs and learning styles. This insight allows us to adapt our teaching to support students’ strengths and shore up those who may be facing academic challenges.
Quick tips to infuse personalized support in your classroom:
- Implement an early low-stakes assessment in your course to provide insight into students’ prior knowledge and aptitude for the content. You can then identify specific needs for emphasis via your teaching. It will also allow the students to see the expectations of mastery early in the course and adjust their studying methods earlier to meet those standards.
- Encourage students who indicate academic struggle early in your course to sign up for Peer Academic Coaching, which is open to all students, or free tutoring if it is offered for your course.
- Ask students how they best learn (e.g., Mentimeter survey question) and then explain how the content in your course may fit with various learning styles and how to study best for your course.
- Encourage students who do not perform well on the first assignments or tests to visit you during “student hours” (office hours) to review questions they did not understand.
If you have any thoughts or questions regarding this or other student success topics, reach out to Dr. Amelia Salazar, vice president for student success, at Amelia.Salazar@wright.edu to get connected!
Center for Faculty Excellence
Once again, the Center for Faculty Excellence is pleased to bring weekly tips to your inbox every Monday morning through Monday Morning Mentors. These are quick video presentations with additional materials provided. The presentation and supplemental material for “How Can I Apply Virtual Reality to Create Meaningful Assignments and Assessments?” are available through September 8. To access the presentation, use “virtual892” as the password.
The center also holds events throughout the year that provide our teaching community with opportunities for learning and improving teaching skills, networking, sharing ideas, and viewing demonstrations of new, emerging pedagogical techniques and technologies.
Upcoming events include:
- Check out the Library: Library Services for Faculty in Support of Instruction, Research, and Scholarship, primarily for new faculty.
Wednesday, September 11, 1:00 p.m., virtual (Webex link will be sent upon registration)
Register
- Planning Your Course Assessment: This workshop will walk faculty through developing an assessment plan for courses. Beginning this fall, departments must assess one outcome per course. The assessment should be consistent across all sections and all terms for the year. The process for recording the assessment plan in Planning and Self-Study will also be covered.
Friday, September 6, 10:00-10:55 a.m., at Lake Campus (in-person)
Register
- Program Assessment for 2023-2024: Program assessment is done first and foremost to improve the quality of our academic programs. Accreditors like HLC ensure the institution has quality programs and therefore require assessment. The 2022-2023 program assessments were reviewed and individual feedback was provided. This workshop will review trends from the 2022-2023 reports and review the Planning and Self-Study system for program assessment, including introducing newly unlocked features.
Friday, September 6, 11:00-11:55 a.m., at Lake Campus (in-person)
Wednesday, September 11, 10:10-11:05 a.m., virtual (Webex link will be sent upon registration)
Thursday, September 12, 12:30-1:25, p.m. virtual (Webex link will be sent upon registration)
Register
- Closing the Loop on Program Assessment: The greatest benefit from program assessment comes from closing the loop on the assessment cycle. In this workshop, participants will recognize the importance of discussing assessment results in their department and articulate questions that could be asked of assessment data that lead to data-informed changes and greater student success.
Wednesday, October 9, 9:05-10:00 a.m. (in-person)
Monday, October 14, 3:35-4:30, p.m., virtual (Webex link will be sent upon registration)
Tuesday, October 15, 2:00-2:55 a.m. (in-person)
Register
- Closing the Loop on Course Assessment: At the beginning of the term, assessment plans were created for each course. Now that the term is wrapping up, it is time to collect, report, and analyze the data. This workshop will walk through these processes to close the loop on course assessment for the term. Participants will learn how to report and/or collect data in the Planning and Self-Study system, receive tips on analyzing assessment results, and identify data-informed opportunities to improve student success.
Tuesday, November 26, 2:30-3:25 p.m. (in-person)
Friday, December 6, 11:15 a.m.-12:10 p.m., virtual (Webex link will be sent upon registration)
Thursday, December 12, 12:30-1:25 p.m. (in-person)
Register
Mental Health First Aid Training
Mental Health First Aid helps to teach individuals how to assist and support others who may be experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge. Mental Health First Aid is an evidence-based practice training offered virtually and in-person that uses community-specific scenarios, activities, and videos to teach the skills needed to recognize and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges as well as how to provide initial support until they are connected with appropriate professional help.
Training sessions are available to faculty throughout the fall semester. Learn more and register.
Faculty Affairs
- Beginning this fall, annual reviews will be due September 15. Faculty will report their academic year activities for the previous academic year (thus, fall 2023 to spring 2024) not for the calendar year, as in the past (11.7)
- Submissions will solely be collected through information entered by faculty in Watermark’s Faculty Success software.
- One-hour user training sessions and system overview and submissions training are available.
- Evaluation of teaching and service as well as scholarship for TETs will be based on a five-point scoring system. (11.3)
- Teaching and service will be evaluated for the year under review only; scholarship will be evaluated for the year under review, with the merit score for that year then averaged with the two prior years. (11.2)
- Criteria for evaluation of teaching and service have changed; see section 11.6.
The provost or a provost designee may also periodically review the productivity of faculty who are either tenured or on continuing contract. (11.9)
When a Student Needs Support
Wright.edu/help is a great resource for helping students or making referrals. This site contains contact information for emergency or essential departments that can assist your students all in one location.
I appreciate you!
Amy Thompson, Ph.D.
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
