Faculty Development

2008-2009 Distance Education Annual Report / Faculty Development

"Working with the Instructional Designers has allowed me to become (1) more proficient using technology and (2) more effective as an instructor. I have been challenged to engage students via pedagogically sound technology. Both my students and I have benefited from their expertise!"
~ Karen Dunlap, Ed.D., Department of Teacher Education

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Fall 2008 Online Educator Symposium
Guest Bloggers
Fall and Spring Live, Desktop Presentations
Adjunct/GA Trainings
Spring 2009 eLearning Lecture
New Graduate Assistant Orientation

Fall 2008 Online Educator Symposium

The Fall 2008 Online Educator Symposium was held on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at the Denton Campus. It proved to yet again be a successful event as it drew an attendance of approximately 70 people. This one-day event consisted of nine concurrent sessions presented by TWU DE faculty and support staff. Presentation topics included firsthand accounts of success and lessons learned from current DE faculty as well as available resources from the library and the Office of Lifelong Learning. 

Guest Bloggers

During the fall 2009 semester, the Distance Education faculty blog, The Online Instructor, had three guest bloggers. Stephany Compton, DE Librarian, blogged during the week of September 29 through October 3. She discussed Banned Books Week, how to find full-text articles in the TWU Library Webpages, online and open access journals, and tests, video and music databases.

Dr. Lynda Murphy, Director of Distance Education, blogged on October 6 and discussed the approval process for creating a new distance education degree. 

Dr. Jody Early, Assistant Professor of Health Studies, blogged throughout the week of November 10. She wrote about tips for how to deal with burn-out when it comes to teaching online. View her tips today! Tip 1,  Tips 2 & 3, Tips 4 - 6, Tips 7-10

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Fall and Spring Live, Desktop Presentations

Last fall, the TWU Instructional Design team tried a new approach to deliver faculty development events. Rather than having face-to-face workshops, the ID team offered a series of online presentations using Elluminate - a synchronous online meeting tool. Attendees could attend live from their own computer, or they could watch the archive of the presentations at their convenience. Topics included best pedagogical uses of Blackboard tools, management strategies, Quality Matters, using Adult Learning Theory and follow-up discussions from the eLearning Lecture. The new format proved to be successful as attendance was higher for these live, online presentations than for the face-to-face workshops. This delivery method was also used in the spring and will continue to be used in the future. 

Adjunct/GA Trainings

To help new DE adjuncts and graduate assistants become more familiar with teaching in the online environment, the Instructional Design team held a series of workshops last fall and spring. They offered Teaching and Learning with Blackboard workshops in basic and advanced editions, as well as a workshop in how to effectively use Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. The Teaching and Learning with Blackboard workshops were offered in Denton and Houston so that all distance education adjuncts and support GAs could attend.

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Spring 2009 eLearning Lecture

The spring 2009 eLearning Lecture was held on Friday, February 6 in Denton and on Monday, February 9 in Houston. Dr. L. Dee Fink, professional consultant in higher education and owner of Fink Consulting, was the guest lecturer. His morning lecture was, "The Joy and Responsibility of Teaching Well," and in the afternoon he held an interactive workshop entitled, " Designing Your Courses for More Significant Learning." In Denton, 28 people attended the lecture while 14 attended the workshop. In Houston, 18 attended his lecture and 10 attended the interactive workshop.

New Graduate Assistant Orientation

This summer, the Graduate School partnered with The Office of Lifelong Learning to create an updated, easier-to-navigate online orientation for new graduate assistants. It was created in PBWorks, a wiki tool. The orientation includes a greeting from Dr. Martin and information for all graduate assistants and all graduate teaching assistants, as well as more specific information for graduate assistants who help with distance education classes, graduate teaching assistants that teach face-to-face and graduate teaching assistants that teach online. To view the orientation, please go to http://twugaorientation.pbworks.com.

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