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Faculty Success Means YOU
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Welcome to the first edition of the Office for Faculty Success newsletter! As we begin a new semester, I would like to reflect on the question of why we are here and why our work matters.
For many years before entering the role of Vice Provost, I taught a year-long, lower-division Chicanx history course. Through the constant practice of covering thousands of years of history in 32 weeks, I discovered the essential puzzle pieces that, once fit together, made for transformative class sessions. The pieces include:
- Content: What concept or tool do I want students to take away from today’s class?
- Organization: In what order should I walk students through the essential information so that they can digest it?
- Connection: How can I draw upon what students already know to help them connect to this content? How do I keep material fresh and relevant to the current moment?
- Audio-visual elements: What images, songs, or videos help to bring this topic to life for students new to the topic?
- Finally, the “why”: What is my own entry point into this material, and why? Why does it matter to me?
That last piece proved to be most critical because when I communicated it clearly, students were more engaged in class. Time and again, I saw that when I failed to express my genuine interest, then students’ attention and energy would drift away towards all their other classes, responsibilities, and commitments.
The same principle holds true in the work we do in the Office for Faculty Success. Our team supports faculty success by providing support that enables all faculty to feel valued, visible, and vibrant. To meet this goal, we collaborate with campus partners to communicate more effectively about faculty processes and draw upon the insights and expertise of everyone who shapes faculty careers, i.e., not only the faculty themselves but also college leadership teams and staff throughout Academic Affairs. This work is ongoing and iterative; as a colleague likes to say, “We’re here not to be right but to get it right.”
And the “why?” for us is YOU. We are committed to your success because it leads to greater student success. SJSU students deserve faculty who are able to bring their full selves to the classroom and who are in touch with the individual “why”s that led them to a career in higher education.
So I encourage you to take a moment to remember the unique set of skills, qualities, and interests that brought you here and prepared you for this moment. We all need that pause and reflection now, more than ever, as we start the semester with another unexpected shift in modality and continue to confront new waves of covid (omicron, flurona, deltacron . . . I won’t be surprised if sharknado is next). In fact, we need it in order to rekindle the ability to let students know what matters to us and why.
And know that you matter to us in the Office for Faculty Success. Our team is here to guide you through the current moment and whatever challenges may come our way. Check out the resources collected here in this newsletter and reach out to us anytime via our contact information below.
In solidarity,
Magdalena Barrera
Vice Provost for Faculty Success
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Interim President Perez has announced that in person instruction at SJSU will begin on February 14th. While we look forward to an active spring, this remote start to the semester will allow us to play an important role in keeping our campus and community safe.
The Center for Faculty Development and eCampus have arranged supports for you during this period of remote instruction, including the following:
Purposeful Pivoting Short Course: Purposeful Pivoting for Academic Continuity @ SJSU is 5-7 hours, asynchronous and module based in Canvas. It requires completion of six brief, practical modules by Sunday, February 13 to earn a certificate, badge, and $500 stipend. Please review the entire program description (linked above) for additional details and register at this link.
Faculty Mentor Consultations: A chance to connect 1:1 with experienced faculty for ideas on how to adjust assignments, timelines for the course, and a variety of effective pedagogical approaches. You can find their availability on our Purposeful Pivoting website.
Instructional Design Consultations: Instructional designers are available to assist faculty in evaluating, planning, or completely revising course elements. They also provide technology training and other support that assists with the development of courses.
If
you have any questions about these opportunities, please reach out to Deanna Fassett, Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development, or the Center for Faculty Development team.
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Center for Faculty Development News and Updates
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A recent popular trend invites us to consider "how it started" and "how it's going." The "it" in this scenario can vary, but now’s a good time to reflect: How did remote teaching start for you, and how is it going? Who were you in March 2020 and who are you today?
No matter how it started and how challenging it was for you to imagine moving courses you'd only ever taught on campus into online platforms like Canvas and Zoom, you're likely in a very different place. You likely have more direct experience with different educational technologies, and, even if you're still learning new strategies and tools, you're more strategic and prepared about how to move those on campus experiences into equally or nearly-as-effective remote spaces. You may also have new questions and new challenges this time around, and your Center for Faculty Development and eCampus team is here for you.
In addition to our ongoing Faculty Learning Communities and IDEAS Program, we’re excited to bring new programming your way this spring, made possible by the expertise of our seven new faculty in residence:
- Sara Cook, English and Comparative Literature
- Faustina DuCros, Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
- Deepika Goyal, The Valley Foundation School of Nursing
- Raji Lukkoor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Priya Raman, Communication Studies
- Mary Anne Sunseri, Communication Studies
- Shawn Vecellio, Teacher Education
We will soon be introducing workshops and other professional development offerings related to inclusive and engaging instruction, accessible education and universal design for learning, hybrid and “flipped” classroom instruction, reflection and discernment in the classroom, and more! We are also growing our support for RSCA (Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity), and expanding our support of faculty evaluation processes, including RTP (Review, Tenure and Promotion), annual and cumulative review, range elevation, and post-tenure review. We’ll be sure to let you know what we have in the works, and if you ever have questions or suggestions, please reach out to us!
As you plan for your Spring 2022 courses, please know that you can not only reach out to our awesome team of eCampus instructional designers, but you may seek support for remote teaching ("pivoting" between instructional modalities) from our team of remote teaching faculty consultants. Find their availability on our Purposeful Pivoting for Academic Continuity website.
Finally, if you need a little help protecting time on your calendar to write or you enjoy writing in community with others, our writing cafés resume on 1/31 (M-F, 9-10 am, in Zoom). The cafés are lightly structured spaces to write in community, and all faculty are welcome--subscribe to the calendar here.
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eCampus News and Updates
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Welcome back to the start of 2022,
As you prepare, there may be a question or two.
Designers and staff are here to assist,
Helping you accomplish everything on your list.
Looking toward the upcoming spring,
The office’s support will be unwavering.
Canvas Course Template
eCampus offers Canvas course templates for online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses. These Course Templates are designed to help you set up your Canvas course quickly by following the best practices. It will provide a more consistent look and feel for our SJSU students. The templates can be imported into your Canvas course shell, and you can customize them to meet your students’ needs. eCampus reviews and updates these templates regularly for each semester. The most recent updates include the pre-semester survey, emergency resources, and example emergency announcements. If you need any other instructional design assistance besides the course template, please contact [email protected].
New Feature: Canvas Studio Annotations
With Canvas Studio you can create video screen captures, webcam captures, upload videos from Youtube or Vimeo, easily generate captions, and create video quizzes. A new feature is Canvas Studio Video Annotations which are text pages that automatically appear on the screen as a video is being watched. They are useful to draw students' attention to a point, ask a rhetorical question, give instructions or add information. View how to add annotations to your Canvas Studio videos for a 5 minute demonstration of this feature. Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
Adding Interactivity to Your Online Course
This Spring eCampus is offering a new course entitled Adding Interactivity to Your Online Course. Consider applying for the Spring 2022 Cohort if you’re interested in:
- creating more purposeful interactions in your online courses
- redesigning your current activities/assignments
- viewing successful sample interactive activities
Details: This 10-12 hour course is self-paced. In order to receive a $500 stipend, all course work must be completed within Spring 2022. Check out this flyer for further information.
The deadline to apply is February 7th. Space is limited. Register for the Adding Interactivity Course!
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NameCoach: Our university is committed to providing a welcoming atmosphere and empowering individuals within our community. One of the ways to foster this sense of inclusion and belonging on campus is to pronounce individuals' names correctly. Using NameCoach provides a way for SJSU faculty, staff, and students to build an atmosphere of care and respect by helping one another learn how to pronounce each other's names. NameCoach now appears in the one.sjsu.edu tiles, ready for your use in Canvas and your email signature. You’ll find more resources about NameCoach at eCampus.
Pronouns: As faculty, your use of students’ personal pronouns and preferred names, as well as your modeling of respectful discussion of identity, is essential to creating an inclusive learning environment. You may find it helpful to ask students to share their names and pronouns--if they use them and feel comfortable doing so--with the class (rather than “call roll”), model sharing your own pronouns with your students in Canvas and Zoom, incorporate a gender inclusion statement in your spring syllabi, and/or provide students with concrete examples of how to use different personal pronouns in discussion, including what to do when we make mistakes. There are many great online resources to support your teaching, including one we put together in CFD and this one on from our colleagues at SJSU’s Pride Center.
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SJSU’s Public Voices Fellows continue to do amazing work. As you may know, SJSU has partnered with the esteemed Op-Ed Project, which aims to amplify expert voices that have been underrepresented in efforts to address today’s most pressing issues. Fellows work with experienced journalists to learn what makes an idea contagious in the public sphere and how to frame ideas in ways that will have public impact.
The second cohort of Public Voices Fellows has published 27 op-eds to date in venues such as Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Magazine, The Hill Reporter, San Jose Mercury News, CNN, and more. In the month of November 2021 alone, SJSU’s Public Voice Fellows published 8 op-eds, exceeding the project’s stated targets and tying their peers at Yale University in being the highest-producing cohort in the current portfolio. Moreover, members of the inaugural cohort continue to expand their publication record, actively applying what they learned in the program.
Consider applying for the third cohort of this great professional development program! Application information will be made available later this semester at the CFD’s fellowship page.
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January
24: New Lecturer Welcome @ 1 pm (registration link)
24: Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering our classrooms and our campus @ 3 pm (led by Lurie College of Education colleagues; registration link)
27: Annual Evaluations due for lecturer faculty
28: Deadline to request Post-Tenure Review waiver/postponement
31: Workshop for pre-tenure faculty on Mini-Reviews @ 10:30am (registration link)
February
11: RTP “Mini Review” due for pre-tenure faculty
21: LEAD meeting for Chairs and Directors @ 12:00
March
4: Mid-Career Faculty Workshop 2 (RSCA) @ 12:00pm
10: Cumulative Evaluations due for eligible lecturer faculty
11: Post-Tenure Review due
18: Mid-Career Faculty Workshop 3 Academic Assignment) @ 12:00pm
21: LEAD meeting for Chairs and Directors @ 12:00
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Do you have a story, highlight, reading, or tip that you would like to share in this newsletter?
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Contact Us
Magdalena L. Barrera, Ph.D.
Deanna Fassett, Ph.D.
Jennifer Redd, Ph.D.
Follow us on our socials:
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