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Welcome to our October 2023 Newsletter!
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The next time you brew a cup of tea or coffee, spend a few moments
engaging all your senses in the experience. [Adobe stock photo]
I recently took a weeklong vacation with my husband to celebrate, after several months of uncertainty, some good news about my health. Most of our vacations have been multi-city tours of distant countries in which we are constantly on the go, sometimes logging 20,000+ steps a day. And while those trips are great fun, this time we wanted to stay put in one location and have no other agenda other than to just hang out. In preparation for the trip, I downloaded to my iPad ten different movies and TV show seasons from various streaming platforms, three new books on my e-reader, and two audiobooks on my phone—probably as many hours of content as the entire trip itself.
After breakfast on the first full day at our destination, I hurried down to the beach, lugging my numerous devices in a beach tote. When I sat down, something unexpected happened: I never reached for them. As soon as I felt the sea breeze on my face, I was unable to do anything more than sit there in daze. I spent a long time staring at the sea’s glimmering shades of blue and listening to the water rhythmically lapping against the shore. In comparison to the beautiful view, the media blitz I had lined up held zero appeal. After all the tests and medical appointments, just sitting there, doing nothing but being in the moment, was the only thing I could handle.
If you’re like me, the art of doing nothing doesn’t come easily. As many academics know, when working, we dawdle and procrastinate out of anxiety and overwhelm; and when, we are not working, our attention lingers on the work tasks that we could or “should” be doing, so we’re never actually unwinding. But whether you call it niksen or dolce far niente, the ability to do nothing is an important practice to cultivate. It’s good for your health, it boosts creativity, and reduces stress.
Getting started is as simple as spending five minutes just sitting with your eyes closed, or staring out the window while listening to music, or perhaps taking in the scent of your next cup of coffee or tea as it brews. Maybe spend a few minutes of your next lunch break parked on one of our campus benches, enjoying the sun and listening to the bustle and laughter of the students walking by. Take it from me: savor these small breaks when you can, and don’t wait until your health gives you no other choice!
Sincerely,
Magdalena L. Barrera
Vice Provost for Faculty Success
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Updates from the Center for Faculty
Development and eCampus
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Your colleagues in CFD + eCampus invite you to join us for a mid-afternoon break on Monday, October 30th. Come by the second floor of the IRC, where you can check out what we do, and we can learn more about how to assist you in your work here at SJSU. We'll have treats (not tricks!) and swag, demos and conversations, and places to sit and chat.
Whether you’re interested in how to create an escape room, engage your students with virtual reality or generative AI, or just want to connect with others, we look forward to seeing you! And if you have a little time to really explore, visit all our rooms to enter a raffle for cool prizes from our Office of the Provost.
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Looking to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of your course content? Want to review evidence-based best practices like Universal Design for Learning (UDL)? Interested in restructuring your workflow? Our instructional designers are here to assist you!
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Submit your proposals to RECONNECT at the 2024 Symposium on Teaching and Learning, February 23 and 24, 2024 on the beautiful Cal State San Bernardino campus and online on March 01, 2024. First-time submitters will need to create an account; be sure to have ready your proposal title, presentation type and theme (please see below), author(s) and affiliation(s), abstract of up to 200 words, and presentation AV requirements. Your submission can be saved as a draft and completed later.
This is the first onsite Symposium since 2019, and we look forward to sharing with each other what we have learned throughout the system and state in the past five years.
We encourage participants to submit proposals for presentations on the following themes by November 12, 2023:
- Culturally responsive pedagogies
- Student engagement and belonging
- (Emerging) technologies as tools for learning
- Inclusive learning assessment and outcomes
- CSU-community college partnerships
Presentations can be submitted as posters, interactive sessions, symposium sessions, mini sessions, and virtual sessions (Friday, 3/1 only).
Session types:
- Interactive Session (90 minutes). Interactive Sessions are opportunities for actively engaging participants, facilitating collaborative conversation, or demonstrating effective educational development practices. Session proposals should include both an abstract and a facilitation plan or schedule of activities. Creative and engaging approaches are encouraged, and diverse formats are welcome.
- Symposium Session (30 minutes). Sessions last 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for interaction with participants through questions or discussion.
- Mini Session (15 minutes) Each presenter will be allocated 15 minutes (10 minutes of presenting and 5 minutes of questions) before moving onto the next presenter in the session.
- Poster Session. Posters will be displayed to allow presenters to engage with symposium participants. Posters may feature emerging or completed research and/or topics that inspire critical discussion and engagement with symposium strands.
- Virtual Session (30 minutes, Friday, March 1 only). Virtual Sessions last 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for online interaction with participants through questions or discussion.
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We are seeking faculty and staff champions who will, in partnership with students and other relevant stakeholders, model best practices in leveraging faculty-facing student success dashboards for student success. In particular, we are hoping to identify 1-2 cross-functional student success research teams.
While SJSU is making meaningful progress towards our 2025 graduation goals, we have only made limited progress on eliminating equity gaps between URM and non-URM students and between Pell- and non-Pell eligible students. Recent campus summits on equitable and inclusive pedagogy and enrollment management have helped to heighten awareness of the importance of retaining and graduating all SJSU students, including strengthening relationships and sense of belonging. Through this opportunity, we hope to learn more about how faculty and staff apply insights from the CSU Course Equity Portal and Student Success Dashboards into re-designed curriculum and evidence-based, equity-minded pedagogy.
We invite you to propose a research team that will help to model and promote use of faculty-facing student success dashboard data in transformative ways. Each team must be co-led by an SJSU faculty member and a Student Affairs professional; teams may include additional members, but must include at least two students.
Using student success dashboard and/or course equity portal data, teams must propose to (1) investigate the reasons behind and (2) implement and assess solutions to resolving the equity gaps at work in a given course, program, department or college. What are the college-, department- or course-specific factors that lead to equity gaps between URM and non-URM students, what gives rise to these factors, and what are evidence-based (campus- and literature-based) best practices the team will implement and assess?
Teams will be competitively selected in November, based on a proposed project's potential scalability and impact. They will complete their work, consulting with the Office of Institutional Research, the Center for Faculty Development, and other relevant units, during Spring and Summer 2024. These teams will perform an integral role in a campus-wide symposium in August 2024 on how faculty may use data in ways that are transformative for student success. In recognition of their efforts, each team's co-leads will receive a stipend (precise amount TBD, but approximately $4-5K each). Each team may also include 2-3 students in their course re-design or assessment efforts; student team members will also receive a stipend (precise amount TBD, but approximately $300-500 each).
Please join us for an information session on Wednesday, October 25th, from 10-11 am in Zoom. (If you're unable to attend synchronously, please register; we'll send recording access and materials to registrants following the session.)
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Explore opportunities to enhance your digital skills through the use of AI by attending or watching an on-demand recording presented by the Adobe Digital Literacy Café Webinar Series.
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Attention Turnitin Users
The current version of Turnitin (Legacy) that is available in Canvas has been phased out and will get updated to the new version. This update will take place on December 20, 2023, which is after the completion of the fall semester but prior to the start of the winter session.
Turnitin New Version
The new version of Turnitin is called the Plagiarism Framework. This version allows for the selection of either text entry or file upload assignments. Then, a checkbox to enable Turnitin appears along with additional configuration options. This update will resolve the common timeclock icon issue in Speedgrader.
In preparation for the update, please plan to review and download any Turnitin Originality reports prior to December 20. Prior reports will no longer be available after that date. In addition, future assignments will need to get edited to the updated version beginning with your course design for Winter 2024 and beyond.
Note: The Turnitin LTI (External Tool) will continue to remain available.
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Join us in breaking down barriers to learning by creating accessible PDFs! Begin using
Ally
in your Canvas course to
assist with creating fully accessible course materials!
The SJSU 2-Hour PDF Accessibility Challenge started on October 1st and only takes 2 hours of your time! Complete the challenge to earn a PDF Accessibility Champion certificate, badge and to be entered in a Gold Points drawing!
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SJSU has a membership to a variety of educational organizations that offer resources, such as articles, videos, and webinars, to enhance professional skills. This includes Educause, an organization that focuses on information technology topics related to higher education; the Online Learning Consortium, an organization which supports the development of quality digital teaching and learning experiences; and Quality Matters, an organization centered around online course quality assurance. Visit each website to learn more.
Call for Proposals - 2024 Geospatial Review
The CSU Geospatial Review (ISSN 2373-5783 & e-ISSN 2373-5791) is accepting submissions for the 2024 CSU Geospatial Review until January 29th.
Articles should pertain to research or educational projects using geospatial methods. Articles should be short (750 words or fewer plus maps and/or photos) and of interest to others in the CSU system who may be considering similar research. Articles with results are favored over proposed work.
Some topics you may consider writing about:
- Research Projects
- Case studies
- Innovations in GIScience Education
- Innovations in GIScience Methods
Please note that articles are not limited solely to ESRI applications. They can also include Remote Sensing platforms, other GIS programs, R or RStudio, and many others. Looking through the past couple of issues may also give you ideas for submission topics.
Please submit your articles by Monday, January 29, 2024 to the CSU GIS Specialty Center at [email protected].
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October
20: Range Elevation: Department-level recommendations due
24: RTP: Department-level recommendations due
30: CFD+eCampus Open House, 12-2 pm, IRC 213
November
6: RTP: Dossiers move to College-level review
6: Range Elevation: Packets move to College-level review
10: Campus closed
13: Sabbatical: Dean’s recommendation sent to candidate
15: Lunch & Learn: SJSU Career Center Resources, 12-1:15 pm (Register)
22: Non-instructional day
23-24 Campus closed
December
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Teaching from the Same Side: Same-side pedagogy “means assuming, quite simply, that students do want to learn what you have to teach them. That even though they may not always know how to follow through on those intentions – or may temporarily lack the energy to make it happen – they are in school to learn.”
How to Cultivate Your Champions: “People in your network . . . can help advance your career when you aren’t even present, without your knowledge that they are even doing so. They can be your champion.”
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Do you have a story, highlight, reading, or tip that you would like to share in this newsletter?
Please reach out anytime to
[email protected]
.
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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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