2008 Summer Institute Description
UMUC's Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) hosts the Summer Faculty Leadership Institute, which brings together close to fifty faculty from Europe, Asia, and the United States to Adelphi, Maryland for an intensive workshop experience. The institute's purpose is to improve instruction at UMUC and those taking part in the institute make a commitment to share what they have learned at the institute with their peers. Each year the featured workshops highlight teaching and learning topics of strategic importance to UMUC. The institute is highly interactive, features hands-on activities, and is very much a collaborative effort between CTL and various units within UMUC.
The theme of the 2008 Summer Institute is “Pedagogy Evolving to Meet Student Needs: Integrating New Formats and Approaches.” Our main tracks will focus on the teaching of hybrid courses and new technology tools such as those offered by Wimba software. Hybrid courses are those which mix face-to-face and online delivery and in which both the face-to-face and online elements are required and are pedagogically integrated and complementary. Wimba is a software suite that includes synchronous communication, collaborative tools, asynchronous audio, and other features.
- All faculty attending the Institute will participate in both tracks
- For the first time, Summer Institute 2008 will begin Monday morning with two special sessions for all faculty. One session will provide a demonstration on new features of WebTycho Next Generation (NG) and the other will be a workshop on Open Educational Resources. Open Educational Resources (sometimes called OER) are a wide variety of educational materials (learning objects, course modules, podcasts, videos, texts, etc.) that have been made available on the Internet for free use by the public.
- All faculty are expected to attend all scheduled events. For the convenience of our local commuting attendees, morning activities do not begin before 9:00 am, while welcoming and closing dinners on Monday and Wednesday nights end at 7:00 pm.
Objectives—Participants in the 2008 Summer Institute Can Expect to:
- Familiarize themselves with new features of the WebTycho Next Generation software and the new Wimba suite of synchronous and asynchronous tools
- Demonstrate the use of Wimba tools in the context of lesson and assignment planning in their own disciplines
- Identify, evaluate, and incorporate Open Educational Resources that are appropriate for their own courses
- Identify best practices for the planning, design, and teaching of a hybrid course
- Demonstrate methods to strengthen integration of f2f and online components of a hybrid course
- Incorporate UMUC Hybrid Course Expectations guidelines and peer critiques into the design of an existing or new hybrid course.
- Critique and revise a sample hybrid course, using best practices for hybrid courses
- Collaborate and share best practices with colleagues from US, Asia, and Europe.
Plenary Sessions:
Monday, July 28, 2008
9:00-9:30 am, Registration, coffee
9:30-10:30 am, Welcome and introduction to the Summer Institute by CTL and UMUC Administration (Deans)
10:45-12 pm, Introduction to WebTycho NG new features, led by Rob Sapp and Theodore Stone
12-1:00 pm, Lunch at Mt. Clare
1:30-3:45 pm, The World of Open Educational Resources (OER)—How to Find, Evaluate, and Apply Resources for Your Own Class, led by staff from Information and Library Services
Beginning 4:00 pm
- Student panel (a mix of students who have taken f2f, online, or hybrid courses) and discussion, followed by dinner at 5:30 pm.
- Dinner, 5:30 pm-7:00 pm, Welcome address from the President and Provost
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
9-10:15 am, Morning presentation and discussion will address some major issues involved in teaching hybrid courses and standards developed for hybrid courses at UMUC. This will include an overview of research on hybrid courses and understanding the hybrid Expectations document guidelines
Wednesday morning, July 30, 2008
9:00-10:15 am, Presentation, t.b.a.
The Institute is highly interactive, features hands-on activities, and is very much a
collaborative effort between CTL and various units within UMUC.
