TEACHx 2024 Conference: Attend with CATE and Hear from UIC Presenters
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Join fellow instructors at the 2024 TEACHx Conference at Northwestern University on May 15-16, 2024 to learn about innovative approaches to teaching and learning. This year’s conference features keynote speaker Susan D. Blum who will confront the why of modern assessment strategy and how to focus on learning outcomes, and a workshop facilitated by Luis Perez on the creation and delivery of high quality accessible educational materials and technologies to support equitable learning opportunities for all students.
Attend the conference with CATE!
CATE has reserved up to 10 pre-paid registration seats for interested members of the UIC instructor community to attend the conference. If you are interested, please complete our interest form by Monday, April 15, 2024.
Hear from UIC instructors at TEACHx!
Lieke van Heumen, Clinical Associate Professor, and UIC undergraduate student researchers, Rose Flanigan and Tommy O’Donnell from the Department of Disability and Human Development will present their research project on Undergraduate Students’ Experiences and Preferences with Course Modalities. The team investigated students’ modality preferences and motivations in a large enrollment general education disability studies course. Their presentation will also highlight how the involvement of undergraduate students as co-designers and research team members have enriched the project and data analysis. This project grew out of van Heumen’s participation in the CATE Action Research Scholars program, a year-long program cohort-based program for faculty members leading to the development, implementation, and dissemination of a classroom-based teaching research project.
Jasmine Hopkins, PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences will present on the Use of templates and guides to help bridge the gap between novice and expert: Improving scientific literacy in an upper-level Biology course. She will share her iterative approach to developing students’ scientific literacy skills using the C.R.E.A.T.E. method and other literature, the stepwise reading guides and class activities she created, and the retrospective pre-post survey given to students on their perceived gains in scientific literacy. She carried out this project as a result of her taking GC593: Developing Scholarly Approaches to College Teaching, one of the courses in the Foundations of College Instruction three-course campus certificate series where she developed a teaching-as-research project.
Maxine Frendel, Instructional Designer at the Instructional Design and Media Production Studio, will present an interactive workshop on Fostering Critical Thinking Using Online Discussions. Asynchronous online discussions can effectively foster student collaboration and engagement, but sometimes these conversations fall flat. Maxine will discuss how to craft a successful discussion prompt that encourages critical thinking, idea exchange, and meaningful conversation. Additionally, she will review research and strategies for structuring successful online discussion that support student engagement and active learning, including discussion roles, staggered due dates, and faculty participation. Participants will have the opportunity to review or revise their discussion questions with their peers and will walk away with a plan to augment or improve their existing online discussion practices. This presentation grew from a Teaching Tidbits Workshop from Fall 2023.