Fall FaCET Conference
Sponsored by FaCET, the School of Graduate Studies, and UMKC Online Learning
August 20, 2015
Kaufmann Conference Center
Schedule:
8:30 – 8:45
Registration
8:45 – 9:00
Opening Remarks – Denis Medeiros, Dean, School of Graduate Studies (Town Square)
9:00 – 11:00 Theater Delta – General faculty and Anchor / Discourse Faculty (Town Square)
Theater Delta will conduct: Cultivation: An Interactive Theater performance exploring
Faculty Mentorship Skills and Diversity Issues. Topics will include: Active Listening &
Communication Skills, Critical Feedback, Guiding Research, Accessibility/Boundaries, and
Favoritism/Unconscious Bias.
9:00 – 11:00 BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Time
Brush Creek Room
Paseo Room
9:00 –
9:45
Greer – Mentoring
Undergraduate
Researchers: Strategies
for Success -- Panel
Lacy-Haun – The new Cain – It’s Not
Graduate Writing
Just a Numbers
Program at UMKC
Game: Using
Assessment to
Enhance Student
Achievement
10:00 –
10:45
Wellemeyer/Williams –
Six Things You May be
Doing Wrong With Your
Research Assignments
(and how to fix them)
Dickerson/Delaware/R
eed/Thompson/Wood
– Strategies for
Addressing Persistent
Issues in Student
Writing: How to Stay
Sane and Keep Cool
--Panel
Brookside Room
Doss – RooWriter
101
11:00 – 12:00 Net Tutor’s Writing Tools (Town Square)
Plaza Room
Messina/Ward-Smith
– Polishing on-line
lectures using Adobe
Presenter
Troost
Room
GTS
Orientation –
SGS Staff
Davis - Connecting
with Students in the
Online Environment:
Personal Experience
Presenter – Peter Pinckey, NetTutor
NetTutor is customized, 24/7/365 online tutoring with multiple modes that include live tutoring and paper
reviews. In particular, through the paper center a student can submit a paper for review 24 hours a day
every day of the week. The paper center supports writing across the curriculum including graduate and
undergraduate writing assignments. Students may submit any type of writing assignment including, but
not limited to, English composition papers, lab reports, technical writings, thesis statements, and graduate
dissertations. All paper submissions maintain a 48 hour turnaround time.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch (Town Square)
1:00 – 3:00
Theater Delta – General faculty and GTAs (Main room, repeated from earlier session)
Theater Delta will conduct: Cultivation: An Interactive Theater performance exploring
Faculty Mentorship Skills and Diversity Issues. Topics will include: Active Listening &
Communication Skills, Critical Feedback, Guiding Research, Accessibility/Boundaries, and
Favoritism/Unconscious Bias.
1:00 – 3:00
BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Time
Brush Creek
Paseo Room
1:00 –
1:45
Greer –
Undergraduate
Researchers:
Taking UG
Education to New
Places
Cain – It’s Not Just a
Murdock – Teaching a
Numbers Game: Using Class that has a High
Assessment to
DFW rate
Enhance Student
Achievement
Dickerson/Delaware/ GTA Orientation –
Reed/Thompson/Woo SGS staff
d – Strategies for
Addressing Persistent
Issues in Student
Writing: How to Stay
Sane and Keep Cool
--Panel
2:00 –
2:45
Lacy-Haun- The
new Graduate
Writing Program at
UMKC
Messina/ Ward-Smith
- Polishing on-line
lectures using Adobe
Presenter
Delaware- Using the
RooWriter Instructor
Detailed Report to
guide WI course
content
Brookside Room
Wellemeyer/Williams
– Six Things You May
be Doing Wrong With
Your Research
Assignments (and how
to fix them
Plaza Room
Troost Room
Sessions 9:00 to 9:45
Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers: Strategies for Success
Coordinator – Jane Greer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Professor of English and
Women’s & Gender Studies
Research mentors will share their experience and expertise as they describe how they successfully
intertwined their research agendas with their teaching responsibilities.
Panelists:
Dr. Virginia Blanton, Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Megan Hart, Civil & Mechanical Engineering, School of Computing & Engineering
Dr. Saul Honigsberg, School of Biological Sciences
Dr. Seung Lark Lim, Department of Psychology, College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Nathan Mauck, Department of Finance, Bloch School of Management
The New Graduate Writing Program at UMKC Coordinator – Lora Lacey-Haun, Administrative
Consultant II, School of Graduate Studies
The purpose and goals of the graduate writing program will be presented.
It’s Not Just a Numbers Game: Using Assessment to Enhance Student Achievement
Presenter – Ruth Cain, Director of Assessment
While the ultimate purpose of assessment is to make programmatic alterations that result in
enhanced student learning, programs frequently struggle to make sense of assessment data and
use the results to improve student leaning. This session will provide an overview of analyzing
assessment results and examples of how programs use assessment to enhance teaching and
learning.
Polishing On-line Lectures using Adobe Presenter
Presenters – Melissa Messina, Instructional Design Specialist, Online Learning and Peggy Ward-Smith,
Director of FaCET and Associate Professor School of Nursing and Health Studies
How can instructors create more polished and accessible audio or video lectures for online
teaching? The presenters will speak about their experience of piloting Adobe Presenter 10
software to transition Peggy's voice-over PowerPoints to captioned, searchable lecture packages
published in a variety of formats to Blackboard. The pros and cons of using Adobe Presenter
will be discussed, including the learning curve necessary to incorporate this modality in your
online course.
Sessions 10:00 to 10:45
Six Things You May be Doing Wrong With Your Research Assignments (and how to fix them)
Presenters – Danielle Wellemeyer and Jessica Williams, Information Literacy Librarian
Well-constructed research assignments push students to think ambitiously with their projects and
topics, to write better, and to perform information seeking at higher levels. But the speed of
technological innovation has changed the way that libraries work and, therefore, the way that
students do research. Make sure that your research assignments are up to date and inspiring
student success--and not causing frustration and stress. We see around 40 research assignments a
semester and have identified the aspects of assignment descriptions that are most troublesome for
students. We’ll walk through the 6 most common mistakes and offer simple steps for
improvement.
Strategies for Addressing Persistent Issues in Student Writing: How to Stay Sane and Keep Cool
Coordinator – Rhiannon Dickerson, Discourse Coordinator and Lecturer, Communication Studies
Strategies that prevent instructor burn-out and fatigue related to student writing concerns in any
course, including WI courses, will be presented. Experiences that have been effective will be
discussed.
Panelists:
Dr. Richard Delaware, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
College of Arts and Sciences, WI Instructor and UWRB member
Dr. Aaron Reed, Associate Teaching Professor, School of Biological Sciences
Cindy Thompson, Director of Public Services, UMKC Miller Nichol Library
Dr. Henri Wood, Assistant Teaching Professor, Honors College
RooWriter 101
Presenter – Crystal Gorham Doss, Coordinator of Writing Assessment, and Assistant Teaching Professor,
Department of English
What is the RooWriter and how does it help UMKC students improve their writing and reading
skills? How can RooWriter results enable instructors to enhance their teaching? This session will
address these questions and preview the Instructor/Advisor reports. The presenter will lead a
discussion about how the RooWriter reports can be used in classrooms and for advising students.
Connecting with Students in the Online Environment: Personal Experience
Presenter – Becky Davis, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of History, College of Arts and
Science
As the instructor for History 102, I will present my experiences in connecting with students in an
online environment using strategies such as Tegrity lectures and Turnitin audio feedback for
papers.
Sessions 1:00 to 1:45
Undergraduate Researchers: Taking UG Education to New Places
Coordinator – Jane Greer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Professor of English and
Women’s & Gender Studies
Several of UMKC’s Undergraduate Researchers will share their experiences and describe about
how working with a faculty mentor and completing a undergraduate research project impacted
their educational trajectories. They will offer a student’s perspective on what makes for an
effective faculty mentor and how faculty can support student participation in this “high impact”
educational practice.
It’s Not Just a Numbers Game: Using Assessment to Enhance Student Achievement
Presenter – Ruth Cain, Director of Assessment
While the ultimate purpose of assessment is to make programmatic alterations that result in
enhanced student learning, programs frequently struggle to make sense of assessment data and
use the results to improve student leaning. This session will provide an overview of analyzing
assessment results and examples of how programs use assessment to enhance teaching and
learning.
Teaching a Class that has a High Rate of D, F and/or W grades
Coordinator – Tamera Murdock, Professor, Department of Psychology
Sometimes this is a "gateway course" such as College Algebra; other times, it is simply the
hardest class in your major. In either case, faculty who teach in these situations face challenges
that are different from many other classes. Come listen, share, and brainstorm ideas with other
faculty who are interested in improving student learning in these types of situations.
Strategies for Addressing Persistent Issues in Student Writing: How to Stay Sane and Keep Cool
Coordinator – Rhiannon Dickerson, Discourse Coordinator and Lecturer, Communication Studies
Strategies that prevent instructor burn-out and fatigue related to student writing concerns in any
course, including WI courses, will be presented. Experiences that have been effective will be
discussed.
Panelists:
Dr. Richard Delaware, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
College of Arts and Sciences, WI Instructor and UWRB member
Dr. Aaron Reed, Associate Teaching Professor, School of Biological Sciences
Dr. Henri Wood, Assistant Teaching Professor, Honors College
Sessions 2:00 to 2:45
The new Graduate Writing Program at UMKC
Coordinator – Lora Lacey-Haun, Administrative Consultant II, School of Graduate Studies
The purpose and goals of the graduate writing program will be presented.
Polishing On-line Lectures using Adobe Presenter
Presenters – Melissa Messina, Instructional Design Specialist, Online Learning and Peggy Ward-Smith,
Director of FaCET and Associate Professor School of Nursing and Health Studies
How can instructors create more polished and accessible audio or video lectures for online
teaching? The presenters will speak about their experience of piloting Adobe Presenter 10
software to transition Peggy's voice-over PowerPoints to captioned, searchable lecture packages
published in a variety of formats to Blackboard. The pros and cons of using Adobe Presenter will
be discussed, including the learning curve necessary to incorporate this modality in your online
course.
Using Librarians to Enhance Learning Experiences
Presenters – Danielle Wellemeyer and Jessica Williams, Information Literacy Librarian
Well-constructed research assignments push students to think ambitiously with their projects and
topics, to write better, and to perform information seeking at higher levels. But the speed of
technological innovation has changed the way that libraries work and, therefore, the way that
students do research. Make sure that your research assignments are up to date and inspiring
student success--and not causing frustration and stress. We see around 40 research assignments a
semester and have identified the aspects of assignment descriptions that are most troublesome for
students. We’ll walk through the 6 most common mistakes and offer simple steps for
improvement.
Using the RooWriter Detailed Instructor Report to Guide Writing Intensive Course Content
Presenter – Richard Delaware, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
College of Arts and Sciences, WI Instructor and UWRB member
The detailed RooWriter “Instructor” reports provide an initial snapshot detailing how well the
students in your WI course write. Using this report, course content and assignments can be
tailored to enhance learning and improve the writing ability of your students.