Archive - CLT New Chalk Talk

Volume 15

Issue Ten: New Chalk Talk Special Illustrated Edition

Mahmoud Shaltout Ph.D., visiting assistant professor, Core Curriculum

In April 2017, Center for Learning and Teaching, in collaboration with the Center for Transforming Undergraduate Education at the University of Delaware, ran AUC’s first Problem-based Learning (PBL) Institute. This institute was attended by over 20 faculty members from across the schools, breaking down the disciplinary divides and bringing innovative faculty together to explore how PBL can best be implemented in AUC classrooms. Read more

Issue Ten Supplement: Fall 2017 Faculty Development Institutes and Workshops

Issue Nine: Challenging Faculty Assumptions about Content When Adopting Problem-based Learning

Mark A. Serva, Ph.D., University of Delaware

Problem-based learning (PBL), as well as other inquiry-based pedagogies, enhances student learning by engaging students in the learning process. Students engaging in PBL solve problems, think analytically, and work with ambiguous information. Research consistently demonstrates the effectiveness of PBL ( as well as the ineffectiveness of more passive approaches, such as a lecture. Read more

Issue Eight: What is Integrative Learning and Why Does it Matter? An Integrative Learning Ecology

Carol Clark (ELI), Ghada Elshimi (RHET), Doris Jones (RHET), Tamer Shoeib (CHEM), Alessandro Topa (PHIL)

Typically, students in liberal arts universities receive their formal education in two discrete parts – their courses of major, which prepare them for their chosen career, and a core curriculum, which introduces them to the liberal arts, widens their worldviews and cultivates critical inquiry, communication skills and intellectual habits of the mind. While this separation is practical in terms of structural efficiency, concerns about this artificial divide have preoccupied educators for some time, as it implies to students and faculty that liberal education examines abstract or theoretical areas of study. At the same time, content-related learning is relevant to real-world industries and careers. Read more

Issue Seven: Best Feet Forward Instructional Designers as Pedagogical Consultants

Sean Michael Morris, instructional designer, Middlebury College

This article was initially published at Middlebury College’s blog MiddCreate and is republished with the permission of the author. I was perhaps more an instructional designer as the English Program chair at the Community Colleges of Colorado Online than I was in my first job under that title. Instructional design has a long history outside of formal education; it’s been used by businesses for decades as a scaffold upon which to build skills training for employees.Read more

Issue Six: Tips for Inclusive Teaching

Maha Bali, associate professor of practice, Center for Learning and Teaching and Steve Greenlaw, professor of economics, university of Mary Washington

It started with a blog post. Maha wrote about how we often reproduce marginality in open online spaces (Bali, 2016a) This got Steve thinking about ways of being more inclusive in regular classrooms, and our discussion led to some of these (noncomprehensive) tips for creating classroom atmospheres that are inclusive of students who are minorities, uncomfortable speaking in class, or non-native speakers. It is crucial for the instructor to determine what the problem is for each particular class. Are some uncomfortable students speaking because they have little experience doing so? Read more

Issue Six Supplement: Faculty Development Institutes and Workshops

Issue Five: Data-Driven Visual Communication: A Data Literacy Framework

Doris Jones, senior instructor, Department of Rhetoric and Composition, director, common reading program

Advances in information and communication technologies have created a surge of interest in data literacy visualization courses for their potential to help students critically interrogate, design, and communicate complex information effectively (Osterman, 2013). This rise in data literacy has also been influenced by the increasing availability of data visualization tools (Lankow et al., 2012). Read more

Issue Four: A Snapshot of AUC’s Faculty Use of Blackboard: Are Data Analytics a Measure of Our Faculty’s Digital Literacy?

Aziza Ellozy, founding director, Center for Learning and Teaching, associate dean for learning technologies and caroline Mitry, senior CLT officer, pedagogy and assessment

One of the biggest challenges that faculty developers face in the US (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada & Freeman, 2014) and elsewhere is to enhance the digital literacy of faculty, and more often than not the benchmark by which faculty measure themselves is by the use of a Learning Management System (LMS). Read more

Issue Three: Empowering Students through Mentoring

Ghada El Shimi, associate dean of undergraduate studies, Academy of Liberal Arts

The word “mentoring” conjures up in my mind images of the young apprentice in a medieval blacksmith’s shop. The young boy observes intently as the craftsman’s strong arms raise the hammer and bring it down to strike the metal rod. Sparks fly. By the end of the day, the loud sounds of clanging are hardly noticed. Memorable conversations take place in this dark little shop – they talk about the day’s work, the clients and their families, the rising price of coal, and the workshop the boy dreams of having. Read more

Issue Two: Reflections on End-of-Semester Evaluation

Hoda Mostafa MD, associate professor of practice, associate director, Center for Learning and Teaching

Anyone teaching in higher education is familiar with the debate around end-of-semester student evaluation. Student participation is often low, student perceptions of the utility of these evaluations can sometimes deter them from actively participating, and faculty frustration with the somewhat biased results adds to the dilemma. Read More

Issue Two Supplement: Faculty Development Institutes

Issue One: Examinations: Are we Assessing Our Learning Outcomes?

Ezzeldin Yazeed Sayed Ahmed, professor and graduate director, Department of Construction Engineering

I always ask myself this question: am I fairly and effectively assessing my students’ learning outcomes by examinations? The answer never fails to put me ill-at-ease! Read more

Volume 14

Issue Ten: CLT Workshops: in the eyes of Dr. Mahmoud Shaltout

Issue Nine Supplement: Spring 2016, Faculty Development Institutes and Workshops

Issue Nine: Learning Together

Issue Eight: Learning to Analyze and Critically Evaluate Ideas, Arguments, and Points of View

Issue Seven: Exploring the Digital Humanities at AUC #DHAUC

Issue Six: Reflective Pedagogies and the Metacognitive Approach to Reading Comprehension

Issue Five Supplement: CLT Faculty Workshops – Fall 2015

Issue Five: Provost’s Teaching Enhancement Initiative

Issue Four: Trends, Challenges and Technologies for Higher Education: Where Does AUC and Our New Strategic Plan Stand?

Issue Three: The Learning Game

Issue Two: Reflections on the EURECA Conference and Creatopia Day