24th Annual Fall Conference on Teaching & Learning (Fall 2018)

Logo for The Moth
Comment bubble icon
Logo for The Moth
Comment bubble icon
Logo for The Moth
Comment bubble icon

DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL? In what ways does the power of narrative touch our work with students?  With the community?  With one another?

No matter the discipline, the impact of narrative on teaching and learning cannot be overstated. What stories do we have to tell? How do we tell them? How do our disciplinary and personal stories affect student learning? How are the stories of our students acknowledged? How are GVSU faculty, staff and students telling our stories of purpose, transformation, innovation, and accomplishment? This year’s Fall Conference theme was chosen with the intent of shedding light on the powerful stories we all have to tell and providing a space where we can reflect on the ways in which we use narrative in our teaching. Whether analog or digital, oral or written, the crafting of impactful stories requires intentionality, skill, and practice - hence, the focus of this event.  

We are absolutely delighted to have expert storytellers and educators from The Moth, home to The Moth Radio Hour podcast, join us for this event. Launched in 1997, The Moth presents “true stories told live and without notes” and has grown to include live events, StorySLAMs, community workshops, and educational programs for young people and educators around the world. The Moth “celebrates the ability of stories to honor both the diversity and commonality of human experience, and to satisfy a vital human need for connection.” At this time in our society, we can think of no better way to begin this academic year than with a conversation around and commitment to sharing our stories well. 

On Tuesday, August 21st, Moth educators will host a pre-conference workshop around the Moth storytelling technique. On Wednesday, August 22nd, we will hear perspectives on narrative and teaching from Dr. Micaela Blei, Director of Education and Community Programs at The Moth. Following the keynote presentation, GVSU faculty will share their stories of innovative teaching approaches, learning experiences, collaborative projects and more. These breakout sessions - held both before and after lunch this year - will include a facilitated discussion with guiding questions provided by The Moth instructors. 


Micaela Blei Headshot

MICAELA BLEI

Fall Conference Keynote Speaker & Pre-Conference Workshop Moth Instructor

Micaela Blei, PhD, is Director of Education and Community Programs at the storytelling nonprofit The Moth. She is the co-founder of The Moth's Education Program, which serves high school and college students across NYC and brings storytelling curriculum resources to classroom teachers worldwide. She has facilitated storytelling workshops and directed performance programs in schools across New York City and nationwide, as well as at Arts in Education Roundtable, Google, Intuit, The Atlantic, Lincoln Center Institute, SXSWEDU, Columbia University, Brown University, School of Visual Arts, and many others. She is a two-time Moth GrandSLAM Champion and her solo storytelling show, "The Secret Life of Your Third Grade Teacher," was a sold-out FringeFAVE at the 2016 NYC Fringe. She earned her PhD at NYU Steinhardt's Program in Educational Theatre, focusing on personal narrative performance in education spaces.


HANNA CAMPBELL

Pre-Conference Workshop Moth Instructor

Hanna Campbell has been working in educational spaces for the past decade. In that time, she’s co-founded two middle schools, designed a training program for future school leaders and worked on teacher preparation and school design initiatives for the City University of New York, the State University of New York, the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Department of Education. In addition to her BA in English from Amherst College, Hanna holds an MS in Nonprofit Management from The New School. Currently, Hanna is a Teaching Artist for The Moth's Education and Community Programs and a consultant for various charter school authorizing bodies.

Moth Instructor Hanna Campbell Headshot

Julian Goldhagen Moth Instructor Headshot

JULIAN GOLDHAGEN

Pre-Conference Workshop Moth Instructor

Julian Goldhagen is an artist, educator, and organizer based in Brooklyn, New York.  His original performance work has been featured at the NYC Fringe Festival, The Beacon Theater, and the United Nations Palais de Nacion. Julian is an instructor with The Moth's Community and Education programs, where he has worked with groups such as Just Leadership USA, The Urban Justice Center, and SAGE--as well as in public schools across New York City. He is a proudly sex-positive socialist, and recently helped organize the country's first unionized sex shop. Julian recently graduated with his Masters in Social Work from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College. 


2018 Fall Conference on Teaching & Learning

Keynote Presentation: Listening to Many Voices: Teacher Identity and Personal Narrative Performance

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Eberhard Conference Center, Pew Grand Rapids Campus

Dr. Micaela Blei, Director of Education and Community Programs at The Moth

In this engaging keynote presentation, Moth’s Director of Education and Community Programs, Micaela Blei, PhD, draws on her own research, as well as her seven years of experience as a Moth educator, curriculum designer and GrandSLAM champion storyteller, to discuss Moth storytelling as an innovative strategy for teacher development.

Researchers and policy makers alike have acknowledged the need for teachers to reflect on experience and to experience agency in and out of the classroom (Beauchamp, 2015; Chen et al., 2012; Elbaz-Lewisch, 2010). How can personal narrative performance contribute to the personal and professional development of teachers? While stories are not always the answer, the reflection on and crafting of stories can create a powerful context in which to explore together the emotional and critical work of teaching and life. This talk is intended for teachers, teacher educators, storytellers, and all those who wish to help teachers listen to, and lift, their many voices.

Open to faculty and staff.  Registration is now closed.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

 

Registration is now closed.

 

Wondering where to park? The Fulton Lot is the best spot! 

Registration is now closed.  

Stay tuned for information on the 2019 Fall Conference.


Tuesday, August 21, 2018

  • 9 am – noon
  • 215AB Eberhard Center
  • Continental breakfast available at 8:30 a.m.

 

Restricted to 30 faculty participants. 

Registration is now closed.

Pre-Conference Workshop

Pre-Conference Workshop:  Tell Me a Story, Show Me Your World: Finding and Crafting True Stories in (and for) the Classroom

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Eberhard Conference Center, Pew Grand Rapids Campus

In this introductory professional development workshop, select Grand Valley State faculty members will learn the basics of Moth storytelling technique. Led by expert Moth instructors, they will have the opportunity to brainstorm and share drafts of their own stories, gaining direct experience in the Moth framework of storytelling and Moth facilitation strategies. Faculty members will also have a chance to discuss how they might integrate storytelling practices into their classrooms and curricula. 

Digital Badge: To earn a badge associated with this Workshop and for more information about the FacultyBadges@GVSU Initiative visit our FacultyBadges@GVSU website.

Registration is now closed.


Morning Concurrent Sessions

MORNING SESSION

EC 514

Dana Munk, Movement Science and Pew FTLC

The course syllabus is often overlooked as a powerful motivational tool for students. Research indicates when faculty use their syllabus as a vehicle to share their passion for the content and for students to be successful, students become more excited about learning new material and skills. This session will illuminate strategies for creating welcoming, inclusive and motivating syllabi.

MORNING SESSION

EC 611

Janet Vigna, Biology and Donovan Anderson, Modern Languages & Literatures and CLAS Dean’s Office

Every generation of students brings new experiences, perspectives and expectations to GVSU.  What should we all know about our students to help give them a Strong Start? What can faculty do with this knowledge? This session will begin with a discussion of Grand Valley’s newest generation of students, the factors that have shaped their views, and the challenges they face in the transition to college. As we reflect on this student population, members of the FTLC’s Faculty Learning Community on the Strong Start Initiative will talk about influential things faculty can do to maximize the factors that support first-year success.

MORNING SESSION

EC 614

Michael Scantlebury, Hospitality and Tourism Management 

EduBirdie, established in 2015, is a website which promotes its professional writing services to students at all academic levels using more than 250 YouTube channels.  This discussion will examine how we might support academic integrity in this challenging environment.

MORNING SESSION

EC 423

Jeanine Beasley, Occupational Science and Therapy and Mark Staves, Cell and Molecular Biology

Beginning with an example of using Panopto as a tool for collecting and evaluating graduate student work and proceeding to a discussion of some of the ways grading graduate students might differ from grading undergrads, we envision a lively discussion of issues related to grading the work of graduate students.

MORNING SESSION

EC 310

Dave Eaton and Louis Moore, History

Podcasting has been around for decades, but the diffusion of smartphones has dramatically increased its popularity. Is it possible to take advantage of this new landscape as instructors? This session will try to answer this question. Leading the discussion is Dave Eaton, founder and co-host of On Top of the World, a podcast about world history research and teaching.  Drawing on his three years of experience running the show, this session will examine the challenges posed by this practice, explore ways to integrate podcasts into curricula, and explain why this format may be ideal for connecting with other instructors. Facilitating discussion will be Louis Moore, professor of African American history at GVSU. He is currently designing a collaborative podcast as well as integrating VR into his civil rights course.

MORNING SESSION

EC 410

Jae Basiliere, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Gretchen Galbraith, History and CLAS Dean’s Office

This session will explore both the "why" and the "how" of Reacting to the Past—a pedagogy that engages students with big historical questions through immersive role play. After providing a brief overview of SOTL literature on gamifying the classroom, simulation learning, and RTTP specifically, we will discuss our experiences with this pedagogy. We will share why we chose to incorporate it into our respective classrooms, the challenges and rewards doing so has offered, and advice we might offer to others interested in engaging their students in historical debates through play. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 316

Dalila Kovacs, Chemistry

Taking risks is part of human nature, a skill we acquire through life experiences. We learn, at a very early age, to try new things, savor in the success and accept failure. I, however, never looked at my teaching as a risk-taking profession, until I read a post in Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning, by M. Weimer, published on July 19, 2018:  “it takes courage, the willingness to fail, stand, dust off, and fail again in front of all those students... Maybe that is the biggest learning they get”.  A couple of long summer days of hiking alone in the San Antonio mountains of California allowed me to deeply reflect on this quote and revisit my approach to teaching form a new perspective. I strongly believe that failure and the capacity to accepts it makes us better teachers. This session is for the explorer in you, an opportunity to share and learn from each other how to take risks in teaching – strategies, tools, pedagogy, etc. – and how,  through the process, we support our students in developing their own risk-taking skills. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 311

Heather Wallace and Julia VanderMolen, Public Health

This session will explore the use of story making and storytelling as a teaching and learning strategy in the health professions.  Discussion and examples of how storytelling can be used in the context of the illness experience and  within health professions education will be shared. 

MORNING SESSION

EC 414

Kurt Ellenberger, Coeli Fitzpatrick, Roger Gilles, and Amy McFarland, Honors

After a March 2017 site visit and program review, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) issued a report summarizing their view of the honors program and making recommendations. Tucked away in the report was a recommendation—long dreamt about by the director and faculty—that the Frederick Meijer Honors College create a “standalone” curriculum that serves as a true alternative to the General Education program. Though unsure whether something so different would be accepted by various committees and administrative bodies, the faculty decided to pursue this idea. Somewhat to our surprise, the idea was enthusiastically approved by the General Education Committee, the dean of Brooks College, and the provost’s office. Feeling a bit like the dog that caught the bus, the full-time honors faculty and staff embarked on the exciting and daunting task of creating a new and enticing honors curriculum. This session will present for discussion several contrasting curricular models developed by the Honors Curriculum Revision Task Force. The session will thus be both informative and interactive, as we seek input and guidance from our colleagues to help create a new Honors Curriculum that is rigorous, innovative, and suited to the unique culture and learning environment that defines Grand Valley.

MORNING SESSION

EC 421

Jeffrey Rothstein, Sociology

Online courses reveal important dynamics of the relationship between instructors and students that impact pedagogy. This session will highlight one professor’s experiences and explore their implications for teaching in both online and face-to-face environments.

Afternoon Concurrent Sessions

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 410

Patty Stow Bolea, Social Work and Pew FTLC

Please join in an active discussion regarding considerations for you as a faculty member in planning local cultural immersion experience for students. This work often requires balancing academic leadership with simultaneous deference to local experts who serve as hosts for you and your students. How can we ensure mutual benefits for our hosts and students? Preparation entails trusting relationships, thoughtful guided teaching and learning, and openness to new experiences. 

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 316

Shawn Bultsma, Educational Leadership and Counseling

Student ratings of my instruction early in my career led me to some faulty thinking about my teaching.  As I reflected on how I might improve learning, I noticed that I was primarily focused on my own behaviors.  This session is intended to communicate practices that I have used to foster a shared responsibility for learning by helping students reflect on their own contributions to learning along with my responsibilities as the course instructor.

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 614

Thomas Pentecost, Chemistry and Pew FTLC

I often teach course taken by first-year students. Recently, I have begun to devote time in my courses to activities that are designed to help students develop skills necessary for academic success.

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 310

Pam Wells, Mathematics

I will discuss my experiences using oral interviews with mathematics education students in several math classes for elementary education minors.  These interviews were used for assessment and to allow students to revise work and show their understanding of topics in a Standards Based Grading system.

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 514

Susan Cleghorn and Jennifer Summers, Occupational Science and Therapy

In this session, we will explore the challenges and opportunities associated with engaging students in critical thinking skills about practice problems in healthcare. While our example includes healthcare, faculty from other professions can use our story to explore ways to facilitate deeper classroom discussion and challenge student assumptions.  

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 421

Whitt Kilburn, Political Science and the Data Inquiry Lab

How do we, as teachers and scholars, use narrative tools in the interpretation of data? Recent texts such as Data-Driven Storytelling (Riche, Hurter et al., 2018) and Storytelling with Data (Knafic, 2015) examine how narrative strategies should affect the presentation of data through tables and figures. We will discuss ways to improve our own work, and that of our students, through these strategies.

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 611

Sarah Clark, Chemistry, Tamara Lubic and Julie White, Writing

The story of first-year students is a story of transition—they are adjusting to new academic expectations in an unfamiliar environment. How can we help Gen Z students meet the demands of the rigorous college classroom? How can we make it clear that we want them to succeed? This session, built on the conversations of the FTLC’s Strong Start Faculty Learning Community, will facilitate a discussion about small changes to classroom practices that have the potential for large impacts on student success.

AFTERNOON SESSION

EC 414

John Gabrosek and Neal Rogness, Statistics

Transform your classroom through Team-Based Learning (TBL) – a complete, coherent course structure that embraces the idea that students learn best by application and knowledge creation.  We did it with STA 215: Introductory Applied Statistics; you can do it with your course.


Resources

Books

The following books are not only wonderful resources on storytelling and teaching and learning in general, but will also be raffled off during the 2018 Fall Conference on Teaching and Learning and added to the Pew FTLC Library (068 JHZ).

BOOKS ON STORYTELLING

Book Title

Author

All These Wonders  (2017)

Catherine Burns

The Power of Story: Teaching through Storytelling  (2005)

Rives Collins & Pamela Cooper

Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story  (2017)

Kendall Haven

CLASSIC BOOKS

Book Title

Author

Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 2nd Edition (2011)

John Bean

The Graphic Syllabus (2007)

Linda Nilson

Journal Keeping: How to Use Reflective Writing for Learning, Teaching, Professional Insight, and Positive Change (2009)

Dannelle Stevens & Joanne Cooper

NEWLY RELEASED BOOKS

Book Title

Author

Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide, 3rd Edition  (2018)

Linda Suskie

Creating Engaging Discussions: Strategies for "Avoiding Crickets" in Any Size Classroom and Online  (2018)

Jennifer Herman & Linda Nilson

Creating the Path to Success in the Classroom:  Teaching to Close the Graduation Gap for Minority First-Generation, and Academically Unprepared Students  (2017)

Kathleen Gabriel

Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World  (2018)

Paul Handstedt

Designing a Motivational Syllabus  (2018)

Christine Harrington & Melissa Thomas

Dynamic Lecturing  (2017)

Christine Harrington & Todd Zakrajsek

Game On! Gamification, Gameful Design, and the Rise of the Game Educator  (2017)

Kevin Bell

Hitting Pause: 65 Lecture Breaks to Refresh and Reinforce Learning  (2017)

Gail Taylor Rice

Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks: Decoding the Critical Thinking of Your Discipline  (2017)

Joan Middendorf & Leah Shopkow

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians  (2018)

Jacqueline Dewar, Curtis Bennett, & Matthew A. Fisher


Past Conferences on Teaching & Learning



Page last modified April 8, 2021