PETAL is gearing up for a very busy schedule this Spring semester. And we are starting off with a bang! We will be having a Technology Workshop on The Clicker on Wednesday and Thursday of the first week of classes (January 14 & 15), and then on Friday of that week, we will have our first Brown Bag Lunch with Dawn McKinney and Karen Peterson leading a discussion on Service-Learning, paying particular attention to the activities they have planned for the MLK Day of Service on January 19, especially in terms of how faculty can design service-learning projects for your students.
We will resume our New Faculty Seminar Series the following week, with Brenda Litchfield’s seminar on Learning and Teaching Styles on January 21 & 22. Note: Each of the seminars in the series will be offered twice during the Spring, but they will not be repeated again this academic year.
We are excited about our new Roundtable Discussions, the first of which will focus on Engaging Students on Monday, January 26. This Roundtable event is a new offering that we are experimenting with this Spring, where faculty will be able to share ideas on how they can better engage students in their classes. The discussion will take place in an open forum environment with no formal presenter or facilitator, just a free-form dialogue that should yield exciting and useful insights.
On Tuesday the 27th, Sam Fisher will lead a Brown Bag Lunch discussion on Teaching with Moodle, which is an open-source online course management system. On Wednesday and Thursday of that week, PETAL will offer a Technology Workshop on Moodle.
In February, PETAL will continue the New Faculty Seminar Series with Dr. Litchfield on Motivating Students and Dr. Robert Gray on Teaching with Technology. PETAL will also offer Technology Workshops in February on Doing Your Grade Book in Excel and Teaching with PowerPoint.
In addition to our February Roundtable Discussion on Improving Attendance, PETAL will offer at least two Brown Bag Lunches in February, with Julio Turrens and Anne Boettcher presenting on Undergraduate Research at USA, and Ethan Fishman reprising his excellent presentation from last year on the Socratic Method. PETAL will also co-sponsor a Panel Discussion on Diversity and Black History Month with Brenda Juarez and the College of Education.
March will also be busy with a New Faculty Seminar with Dr. Litchfield on Cooperative Learning and Technology Workshops on Web 2.0 Tools and Teaching ePortfolios. We have Brown Bag Lunches scheduled on Web 2.0 with Jan Sauer and Ellen Wilson, and Assessing Writing with Betty Wilkinson. Our March Roundtable Discussion will be on Getting Students to Read.
In April, PETAL will complete the New Faculty Seminar Series with Dr. Gray on Assessment and Evaluation. We will also have Technology Workshops on Facebook, Turnitin, and The Clicker, and Brown Bag Lunches on Teaching Abroad and Teaching with Facebook.Our March Roundtable Discussion will be on Teaching Critical Thinking.
In addition, we have several additional programs planned that are awaiting confirmation. We hope you will join us for as many PETAL activities as possible.