Faculty Support for 2020-21
TIPS: Teaching Improvement Program Series
February, March & April, 2022
Each TIPS session will be a 50-minute Zoom meeting composed of the following:
- A research-based introduction to the topic along with common challenges
- Topic-based strategies to improve your teaching
- A one-page tips handout distributed after the session
These sessions apply to teaching F2F and online/blended courses. Sessions will be recorded and placed on the CTL website, along with the handout. Faculty attending the Zoom meeting will have their attendance added automatically to Activity Insight. TIPS Sessions will be led by Dr. Susan Codone.
Additional sessions in this series will include ECHO360 New Features and Understanding Student Accommodations. Click Register by each session to read more information about the session agenda.
The TIPS Series
ECHO360 New Features
(each session is identical)
Monday, March 14 | 3:00-4:00 REGISTER (and see the agenda)
Tuesday, March 15 | 1:00-2:00 REGISTER
Understanding Student Accommodations within the Universal Design for Learning Framework
Learn how to accommodate students without modifying or changing your instruction or class expectations.
Leader: Dr. Robbie Marsh, Tift College of Education
Wednesday, March 23 | 3:00-4:00 REGISTER
The TIPS Instructional Sessions
Tips to Improve Your Lectures
Friday, February 18 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Tips to Improve Group Discussion / Group Work
Friday, March 4 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Tips to Use Thoughtful Questions When Teaching
Friday, March 18 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Tips to Generate and Reward Student Participation
Friday, April 1 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Tips to Create Learner Self-Awareness
Friday, April 15 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Tips for Using Instructional Design to Plan Upcoming Courses
Friday, April 29 | 12:00-12:50 REGISTER
Faculty Learning Communities
SoTL Faculty Learning Community
Focus: Pandemic Teaching & The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL)
Leader: Susan Codone, Ph.D.
In a recent edition of The Scholarly Teacher, Milton Cox states the following:
“The topic of teaching and learning during a pandemic has not been available during the 30-year existence of Boyer’s 1990 scholarship of pedagogy.”
There are many articles already published or in the process of publication on higher education’s collective experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, including the move to emergency remote online teaching and the continuation of online education by some universities. At Mercer, face-to-face teaching remained in place as our instructional delivery mode except from March-May of 2020. Yet many faculty members across the university adjusted their face-to-face teaching practices due to the pandemic, and those who were already teaching online programs and courses added to their skillset.
This Faculty Learning Community will meet every other week via Zoom through the end of the Fall 2021 semester with possible continuation through Spring 2022. The objectives of this FLC are to reflect on pandemic teaching practice and use the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning methodology to create and publish research about the problems and opportunities involved in teaching and learning over the last 18 months.
Participants will meet every other week at a time conducive to everyone. Participants’ goals will be to develop an individually publishable SoTL project.
Teaching Excellence Faculty Learning Community
Focusing on College Teaching Skills from The K. Patricia Cross Academy
Leader: Susan Codone, Ph.D.
Dr. K. Patricia Cross is Professor of Higher Education, Emerita, at UC Berkley. She is the author of eight books, over 200 publications and has invested her career in improving teaching in higher education. The K. Patricia Cross Academy is a video library developed in her honor by Dr. Elizabeth Barkley (Foothills College) and Claire Major (University of Alabama). This library of short videos is designed to help higher education faculty identify and implement high-impact, evidence-based teaching techniques to improve student learning and to document student learning to both provide faculty members with information necessary to improve their teaching and assist them in tenure and promotion.
Together, participants will select videos to watch based on their teaching interests. In small groups, they will work on the following tasks:
- Sharing the teaching information from their chosen videos with the entire FLC
- Create a video portfolio of themselves using selected teaching strategies
- Identifying core teaching skills to be included for a potential New Faculty Teaching Academy to be implemented in the 2022-23 academic year.
This Teaching Excellence Faculty Learning Community will meet every other week via Zoom through the end of the Spring 2022 semester at a time conducive to everyone. The objective of this FLC is to acquire new information on highly effective teaching practices and to chart the future content of a potential academy for new faculty members at Mercer University.
Faculty Research and Writing Colloquium
The Faculty Research and Writing Colloquium is a year-long, longitudinal faculty development experience intended for junior faculty members who are actively working on a research and writing project during this academic year. Stipends will be awarded for successful completion.
The purpose of the program is to provide a protected development time for writing, accompanied by mentoring, coaching, and peer review to help faculty members complete their research and writing projects. Faculty members meet together biweekly.
Successful completions may include publication, presentation, or other forms of dissemination. Attendance at biweekly Wednesday afternoon sessions and subsequent publication or other dissemination is required for stipend award. Faculty members from all academic units are invited to apply. Seats are limited.
The full-year 2021-22 cohort is located on the Macon Campus, led by Dr. Deneen Senasi, Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
A spring semester-only cohort is coming Spring 2022 to the Atlanta campus. Applications will be available in November 2021 for the Spring 2022 ATL cohort.
About the Center for Teaching and Learning
The Center for Teaching & Learning offers university-wide support for instruction to all Mercer faculty 
members. The Center offers events along with group and one-on-one support and guidance for teaching in traditional face-to-face and online distance learning courses. Dr. Susan Codone is the Center Director.
Contact the Center
478-301-4185
codone_s@mercer.edu
