Recorded Events for Faculty
Recorded faculty development sessions 2020-present.
Spring 2022 Recorded Sessions
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
Video: ~ 1 hour
– Watch Video –
Tips to Improve Your Lectures
Learn ways to make your lectures more interactive and meaningful for your students.
Leader: Dr. Susan Codone, CTL
Video: ~40 minutes
Email codone_s@mercer.edu for session handout
– Watch Video –
Tips to Use Thoughtful Questions When Teaching
Learn conditions for asking thoughtful questions and receiving thoughtful answers, and ways to use taxonomies to help frame questions that will generate student responsiveness.
Leader: Dr. Susan Codone, CTL
Video: ~ 40 minutes
Email codone_s@mercer.edu for session handout
– Watch Video –
Tips to Use Instructional Design in Course Planning
Learn about the systems method of instructional design and see sample planning worksheets based on instructional design methodology that you can use for your own course planning.
Leader: Dr. Susan Codone, CTL
Video: ~ 30 minutes
Email codone_s@mercer.edu for session handout
– Watch Video –
Tips for Increasing Class Participation
Did you know only about 25% of students regularly participate in class? Learn to define the kind of participation you want and then consider 10 research-backed methods to boost student participation overall.
Leader: Dr. Susan Codone
Email codone_s@mercer.edu for session handout
Video: ~38 minutes
Tips for Improving Learner Awareness
Learn about metacognition and its relation to learner awareness and academic success, how to teach metacognitive skills to students, and how to use the language of metacognition while teaching.
Leader: Dr. Susan Codone, CTL
Email codone_s@mercer.edu for handout
Echo360 Sessions
Introduction to Echo360 with Jason Gildner
Recorded on Monday, August 2, 2021 | Running time 1:06 hours
New Features of Echo360 (Spring 2022) with Jason Gildner
Recorded April of 2022 | Running time 59 minutes
– Watch Video –
2020-2021 Recorded Faculty Development Sessions
Grant Writing Seminar for Mercer University Faculty
Dr. Nader Moniri, Professor and Associate Dean for Research in the Mercer College of Pharmacy, led a grant writing seminar on Friday May 14, from 10:00am — 12:00pm via Zoom. The seminar was about federal (mainly NIH) grants, but the grant writing section is helpful for any grant submission, including guidance and tips for grant writing. Mercer faculty can contact me at codone_s@mercer.edu for the slides.
Teaching Distance Learning: Best Practice Sessions For Faculty
Organizing a Blended Distance Learning Course: Best Practices
Dr. Karyn Allee-Herndon, Tift College of Education
Monday, March 29 | Noon – 12:50
Join Dr. Karyn Allee-Herndon, Assistant Professor in Mercer’s Tift College of Education, as she discusses her approach to designing and organizing a blended distance learning course. Blended courses require a careful balance of on-campus and online learning activities that both deliver a quality teaching and learning experience and fulfill direct and indirect instructional time for the credit hours offered. Dr. Allee-Herndon will demonstrate her own course organization and respond to questions about course organization and design.
Meeting Direct and Indirect Instruction Time in Distance Learning Courses
Dr. Susan Codone, Center for Teaching & Learning
April 8 | 3 – 3:50 p.m.
Mercer abides by the Carnegie unit for credit hours and SACSCOC requires a minimum amount of direct instruction (the instructor teaching) and indirect instruction (the students learning on their own) per credit hour. In distance learning courses in which instructors are not in the classroom for 3 or more hours a week, direct and indirect instruction methods can vary. Join Susan Codone, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, for both calculations of direct and indirect instruction time for different credit hours, applications for fully online and blended courses, and a discussion about creating a time budget or table to include in your syllabi (as required).
New Echo360 Engagement Features + Full Zoom Integration
Jason Gildner, Echo360
Two Sessions: April 12, 3:30 p.m. | April 22, 3:30 p.m.
Distance learning faculty can use Echo360 to increase student engagement in class and to automatically move Zoom recordings into the Echo360 course library in Canvas. In this session, Jason will show you how to insert polls into any video you bring into Echo360 and use these polls for student engagement, assessment and more. Jason will touch on the other existing engagement tools and as well as Echo360 Analytics. Jason will also show you how to easily move a recorded Zoom video to your course Echo360 library so that you can experience all the benefits of Echo360 even if you are using Zoom as your web conference or recording platform. This new feature will allow students to access videos in Canvas much more easily.
Best Practices for Discussion Prompts and Modeling Responses
Dr. Tanya Sharon, CLAS
April 13 | Noon – 12:30 p.m.
Join Dr. Tanya Sharon, Professor of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, for a 30-minute overview of her approach to creating discussion prompts in Canvas for her distance learning classes. Tanya also provides students with examples of what good responses are like, helping them to map a way toward writing responses that meet and exceed expectations. This short session will provide a demo of discussion prompts and model responses as well as a short Q&A time.
Teaching STEM Distance Courses: Online Labs and More
Dr. Kathy Kloepper, CLAS
April 19 | Noon – 12:50 p.m.
Dr. Kathy Kloepper is an Associate Professor of Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is Vice-Provost of Engaged Learning. Known for pioneering the undergraduate distance learning course “Chemistry for Bears”, Kathy will show us how to think about teaching STEM material in distance learning courses, including the use of online labs and more.
Building Community and Instructor Presence in Distance Courses
Dr. Jared Champion, COPA
April 22 | 2 – 2:50 p.m.
Dr. Jared Champion, a 2018 Governor’s Teaching Fellow and Assistant Professor of Writing and Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Professional Advancement, is an experienced distance learning instructor. Join him as he demonstrates from his own courses how to build a cohesive sense of class community in distance learning courses, and be present for students in ways that include both synchronous and asynchrononous methods. Both class community and instructor presence are two principles of online learning covered in the Teaching Online course, and Jared will introduce us to applied methods of implementing both best practices so that you can improve your own approaches to both.
Fall 2020 Research Talks with Mercer Researchers
Dr. Sarah Gardner: How to Make Time for Research and Writing
Dr. Sarah Gardner is a Mercer Distinguished University Professor of History who teaches courses on the American South, the Civil War Era, and on Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. She also contributes to Mercer’s Great Books Program. She is currently working on a book project that examines reading habits and practices during the American Civil War. She has received more than 15 competitive research fellowships and grants to support her work.
Dr. Seongkum Heo: How to Find Research Gaps and Develop Plans to Fill Them
Dr. Seongkum Heo is Professor and Piedmont Healthcare Endowed Chair of the Mercer’s Georgia Baptist College of Nursing. Her research has been extramurally funded by the American Nurses Foundation and the American Heart Association. She is the author and co-author of more than 50 research based articles and abstracts focusing on heart failure and chronic disease, with three manuscripts noted as the top ten cited by Heart and Lung.
Dr. Nader Moniri: How to Navigate Manuscript Authoring Guidelines
Dr. Nader Moniri is Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Mercer’s College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Moniri joined the faculty of Mercer’s College of Pharmacy in 2006 and has authored 41 publications. He earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Georgia State University and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Division of Medicinal Chemistry at the School of Pharmacy at UNC – Chapel Hill. Trained primarily in molecular pharmacology and medicinal chemistry, Dr. Moniri completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Moniri is the primary research administrator for the College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford: How to Develop a Personal Approach to Research, Writing & Publication
Dr. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford is the Carolyn Ward Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages and Director of the Masters of Theological Studies degree program in Mercer’s McAfee School of Theology.
Dr. Leslie Taylor and Dr. Craig Marker: How To Identify Journals that are a Good Fit for Submission and Publication
Dr. Leslie Taylor is a professor of Physical Therapy and Associate Dean for the College of Health Professions. Dr. Taylor is the founding chair of Mercer’s Department of Physical Therapy joining the University in 2009. She received her PhD in Sociology, graduate certificate in gerontology, Master of Science in Counseling and Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from Georgia State University. She has over 35 years of clinical experience as a physical therapist, working in a variety of clinical settings, including private practic
Dr. Craig Marker is Professor, Chair and Program Director of Clinical Psychology in the College of Health Professions. He received his PhD and MS in clinical psychology from Rosalind Franklin University and a postdoctoral respecialization in quantitative methods from the University of Virginia. He received a MS in Counseling Psychology from Western Michigan University and a BS in psychology from Grand Valley State University. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Florida.
Teaching with Facemasks
Recorded August 2020 | Running time 1.5 hours; scrub through based on your interests.
Log in with your Mercer credentials to watch this video by Dr. Amanda Gillespie, who is Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology at the Emory University School of Medicine and Director of Speech Pathology and Co-Director of the Emory Voice Center. She earned an undergraduate degree in speech-language pathology and audiology from New York University and a master of science in speech-language pathology from the University of Pittsburgh.