Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning

Archive: January 2023 Sessions

Teaching and Learning Day
January 12, 2023

During our one-day virtual event on Thursday, January 12, 2023, Merrimack faculty and staff presented best practices, strategies, reflections, tools and more to promote engagement and student-centered teaching and learning. 

Schedule of Events

9:00 – 9:45 a.m. : Pedagogical Tools in Canvas to Streamline your Teaching

Presenter: Janet Syed, M.Ed.

This session looks at the advantages of using Analytics in Canvas. Analytics presents logged activity by users in various components of a Canvas course. Learn how you can see at-a-glance how your students are performing. This session will also look at two features you might not know about: prerequisites and requirements.

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10:00 – 10:45: Get Ready to Engage All Students this Semester, Undergraduate and Graduate

Faculty Facilitators: Drs. Jaleh Dashti-Gibson, Jane Parent, Lisa Perks, Chris Stuetzle, Additional TBD

With an increasing number of students with various learning profiles, abilities, and diagnosed disabilities in our classes, whether on ground, hybrid or online, we as faculty need to think about strategies to teach all our students. This faculty panel will discuss important differences in course style, course structure, class policies, and community building to engage this diverse student population.

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10:45 – 11:30: Meeting Students Where They Are

Presenter: Dr. Kenneth Rhee, Dean Girard School of Business

We always talk about elevating our lofty academic standards and communicating our expectations to our students so that they can meet our lofty standards.   However, is this the only way to elevate our students’ performance and advance our academic standards?  We also interpret “meeting the students where they are” to mean lowering our academic standards so that they can perform at a certain level.  In this session, we will discuss what it means when we say meeting the students where they are and also explore alternative ways for us to help students raise their academic performance and our standards by meeting them where they are.

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11:45 – 12:15: Engage Students by Creating Interactive Videos With Panopto

Presenter: Sean Wright, M.Ed., M.Sc.

Join us for a session that will engage students and help to make your videos pop! We will share pre-production, production, and post-production techniques as well as ways to incorporate quizzes, smart chapters, and notes using Panopto.

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1:00 – 1:45: Antiracist Community Engagement Principles, Pedagogy and Practices

Presenter: Dr. Elaine Ward, Associate Professor, Chair, Higher Education Department , Special Assistant to the President for Civic and Community Engagement

How can your community-engaged teaching, research and/or practice embody the antiracist values and aspirations we must achieve if we are to fully realize our institutional equity and inclusion goals?
This session will share the Principles of Antiracist Community Engagement Practice developed by faculty, community engagement professionals, students, and community partners at five colleges and universities.  The multiyear Massachusetts Department of Higher Education funded work led to a co-edited book featuring 65 co-authors from across the United States representing both higher education and community expertise.  Dr. Ward is one of the co-founders of the New England Equity and Engagement Consortium and co-editors of the book to be published by Campus Compact/Stylus Press in 2023.

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2:00 – 2:45: Ignite Students Passion with Immersive and Authentic Experiences

Presenter: Dr. Deborah Margolis, Interim Dean, Winston School of Education and Social Policy

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2:45 – 3:15: Gradebook Transparency Boosts Student Engagement

Presenter: Christine Sacco, M.Ed.

Learn how to navigate within the gradebook, set weighted grades, add extra credit, drop the lowest quiz and more. Increase efficiency to retrieve, grade, and provide feedback using Speedgrader.

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