Past Sessions

Silver Linings: Using the Lessons of 2020 to Build More Engaging Classrooms in the Future

June 8-9, 2021, Virtual
August 2021

2021 is the year of the 20th Annual Faculty Instructional Technology Summer Institute. This year, we’ll explore the lessons we learned in 2020, and identify new teaching practices we might carry forward. The two-day virtual event will include workshops, presentations, and consultation time. Participants in FITSI will propose a project to increase student engagement in their course using new techniques and/or technologies, and work on that project and assess results with staff from CEITL and Teaching & Learning Technologies.

We got to see a different side of our students and of ourselves during the pandemic. After a forced reimagining of our pedagogy, campus experience, equity, use of technology, and costs, what did we learn? As we prepare for more uncertainty, what best practices from the last year do we need to sustain? Can we use what we have learned to build more engaging and inclusive classrooms, create community and reimagine our pedagogy for a new age? There will never be a better moment to improve the quality and equity of our teaching.

KEYNOTE: Lessons Learned: Building Back Better - José Antonio Bowen

José Antonio Bowen has been leading innovation and change for over 35 years at Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Southampton (UK), then as a dean at Miami University and SMU and as president of a USN&WR most innovative college until 2019. He now runs Bowen Innovation Group L.L.C., and does innovation, leadership, pedagogy and D&I consulting and training in both higher education and for Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare, energy, automotive, and telecom sectors.

As a scholar, Bowen holds four degrees from Stanford University (in Chemistry, Music, and Humanities), has written over 100 scholarly articles, was editor of the Cambridge Companion to Conducting (2003), and an editor of the 6-CD set, Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology (2011). He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and has a TED talk on Beethoven as Bill Gates. In 2010, Stanford honored him as a Distinguished Alumni Scholar.

Bowen is a musician and has appeared on five continents as a jazz pianist and conductor with Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dave Brubeck, Liberace, and many others. His compositions include a symphony (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1985), and music for Jerry Garcia.

Bowen has long been a pioneer in education, classroom design and technology, featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsweek, PBS News Hour, and on NPR (an extended media list is here). He was given a Stanford Centennial Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 1990 and has presented hundreds of keynotes and workshops around the world.

His book Teaching Naked (2012) was the winner of the Ness Award for Best Book on Higher Education from the American Association of Colleges and Universities. The sequel, Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes with G. Edward Watson (2017), was called “as rich a resource…to improve students’ learning as has been written in a generation.” For more, see his website teachingnaked.com or his education TED talks.

His focus on a better classroom experience led to innovations as an educational leader. He removed podiums and fixed computers from classrooms long before others were thinking of BYOD. He led Goucher to the nation’s first video-application, a new process-focused streamlined general education curriculum with a focus on a new 3Rs of Relationships, Resilience and Reflection, and a revitalization of the campus. Goucher has since been recognized as a top college (#11) for innovation. His new book, Teaching Change: How to Develop Independent Thinkers using Relationships, Resilience and Reflection, will be released in 2021 (Johns Hopkins University Press).

After thirty-five years of innovation educational leadership, he received the Ernest L. Boyer Award (for significant contributions to American higher education) from the New American Colleges and Universities in January 2018. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in England, is currently a Senior Fellow at the Association of American of Colleges and Universities and an Inaugural Senior Fellow for Religious Pluralism at the Aspen Institute (Inclusive America Project) and Interfaith Youth Core

Strategies for Flexible Instruction

Tuesday, June 9th 2020

The Fall of 2020 will pose some instructional challenges that we have never faced before. How will we include and engage students who may have to isolate, or who may have fears of returning to the classroom? How might faculty continue instruction if they cannot be on campus? In this webinar, we will examine the HyFlex course design model – a flexible course framework that offers a combination of online, synchronous, and face-to-face options (hybrid) in a course where students are able to choose when and how they attend (flexible). We’ll also discuss the addition of Zoom-enabled spaces available on campus in the Fall of 2020, and explore strategies to engage remote and local students in a single class session. Finally, we’ll discuss the benefits and challenges of asynchronous and synchronous learning.

Dr. Brian Beatty is Associate Professor of Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University. He developed the HyFlex course design model, and has published this book on the model, available free.

Active Learning 2.0: Inclusive, Accessible, and Learner-Centered

June 11 to Thursday, June 13 2019
January 7 2020

This interactive keynote will shine the lights of inclusive teaching, universal design, and learner-centered theories on active learning teaching methods. Launching from current understandings of how active learning supports specific learning activities (retrieval, practice, knowledge construction), Dr. Hurney will challenge participants to explore modifications to active learning that embrace inclusive teaching principles, fully welcome all students into the learning experience and shift the responsibility of learning to the students. Participants will also have the opportunity to apply ideas from this session to their teaching.

Keynote: Carol Hurney, Ph.D.

Dr. Carol Hurney is the founding director of the Colby College Center for Teaching & Learning. In this role, she works with students, faculty, and the administration to enhance the Colby academic culture through programs that encourage fresh perspectives on the teaching and learning endeavors informed by the scholarly literature. During Carol’s 20+ years of college teaching, she has taught introductory courses to Biology majors and non-majors and developed a new core Biology curriculum with inquiry-based labs and authentic writing experiences. She has published work related to her non-majors’ course and her faculty development experiences. Carol’s experience integrating active learning strategies and other pedagogies in her teaching and faculty development work offers insights that encourage instructors to explore new pedagogical approaches for their courses.

Technology, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Students

June 12 to  June 14, 2018
January 8, 2019

2018 was 17th Annual FITSI event. The theme was, “Technology, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Students”.  We explored ways to enhance student engagement with new pedagogies and technologies while helping address specific instructional challenges.

Keynote: Carol Hurney, Ph.D.

Dr. Carol Hurney is the founding director of the Colby College Center for Teaching & Learning. In this role, she works with students, faculty, and the administration to enhance the Colby academic culture through programs that encourage fresh perspectives on the teaching and learning endeavors informed by the scholarly literature. During Carol’s 20+ years of college teaching, she has taught introductory courses to Biology majors and non-majors and developed a new core Biology curriculum with inquiry-based labs and authentic writing experiences. She has published work related to her non-majors’ course and her faculty development experiences. Carol’s experience integrating active learning strategies and other pedagogies in her teaching and faculty development work offers insights that encourage instructors to explore new pedagogical approaches for their courses.

Engaging Students with Technology-Enhanced Learning

June 13 to June 15, 2017
January 9, 2018

Keynote: Carol Hurney, Ph.D.

Dr. Carol Hurney is the founding director of the Colby College Center for Teaching & Learning. In this role, she works with students, faculty, and the administration to enhance the Colby academic culture through programs that encourage fresh perspectives on the teaching and learning endeavors informed by the scholarly literature. During Carol’s 20+ years of college teaching, she has taught introductory courses to Biology majors and non-majors and developed a new core Biology curriculum with inquiry-based labs and authentic writing experiences. She has published work related to her non-majors’ course and her faculty development experiences. Carol’s experience integrating active learning strategies and other pedagogies in her teaching and faculty development work offers insights that encourage instructors to explore new pedagogical approaches for their courses.