Free Webinar for Higher Education Professionals - Faculty Perspectives on Cultures of Assessment (Sponsored by AALHE)

If you are interested in higher education assessment, this is a great resource for you. This webinar is sponsored by Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AAHLE).

October 16, 2015

Faculty Perspectives on Cultures of Assessment 1:00 PM EDT - to register go to  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3180659909157253377

Presented by:  Matthew Fuller, Ph.D.  Sam Houston State University

Abstract: Through books, articles, and presentations, assessment scholars have advocated specific practices to gain faculty support and “buy in” for assessment. Tying assessment practices to tenure and promotions policies, engaging faculty in early and frequent dialogue, and developing assessments that are associated with what faculty value are a few examples of recommended efforts. However, very few studies have actually asked faculty what they believe about assessment and fundamental perspectives on their institution’s culture of assessment.

The Faculty Survey of Assessment Culture is a nation-wide, annual survey of faculty members’ perspectives on their institution’s cultures of assessment. The instrument is meant to explore the extent to which institutions exhibit elements of culture of compliance, fear, or generative support for assessment in faculty members’ perspectives. The survey identifies several factors 

(1) Faculty perceptions, 

(2) Use of Data, 

(3) Sharing Data, 

(4) Compliance or Fear Factors, and 

(5) Normative Purposes of Assessment as well as 

(6) higher-order factors of (a) a culture of assessment, and (b) leadership strategies for assessment that have been identified and measured through this 5 year research effort . 

Much has been learned about faculty perceptions and, through a parallel study of administrators . And similarities and differences between administrators and faculty have been identified. 

(Information Shared from the AALHE Listserv)

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

FREE Training for Higher Education Faculty - Pearson's Speaking About...Webinar Week

Are your travel funds small this semester? Are you short on time, but eager to learn about new aspects and concepts focused on your academic discipline?

I am FAN of FREE online webinars and online conferences focused on teaching, learning, and research. Here's a neat opportunity from Pearson's Professional Development Online "Speaking About..." series focused on: Art, English, History, Music and Humanities, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and World Languages. This event takes place between October 12-16, 2015.

These sessions look spectacular - here's a sample:

How to Think About Masculinities
Professor Michael Kimmel - Stony Brook University

Increasing Economic Inequality: A Closer Look 
Dr. John Macionis - Kenyon College

Using Social Media to Teach Sociology
Nathan Palmer - Georgia Southern University

Make-Believe Play and Children's Self-Regulation
Dr. Laura Berk - Illinois State University

Generation Me: Teaching and Working with Today's Students
Dr. Jean Twenge - San Diego State University

Gamification Techniques ANY Instructor Can Use to Engage, Assess, and Energize Students
Dr. Amy Marin - Phoenix College

Open Science, Replication, and Teaching Psychology
Dr. Mark Krause - Southern Oregon University
Dr. Daniel Corts - Augustana College

Using Blogging in the Teaching of Psychology
Dr. Sam Sommers - Tufts University

Here's more information about the "Speaking About..." Series - http://www.pearsoned.com/events-and-webinars/higher-education-events-and-webinars/speaking-about-webinars/.

I am not sure if a hashtag will be utilized for the event, but utilize the #55HigherEd hashtag to share ideas! :)

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Tried and True Ways to Incorporate Social Media in Higher Education Classrooms

In August, I was invited to speak at the #LEAPTX annual meeting in Nacogdoches, TX. I was excited to take advantage of this opportunity as a #LEAPTX Fellow and presented a session on "Incorporating Social Media in Higher Education Classrooms (and High-Impact Educational Practices)".

Here are the slides from this session:


Also, to continue the conversation, the #55HigherEd Community was launched on Facebook. This community is for faculty to ask questions about the teaching, research, and/or service process and to also keep one another accountable on our journey towards tenure (or towards becoming a full-professor). Here's the community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/589073234563970/.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

When Academic Interests and Administrative Interests Positively Collide

As a mid-level higher education administrator, it is important realize how your academic field positively affects your administrative work. This has been especially evident for me during this past academic year when my academic interests and administrative interests collided in four beneficial ways.

Employing a Communication Intern (Social Media Coach) Who Works in Our Office (Social Media)
Our communication intern is absolutely wonderful and she has amazing ideas about how to reach students (from a student mindset). She is also learning about social media along the way: crafting effective posts, deciphering the analytics for the student success and multicultural initiatives social media channels, and blogging about student success from a student's perspective. Here's her blog for our area: http://tarletonssmi.blogspot.com/

Crafting E-Mail Messages with the Current and Potential Readers in Mind (Target Audience Approach) (Fundamentals of Speech Communication)
When writing any e-mail message for students, faculty, or staff, I always strive to write the message for the audience and to avoid any potentially interesting responses by never utilizing the BCC line and sparsely utilizing the CC line. This is especially important when conversing about interesting issues in higher education. I always reply to the original sender and almost never include the individuals carbon copied on the e-mail, because your sender intended for this message to go to you, you do not have permission to reply to every cc'ed on the e-mail. Also, never send e-mails that you do not intend for others (in addition to the intended party) to read.

Creating Publications (and Videos) that Others Will Want to Read (Mass Media)
This semester, student success and multicultural initiatives created an infographic instead of a bulky (and potentially unread) annual report for the university's faculty, staff, and students. In this infographic, the data is presented in an engaging (and graphical) way and I think the intended parties are more likely to understand what we do in student success and multicultural initiatives instead of sending the data-based message in a report.

Forming Mentoring Groups for Mothers and Faculty of Color (and Other Underrepresented Populations) - Intercultural Communication
Last year, we formed a university mother's group and a group of diverse faculty members. Our membership for both groups ranges between 25 and 60 members. These groups serve as wonderful sounding boards for the mothers and diverse faculty and they also gain ideas and form research collaborations. Both of the aforementioned groups helped me through my journey as a new mother and I wish that I had the faculty of color group when I persisted through the tenure track.

Each of the aforementioned skills (and associated courses) continue to make an imprint on my life as a mid-level administrator on a daily basis. I am thankful for delightful and fulfilling experiences in the classroom as well as working with an amazing group of academic leaders at the university. Administrative experiences make academic experiences richer and academic experiences make administrative experiences richer. We become more because we teach, we reach more because we serve others through administrative duties in higher education.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Finding a Budget-Friendly College or University By Using the New College Scorecard by the U.S. Department of Education

Today, the new college scorecard from the U.S. Department of Education made it's debut on a new website - https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/. This scorecard is meant to help parents and students discover the best and more affordable higher education opportunities for their families.

Also, the new College Scorecard tool was featured on the White House Blog and the Department of Education blog today - Under the Hood: Building a New College Scorecard with Students.

In addition to the New College Scorecard (Comprehensive and Updated Data on Higher Education Institutions), there are several additional resources for families to find the more affordable college with the best features (majors, minors, etc.) for their students. These resources (as featured on the Department of Education Blog) include the following:

Additional Customized Tools for Students

- Scholarmatch

- StartClass

- College Abacus

- Payscale

- InsideTrack

As higher education administrators, faculty, and staff, it is important to know the information that exists about our institutions that is available on the internet. Did you find anything interesting about your institution (or aspirant institutions in the data available via any of the websites listed above)?

Let us know!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Leaving Our Mark as Millennial Mothers in the Community, the Internet, and the Workplace

How do you want to be remembered? As a millennial mother, professional, and wife in my early 30s, I struggle with this "memorial" question on a frequent basis. Millennials (like myself) want to be remembered for a variety of reasons, but one of the most important reasons that I would like to be remembered is because I made a positive contribution to my community, my state, my country, and perhaps beyond.

Millennial Mothers Leaving Their Mark in the Community Through Service
In my current work position (as a professor), I have many opportunities to positively impact each of those areas, but my family position takes priority (at least for the next few years). My daughter is still relatively young, but I long for the day of the future when I can take her to volunteer in the community, nationally, and also internationally.

Millennial Mothers Leaving Their Mark on Their Family Through Multitasking
I've discovered that the key to true work/life balance is knowing that it does not truly exist. Yes, you can let the e-mails sit in your inbox until the next day, but usually millennial moms are always thinking about work (from sun up to sun down). By involving your children in your daily activities including answering e-mail, attending family-oriented family functions, and in my case - grading papers, my daughter realizes the importance of a hard day's (and night's work). She has also learned valuable skills (and concepts) along the day. Recently, I discovered that she can correctly identify a professor, a university, a classroom, and yes - she can identify Blackboard (our learning management system as well).

Millennial Mothers Leaving Their Mark on the Internet (and the Blogosphere)
Each summer, I look forward to meeting new millennial moms and refining my existing millennial moms (in Texas) by attending a summer blogging conference. We meet in San Antonio and our families (the dads as well) connected and everyone learned techniques focused on how to make their blogs more effective.

As first, it was difficult for me to think about how I could connect with the bloggers because of them were stay-at-home mothers, but when I ventured out of my shell I quickly realized that these were some of the most dynamic, down-to-earth, outstanding millennial mothers that I have ever encountered. These mothers are making their mark on the internet and are impacting how corporations are marketing to the millennial consumer. I look up to all of these millennial mom bloggers, they inspire me to be a better blogger and mother.

Millennial Mothers Leaving Their Mark on the Workplace
Millennial mothers (and other categories of millennials) will leave their mark on the workplace through their ingenuity and creativity, support for diversity, and their energy (among other factors). Most Millennials in the workplace have the following qualities and values...

1 - An increased support for open communication (Dowdy, 2015) CNBC Article

2 - An increased support for workplace flexibility (Gillenwater, 2015) Entrepreneur Article

3 - An increased value for professional development (Papas, 2015) Fortune Article

4 - An increased value for workplace and environmental sustainability (Bridges, 2015), Co.Exist Article

5 - An increased value for mentorship and networking (O'Connell, 2015) Huffington Post Article.

These qualities help will help millennials determine their worth, their impact, and their future in the the workplace.

Thinking Ahead
As the older millennials (especially the mothers) enter the middle portion of our careers, we have a few items to determine - How do you we to be remembered? As a millennial mothers, millennial fathers, and all other types of millennial professionals, how will we make positive contributions to the community, the state, the country, and beyond?

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Data Display 101: Using Excel and Slicer Tool to Create Fabulous Dashboards" on Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 2pm

If you are interested in higher education institutional research, make plans to attend this free Excel Webinar titled, "Data Display 101: Using Excel and Slicer Tool to Create Fabulous Dashboards" on Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 2pm. This event is hosted by the South Carolina Association for Institutional Research. Register here to see the time zone - http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=EC50D78185463A

This looks like a great, FREE opportunity for anyone interested in making their data more "digestable" for the average person. Anyone should be able to understand the data that your office/center provides and dashboards/infographics enable YOU/YOUR OFFICE to provide this data for the general population (internal and external to the university/college).

Here's the description of the webinar from Ryan S. Otto, Ph.D. Board Member, South Carolina Association for Institutional Research:

This webinar will use Microsoft Excel 2010 (or newer) to easily produce an updatable, user friendly grade distribution dashboard. We will design a couple of different views (i.e., by course, by instructor) and create one or two calculated fields (i.e., overall success rate, overall success rate without W’s). We also will discuss the ease of the updating process. Example data will be available for any participants wishing to actively participate and build a dashboard.

Presenters:

Dub Green,

Director of Institutional Research, Office of Institutional Research

Trident Technical College

Donna McHugh,

Research Analyst, Office of Institutional Research

Trident Technical College

I will see you there! :)

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram/Periscope - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Dorm Room Tours, Dorm Room Hauls, and Student Success

When I lived on the third floor at Steen Hall, I had a dorm room to myself as a Resident Assistant and I loved decorating the room in red and yellow (cardinal and straw) because those were the colors of my sorority (Chi Omega). I wish that I still had pictures, but I want you to know that my room was NOTHING compared to the rooms that you will see in the dorm room tours at the end of this post. All of the videos are focused on dorm room decorations!

If I had a room similar to these rooms, I would never leave! These rooms are truly like home for these students. As a higher education professional, our task is to make the day and evening activities attractive enough for students to venture our of their residence halls.

Love, love, love the summer dorm room halls and the finished product...the dorm room (residence hall) tours!

Here are the dorm room tours!

College Dorm Tour 2015 - Lilly Pulitzer Inspired Kaitlyn Mekel

One of my favorite (and very organized) bloggers - At Home With Nikki's College Dorm Room Tour

Veri Keri (another amazing vlogger)'s Dorm Room Tour

As you can see, decorating a dorm room (residence hall room) is not an easy feat. Also, it will not be an easy feat getting these students out of their residence hall rooms to attend residence hall programming (or programming for student life). Let's make our programming (and classes) appealing for these students and remain student centered this fall!

Here's my disclaimer, I am one of those odd professors who will call students and send them direct messages on Twitter if they are late to class or if they did not attend class (or turn in assignments).

In addition, this fall, I am working with an amazing group of students in a living learning community and they have a shared kitchen (which will be their common living space). Exciting opportunity for this faculty member!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

First-Year Convocation Ceremonies for Incoming Students at Universities Across the United States

The beginning of the academic year always sparks a sense of renewal in my mind and also in the minds of many higher education faculty across the country (and beyond). I always look forward to our university's convocation ceremony, because this first-year ceremony marks the beginning of the students's academic journey at our university.

Here is this year's video focused on our first-year convocation ceremony. This video was uploaded from my Periscope video (where slightly under 70 people viewed the ceremony. Although my arm was shaky, and my mind was focused on the next steps for these students, this video captured the essence of this important moment in the lives of the almost 2,000 first-year students on campus.

While you are enjoying this video (which features some of my most favorite speakers), take a look at these first-year convocation videos as well:

Missouri State University's New Student Convocation Ceremony

Kansas State University's - New Student Convocation Ceremony

Does your college or university offer a similar experience for incoming students? The new student (or freshmen) convocation ceremony enables the students to experience a special event before they have the REAL experience in a four-year time frame. Also, please let me know if you have a video to add to the list. :)

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Vote for Our #SXSWEdu Session - Higher Education Hack Tech Tools for Completion - #55HigherEd

I am very excited to announce that we submitted a proposal to SXSWEdu for a third year! You can vote for our session here! and I am looking forward to (possibly) presenting at the South By Southwest Edu conference in Austin, TX! Here's are several tweets and audience member notes from last year's session:

This was an incredible experience last year and I connected with amazing people from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and also individuals from various educational organizations in Texas as beyond! I left the conference with a wealth of ideas for implementing best practices at our institution of higher education AND also neat research (and social media engagement ideas).

I am especially passionate about this year's #SXSWEdu proposal because it connects several of my professional interests in one proposal: technology, retention ideas, scalable solutions for higher education, and social media. Also, I like the continue the conversation after the conference and this year will definitely enable us to continue the conversation.

Here's our proposal video:

Here are the Learning Objectives for the session!

1 - To identify the MOST COMMON problems encountered by higher education administrators, faculty, staff, and students.

2 - To explore low-cost and higher-cost technological, programmatic, and service-based solutions for addressing the MOST common higher education problems.

3 - To connect with other participants to form two higher education learning communities: 1) teaching and learning and 2) higher education solutions.

***See more at: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55465#sthash.tNtwU37y.dpuf

Dr. Jennifer Edwards - Taking a selfie in the green room before the #55HigherEd Session

Description:

Higher education administrators, faculty, and staff encounter common problems that negatively impact student success at their early college high school, community college, or university. These common problems usually include: recruitment, developmental education, retention, on-time graduation rates (completion), increasing costs, changing demographics, workplace readiness (marketable skills), and budget constraints.

A picture of our name placards!

Through this session, participants will identify higher education problems, explore low-cost and higher-cost solutions, and connect with others through social media-based, higher education learning communities (on Facebook and Twitter). - 

***See more at: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55465#sthash.tNtwU37y.dpuf***

When you have a chance, vote for our session on #SXSWEdu's panel picker. If you attended last year's conference, you know that we have a great time presenting and we LOVE engaging with our audience! :)

Thank you!

- Dr. Jennifer Edwards
@drjtedwards

5 Ways to Avoid Discouragement When Writing Grant Proposals (A Tip Sheet for Tenure Track Professors)

My goals for this year include writing a grants for the Texas Social Media Research Institute (@TSMRI). Grants will definitely be important for our success at TSMRI because it will enable us to provide more students with internships.

I know each of these grants will help get closer to our goal, but sometimes you can become DISCOURAGED. :(

5 Ways to Avoid Discouragement When Writing Grant Proposals
1 - Realize each unfunded grant application is a step in the right direction.
2 - Reading the comments will make your next proposal better.
3 - Grant writing builds long-lasting research
collaborations.
4 - Think about providing funding for undergraduate research
experiences for your students.
5 - You can still include unfunded proposals on your CV.

What would you add to the list?

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com