All, I am really excited to share this with you, because I know that there are families out there who have been concerned about the prospect of online or blended classes this fall. Hope this eases your minds.
68 peer facilitators in Wake Forest’s new Peer-to-Peer Learning Communities program have collectively created small learning communities for an additional 650 faculty – both the tech-savvy and the tech-skeptical. Most of these communities of 10-15 people are discipline specific, but a few are interdisciplinary….More than 90% of Wake Forest faculty are participating.
The intensive, collaborative four-week boot camp incorporated whole-group class meetings and independent assignments, group work and individual projects – the same learning landscape their students will navigate this fall as professors teach in-person, blended and online courses. They created podcasts, researched online datasets and resources, recorded an “introduce myself to the class” video – completing the kind of assignments they might, in turn, ask their students to complete.
Y’all, I cannot say enough about the work of Betsy Barre, our Executive Director for the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and the peer-to-peer facilitators. I have been seeing posts on my personal social media from faculty friends throughout the summer, and they have been sharing some really cool ideas and their immense enthusiasm for this process. Wake is the only school we are aware of that has upped its teaching game in this way.
There are a couple of great videos within this story that I hope you’ll watch. One is with biostatistics professor Lucy D’Agostino McGowan, who uses a lightboard she has rigged up for teaching, and she explains the spread of this teaching expertise using an infectious disease model. (I LOVE this lightboard). The other is with a group of faculty talking about the fall. Our faculty have been hard at work getting ready for your students – excited to see the results of all this work.
Also wanted to share information about a few new videos out there. There is a new one about the student Social Compact also a new Show Humanitate video.
There are a couple of great videos within this story that I hope you’ll watch. One is with biostatistics professor Lucy D’Agostino McGowan, who uses a lightboard she has rigged up for teaching, and she explains the spread of this teaching expertise using an infectious disease model. (I LOVE this lightboard). The other is with a group of faculty talking about the fall. Our faculty have been hard at work getting ready for your students – excited to see the results of all this work.