FACULTY AND STAFF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND BEST PRACTICES // JUNE 2020
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Annette Clayton's
book review of "Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools" was published in the Online First edition of
Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work
on March 17, 2020 and will be published in an upcoming print edition of
Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work
.
Bill McConnell
and
Maury Howard
co-authored an article entitled, "The Downstream Collaborative Project: A school-university partnership inspires collaboration through a meaningful watershed educational experience" in the April/May issue of the journal,
Science and Children
.
Gabi Martorell
published an
online article
in
Education IT Reporter
, March 2020, on the use of technology for distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Scott D. Miller
edits the presidential thought-leadership series
President to President.
Recently completing the 15th year of this publication, the full 2019-2020 book titled "The Next Big Thing" is now available for download
here
. His daily blog about campus life,
Dialogue
, can be found at
prezscottmiller.blogspot.com
and on social media.
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April Christman
served as a panelist for Saint Patrick Catholic School's eighth grade students' 30-minute presentations on their growth and development in relation to the schools visionary document, The Graduate at Graduation.
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Benjamin Dobrin
was a guest speaker at a recent Zoom meeting of the VA chapter of the American Society for Industrial Security where he spoke about changes in current and future tasks in the workplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was asked to discuss Public Health best practices and lend his expertise in this realm.
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With Chris Stuart of Top Guard Security,
Dobrin
also hosted the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and led a talk titled "Decoding Covid Workplace Challenges."
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Sue Erickson
presented a webinar for Florida public libraries on "Taking Your Library to New Heights with the SOAR Framework for Strategic Planning."
Benjamin Haller
will serve as presider for a panel on Reception Studies at the first ever virtual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. He also served as presider for a paper panel entitled "Reception Studies 4" and as a Round Table participant for the CAMWS Diversity Committee, upon which he serves as a member, at the re-scheduled virtual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.
Wayne Pollock's
proposal, The Practicality of Ethics in Recreational Therapy, was accepted to present at Slippery Rock University's Recreational Therapy Club Annual Conference that was to take place in Slippery Rock, PA in March 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. His proposal, A Practical Approach to Ethical Dilemmas in Recreational Therapy, was also accepted to present at the Southeast Recreational Therapy Symposium that was to take place in Myrtle Beach, SC in April 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was also cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Michelle Albert Vachris'
proposal, "Persuasion in Adam Smith and Jane Austen," and “Ralph Ellison and Adam Smith on Ambition and Vanity," co-authored with Cecil E. Bohanon, were accepted to present at the International Adam Smith Society conference that was to take place in Tokyo, Japan in March 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Her proposal, "Study Away: Baseball in the Dominican Republic," and "Human Nature and Civil Society in Jane Austen," co-authored with Cecil E. Bohanon, were also accepted to present at the Association of Private Enterprise meetings that was to take place in Las Vegas, NV in April 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was also cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Vachris was also invited to give a public lecture, "Entrepreneurship and Governance in the Scotch Whisky Knowledge Commons," at the University of Southern Connecticut in April 2020. Unfortunately, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Kathy Merlock Jackson's
proposal, "Jaws, Quint's Tale, and the Scars of World War II," was accepted to present at the Popular Culture Association Conference that was to take place in Philadelphia, PA, in April 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The paper will be included in a book commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the film.
Annette Clayton
along with Tory Cox EdD and Rachel Meffe LISSW were scheduled to facilitate a two-part workshop "Ethical Recordkeeping in the Internet Age" at the 23rd National School Social Work Conference in March 2020 in Baltimore Maryland. The conference has been rescheduled for June 27- June 30, 2020 in Baltimore.
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Denise Wilkinson's
proposal "Creating an 'Escape' Classroom to Enhance Student Engagement and Learning" was accepted to present at Teaching Academic Success Skills National Conference in Ft Lauderdale, Florida in April 2020. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the conference was cancelled.
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Kellie Holzer's
proposal, "Reproducing Fashionable Society: Courtship and Marriage Jokes in the Norfolk Chat," was accepted to present at the annual Popular Culture Association conference that was to take place in Philadelphia, PA in April 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Stephen Leist
was
to present on
Network Outages and Service Changes as part of an Accessibility Issues Panel Discussion
at the OCLC Resource Sharing Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in March 2020. Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Maynard Schaus
served as a panelist for the
University Business
webinar "Supporting Higher Education Leaders During the COVID-19 Crisis" on April 1, 2020.
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OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Benjamin Dobrin
completed an online training course for Airborne Pathogens from First Response Training International.
Denise Wilkinson, Rebecca Hooker
and
Gabi Martorell
participated in a three-day workshop called "The Best Teachers Summer Institute" that took place in West Orange, NJ in June 2019. At the institute they learned about research and best practices that foster engagement and deeper thinking for students. Denise, Rebecca, and Gabi each found success with best practices that they learned at the workshop when implemented into their courses this past academic year. The course components they added included: An Invitational syllabus to welcome students into courses by sharing information in a positive and inviting way, while addressing the question, "Why should I take this course?"; A Guided Discussion grade component to help students reflect on ways in which topics learned connect to their lives outside of class and in the real world; and, Perusall, a web-based platform that grades and manages student reading outside of class and encourages student participation, communication and engagement.
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Phil Guilfoyle
had a large wood fired bottle and wood fired vase selected for the juried exhibition, "Artists Who Teach," at the Charles H. Taylor Art Center, in Hampton, VA. The exhibition which was to open to the public on March 21, 2020, has been extended through August 1, 2020, with an opening reception to be announced when appropriate.
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Students in Wayne Pollock's "Disability & Recreational Therapy" class worked collaboratively throughout the semester with staff from the Chrysler Museum of Art and conducted an accessibility study to determine methods of improving the museum experience for individuals with chronic illness and disabling conditions. Students presented their findings to Chrysler staff May 1, 2020.
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SUCCESS WITH REMOTE LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION
Phil Guilfoyle
developed a Youtube channel to deliver hands on assignments during the remote teaching part of spring semester 2020. Visit Phil's Youtube channel:
Pottery Professor
Kahoot and Kahoot Challenge
By Denise Wilkinson
This year, I focused on incorporating Kahoot, a web-based student response game platform, into all of my courses to engage students and reinforce the completion of daily assignments. We began the quiz at the start time of class, which reduced tardiness. Students used their phones to complete the web-based quiz by answering multiple choice questions in a game format that included visuals, background music, and a timer. This web-based learning platform has had many benefits. Competitive students enjoyed competing with their peers to become the top candy winners, but in general, students found Kahoot quizzes to be a helpful method to reinforce their knowledge on the topic material with a low stakes grade.
A week prior to VWU transferring to remote learning, Kahoot designed a new offering, "Kahoot Challenge." With this alternate platform, students are able to complete the Kahoot asynchronously, within a given start and ending time frame, and in a timed format. I was able to continue with this course component for the remainder of the semester, which allowed me to stay connected with each student to monitor the engagement in learning the material. If a student did not complete a Kahoot quiz, I reached out to the student to communicate my concerns by email.
Comments on the Spring 2020 semester’s SmartEvals were positive when students were asked “Did you find the Kahoot activities (In-class Kahoots and Remote Kahoot Challenges) to be helpful in your learning for this course? Please explain.” Out of 41 respondents, 93% answered positively. Students shared that they found Kahoot (In-class and Remote) to be a fun, competitive, and helpful way to learn and remember the material in a different format. Learn more at
kahoot.com.
Google Meet, Zoom and English 105 Research Strategies
By Sherry Matis
During our remote semester, library instruction also continued. Working with English 105 professors to aid in research preparation I used a flipped classroom approach. Students were asked to complete a keyword worksheet and some were asked to watch VWU Library YouTube videos prior to the session. This ensured students were prepared to begin their searching process after the initial modeling of building a search string and performing a basic database search.
Once the courses went remote, the library session was held though Google Meet or Zoom with both the librarian and the ENG105 instructors in attendance. After the initial lesson delivered by the librarian, we used break-out rooms to meet with students either one-on-one or in small groups using Google Meet or Zoom. The instructor and I met with each group checking on their topics and research strategy and answering any questions they had. The interesting part about this was that in the online sessions I seemed to have better questions than in the Face-to-Face sessions I usually do! I have worked with both of these instructors regularly and each experience was a true collaborative effort in the online environment. I met with each of these two ENG105 classes (Ruh & Weinstein) in about three sessions.
In order to meet the needs of different kinds of learners, or in the event that students could not attend the synchronous library instruction session, I also provided the instructors with a "digital handout" (Google Doc) on general research which could be linked in the BlackBoard course. The handout included an outline of topics, bullet points/research tips and links to VWU YouTube videos that would provide more information and/or instruction.
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