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April 25 Teaching & Learning Newsletter

Apr 26, 2019, 10:25 AM
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Announcements

Call for Presenters: August 2019 Grad Academy

Faculty, academic professionals, and experienced TAs are invited to participate as presenters and facilitators at the Graduate Academy for College Teaching (August 19-22, 2019), CITL's program for new TAs with classroom teaching responsibilities, and the Symposium on Grading & Office Hours (August 20, 2019), our program for those TAs with non-classroom responsibilities. There are opportunities to create your own concurrent session, facilitate a lesson from a pre-existing lesson plan, or facilitate microteaching sessions. Facilitating microteaching is a particularly fun and easy way to volunteer even if you are somewhat new to teaching yourself.Follow this link to see the full call for presenters. If you already know you want to help,follow this link to volunteer for the Grad Academy.

Chair-a-Thon: April 26

Whether you’re running in the Illinois Marathon, or planning to sit on the couch, we’ve got something fun for you to do during lunchtime onFriday April 26.Help choose the best chairs for newTransitionaliFLEX interactive classrooms at aChair-a-ThonFriday, April 26 from 11am until 1pm at the DCL Atrium. Eight styles of mobile tablet armchairs will be available. So test them out, eat a sandwich, and vote for your favorites!RSVP for the Chair-a-Thon by clicking here(so we can get the right number of sandwiches).

CITL Exam Services: Office Hours for Spring 2019 Finals Week

CITL Exam Services in room 247 of the Armory Building will be open for final exams from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, May 3, and Monday, May 6, through Friday, May 10. This includes being open during the lunch hour. We are closed Saturday and Sunday during finals. Contactexams@illinois.eduor 244-3839 with any questions.

De-stress Disco at the TechHub: May 2

Stop by the TechHub on reading day for a de-stress disco. Try your hand at DJing with a 2-deck Traktor Pad, experience music in VR on our HTC Vive or unwind with some Playstation VR. Free!Check out their Facebook event for details.

Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day @ Illinois: May 16

Attend some of the 15 free workshops including Word and PPT Accessibility, Captioning and Audio Descriptions, E-Text Accessibility, Microsoft Lighthouse Project and learn more about the new campus accessibility policy and implementation plan. View demonstrations of assistive technologies. Tour the DRES history timeline and Beckwith Residential Support Services at Nugent Hall. Complimentary lunch available with pre-registration before May 10thand ASL accommodation requests needed by May 1st.

More information and registration at:https://go.illinois.edu/gaad/

Language Courses Open to All (Summer 2019)

The Intensive Foreign Language Instruction Program offers low-cost classes in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and English as a Second Language. Open to everyone; not for credit, just for fun! Classes will meet May 13-31 (no class on Memorial Day).Look here for more information and to sign up.

CITL Events & Workshops

Teaching and Learning workshops are done for the semester, but look forward to a future newsletter in which we announce our summer workshop series! In the meantime, here are some interesting events that don't count for certificate credit:

Friday, April 26
Illinois Esports Summit 2019
1:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M., Deloitte Auditorium, Business Instructional Facility
Friday, April 26
Illini Gadget Garage Pop-Up Repair Clinic
3:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M., Innovation Studio (Armory Building, Room 172)
Teaching Tips

Fizzle or Finale: The Final Day of Class

Many courses end with a fizzle. Frank Heppner (2007) aptly says, “In most classes, The Last Lecture was about as memorable as the rest of the class had been – that is, not very.” The final class should bring the course to an appropriate conclusion or finale.“For many..., the last day of class comes and goes without ceremony, yet it provides an opportunity to bring the student-teacher experience to a close in a way that students appreciate and enjoy” (Lucas and Bernstein, 2008).How can you make the final day into a finale?

Last Day of Class. Make the Last Day Count.

Too often, the last day of a class can be taken up with housekeeping - information on the final, last minute details, and course evaluations. But as Richard Lyons, author of several books on college teaching says, "the final class is a key student retention milepost."Some suggestions are:“Thank the class” (where one professor says,"I take some time to thank the students for their part in the course and to tell them what they did to make my job easier (e.g. worked hard, asked questions, were cheerful, etc.) and “Students' concluding remarks” (after providing your own remarks, ask for theirs).
 

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