20 Minute Mentor - Online Faculty Professional Development - Spring 2019 Schedule

The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation (CTLI) offers faculty a professional development series from Magna Publications, called the 20 Minute Mentor. The goal of the 20 Minute Mentor series is to offer faculty practical professional development opportunities in twenty minute snippets that can be accessed from anywhere and at any time during the given week. Session topics cover the areas of student engagement, teaching and learning, teaching online, assessment and learning goals, and classroom management.

Information on how to access the 20 Minute Mentor sessions is available each week in the Bulletin and the iDevelop e-newsletter.

New video presentations (with supplementary materials) go live at 10:00am each Monday morning and are only accessible through Sunday. 

The following sessions are on the schedule for spring 2019. For session descriptions, objectives, and mentor bios, click on the titles below. 

• January 28th - What Can I Do to Manage and Reduce Academic Job Stress?
• February 4th - What Behavioral Changes Can I Make to Inspire Enthusiasm in My Classroom?
• February 11th - What Brain-Based Techniques Can I Use to Engage Students During Class?
• February 18th - How Can I Effectively Supervise Teaching and Research Assistants?
• February 25th - What are 10 Tips to Collaborate with Colleagues?
• March 4th - Why is Intercultural Competence Important and How Can it Improve my Teaching?
• March 11th - What are Five Methods that Help Students Become More Effective Learners?
• March 18th - How Can Improving Student Feedback Improve the Quality of Each Educational Encounter?
• March 25th - How Can I Leverage Force Multipliers in the Classroom?
• April 1st - How Do I Promote Civil and Thoughtful Engagement in the Classroom?
• April 8th - How Can I Most Effectively Fulfill My Citizenship Requirements?
• April 15th - What 5 Play-based Activities Can I Use to Create an Active, Learning-centered Class?
• April 22nd - Copyright Crash Course: How Can I Stay on the Right Side of the Law?
• April 29th - Why Should I Migrate from Traditional Resources to OER in My Courses?
• May 6th - How Can Preparing to Teach Online Improve My Face-to-face Teaching?
• May 13th - How Can I Plan (or Revise) My Courses More Efficiently?

We would love to hear your feedback on the usefulness of these sessions. Please send your input to ctli@northshore.edu.

Preparing for Spring 2019 Courses in Blackboard Learn

As you start to think about your spring courses, we wanted to share with you the following important information that will help you prepare your course site in Blackboard Learn.

Copying a Course
To copy a previous course site into a new one in Blackboard Learn:

1. Go into the course site that has the content to copy. In the Control Panel, expand the "Packages and Utilities" section and click Course Copy.
2. On the next screen, in the “Select Copy Type” section, make sure Copy Course Materials into Existing Course is selected in the drop down menu.
3. Now, in the “Select Copy Options” section, next to the Destination Course ID field, click Browse. Then, find and select the Course ID for the new course (the one you want to put the content into). Click Submit.
4. Select the Course Materials that you want to copy over to the new course. Usually, Select All is the best choice, although you might not want to copy announcements.
1. If Select All is not used, make sure to include Grade Center Columns and Settings if Assignments and/or Tests are being copied.
2. Also, under Discussion Board, select Include only the forums, with no starter posts if threads are not created by the instructor for students to respond to. If not, all student threads will copy over as anonymous and they will need to be deleted.
5. In the “File Attachments” section, keep the default settings.
6. Click Submit.

Please note: When a previous course site is copied over into a new course site, any new or changed content areas will be added to the bottom of the course menu.

Make Your Course Available
All Blackboard Learn course sites are unavailable to students by default. Here are the directions for making the course site available to your students. If you are in your course site, you should see a lock icon up at the top of your course site (to the left of Edit Mode). If you click that lock icon, it will make the course available to students. 

If you do not see the lock icon, here are the directions for making it available to your students.

To open your course:

1. Go into the course site.
2. On the Control Panel, expand the "Customization" section and click Properties.
3. On the next screen, in the "Set Availability" section, select Yes to make the course available.
4. Click Submit.

Preparing a Blackboard Learn Course Site for a New Semester
Please check out this handy reference at http://goo.gl/pZbUZ8 to help you prepare a  Blackboard Learn course site for a new semester.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Blackboard Learn Helpdesk at bbhelp@northshore.edu if there are any issues with Blackboard Learn.

January Blackboard Learn Open Labs

CTLI's Instructional Technology and Design (ITD) team will be hosting a series of Blackboard Learn Open Labs during the first two weeks of the semester.

Faculty are welcome to drop by the open labs if they have any questions/issues or would like to come in to work on your courses and get assistance from CTLI ITD staff. CTLI ITD team members will be available to assist on both the Danvers and Lynn campuses.
  
Week of January 14th 

• Tuesday, January 15th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Wednesday, January 16th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Thursday, January 17th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Friday, January 18th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
    

Week of January 21st 

• Tuesday, January 22nd from 9:00am-2:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Wednesday, January 23rd from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Thursday, January 24th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319
• Friday, January 25th from 9:00am-3:00pm in DB387 and LS319   

Also, please do not hesitate to contact the Blackboard Learn Helpdesk at bbhelp@northshore.edu if there are any issues with Blackboard Learn.