How to Create Meaningful Online Learning Communities

Virtual Graduate Student Winter Residency—December 7-11, 2020

About

In response to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, this 5-day virtual residency will model best practices for undergraduate teaching in the digital world. Graduate student cohorts will interact and learn from university professionals, and participants will also have opportunities to work with each other through interactive sessions and projects. The program will not simply be a series of Zoom meetings, although there will be live events scheduled. Instead, we will construct an online learning environment that features design principles students can directly apply to their teaching experiences specifically for the humanities classroom.

Topics will include:

  • open education resources (OER)
  • how to build community and relationships
  • student assessments
  • online course design and instruction
  • interactive teaching technologies
  • class evaluations

 

The following is a preview of scheduled live sessions. Please mark these live events on your calendar. All live sessions will be held on Zoom, at this link. 
All times are listed in Eastern. See this time zone converter if you need help determining your local time.

We will publish a slate of daily self-paced activities by 8:00pm EDT each night.  These materials will be found in the resource folder in the VGSWR Group (access at bottom of this page). 

DateTimeSyncronous ActivityFormat

Dec 7, DAY 1 – TEACHING: WHY IT MATTERS

11:00Opening Session with Andy MinkZoom
 11:30

Welcome with Robert Newman

Zoom
 

12:00

1:00

2:30

Passionate Teaching in a Research Environment with Andrea Williams

break

Breakout Discussion Groups #1: Introduction: Teaching to Transgress (12 pages; p. 1-12) and Chapter 1 “Engaged Pedagogy” (10 pages; p. 13-22)

Zoom
 3:00

Teaching Online in a Crisis While the World Explodes with Ada Palmer

Zoom
 4:00

Introduction to Creating and Facilitating Group Projects Online with Anne-Marie Womack

Zoom
Dec 8, DAY 2 –  PREPARING FOR THE ONLINE UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM

1:00

 

 

 

2:00

 

Lunch Circles: Vignettes of Teaching Undergraduates

  • Tricia Matthew, Associate Professor of English, Montclair State University
  • Seth Kotch, Associate Professor of Digital Humanities, UNC-Chapel Hill
  • Jessica Coblentz, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies & Theology, St. Mary’s College
  • Lauren Cardon, Associate Professor of English, University of Alabama

Breakout Discussion Groups #2: Chapter 3 “Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World” (10 pages; p. 35-44) and Chapter 12 “Confronting Class in the Classroom” (13 pages; p. 177-89)

Zoom
 4:00

Universal Design in a Virtual Environment with Anne-Marie Womack

Zoom
Dec 9, DAY 3 – THRIVING AND SURVIVING IN THE ONLINE UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM

11:30

12:30

Turns Out You Can Develop Community in a Zoom Classroom with Rachel Toor

break

Zoom
 

1:30

2:15

 

2:30

Lunch Salon: The Rewards of Teaching at a HBCU with Yolanda Wilson

Breakout Discussion Groups #3: Chapter 10 “Building a Teaching Community: A Dialogue” (37 pages; p. 129-65)

break

Zoom
 4:00

Primer on Academic Copyright in the Digital Age with Will Cross

Do I need permission to include that historic photograph in my dream DH project?” “Who owns the slides I’m using to teach my course during the pandemic?” “What does that weird latin phrase in my last book contract mean?” Questions about copyright are everywhere for humanists. In this session we will review the fundamentals of copyright and explore questions about how the law supports your own work. Bring your tough questions and come ready to talk about your work!

Zoom
 

7:00

 

 

Accessible Syllabus: Open Door Work Session with Anne-Marie Womack

We will be using Et-Al, a new virtual conferencing platform for this work session. An introduction to the tool is linked here.

Et-Al
Dec 10, DAY 4 – THE RESPONSIVE CURRICULUM

11:30

 

 

 

12:30

Building Community With Perusall: Engaging Readers in Fractious Times with Shawn Hill

This session will explore how to setup a class and add material to the social annotation tool, Perusall.  We will look at how, while your students annotate text, video, images, and even podcasts, Perusall strengthens engagement and preparation. With Perusall, you never have to begin a class with the dreaded, “Any questions about the reading?” because with Perusall, you know.

break

Zoom
 

1:00

2:00

2:15

What is Rigor in a First Generation Classroom with Erika Briesacher

Breakout Discussion Groups #4: Chapter 5 “Theory as Liberatory Practice” (17 pages; p. 59-75)

break

Zoom
 

4:00

5:15

Decolonizing the Curriculum with Yohuru Williams

Rewriting the Curriculum  with Christina Villerreal, UTEP

Zoom
 8:30

Dessert Hour Salon: Balance with Susanna Harris

Zoom
Dec 11, DAY 5 – THE CONNECTED CLASSROOM

11:30

12:30

Ramp Up Student Thinking With Visual Notes: An Interactive Session with Wendi Pillars

break

Zoom
 1:00

OER in Higher Education  with Stephanie Westcott

Open Educational Resources—openly licensed and free to students—provide broad pedagogical advantages beyond cost savings, including greater instructor flexibility and improved student outcomes. This workshop will explore the benefits of OER and offer a starting place for those who would like to move toward an open classroom without resource cost barriers.

Zoom
 

2:00

Showcase

Zoom
 3:30

Future Tense: NHC Fellowship Program with Matthew Booker

Zoom
 4:00

Final Thoughts & Next Steps with Andy Mink

Zoom

 

Speakers

Matthew Booker

Vice President for Scholarly Programs, National Humanities Center

Email: mbooker@nationalhumanitiescenter.org
@MatthewMBooker

Erika Briesacher

Professor of History and Political Science, Worchester State University

Email: ebriesacher@worcester.edu

Lauren Cardon

Assistant Professor of English, University of Alabama

Email: lauren.s.cardon@ua.edu

@ProfessorLSC

Jessica Coblentz

Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, St. Mary’s College

Email: jcoblentz@saintmarys.edu

@JessicaCoblentz

Will Cross

Director of the Copyright and Digital Scholarship Center, North Carolina State University

Email: wmcross@ncsu.edu

Shawn Hill

Instructional Technologist for Digital Scholarship and Pedagogy, Fordham University

Email: shill18@fordham.edu

Seth Kotch

Associate Professor of Digital Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Email: sethkotch@unc.edu

@sethkotch

Andy Mink

Vice President for Education Programs, National Humanities Center

Email: amink@nationalhumanitiescenter.org
@Mink_Ed

Robert D. Newman

President and Director, National Humanities Center

Ada Palmer

Associate Professor of Early Modern European History, University of Chicago

Email: adapalmer@uchicago.edu

@Ada_Palmer

Rachel Toor

Professor of Creative Writing, Eastern Washington University

Email: racheltoor@gmail.com

@racheltoor

Stephanie Wescott

VIVA Open Coordinator, George Mason University

Email: swestcot@gmu.edu

@westcottchnm

Andrea Williams

Associate Professor of English, The Ohio State University; NHC Fellow 2017–18

Email: williams.2941@osu.edu

Mike Williams

Education Projects Manager, National Humanities Center

Email: mwilliams@nationalhumanitiescenter.org
@nhcmic

Yohuru Williams

Founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative, St. Thomas University

Email: ywilliams@stthomas.edu
@YohuruWilliams
yohuruwilliams.net

Yolanda Wilson

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Howard University; NHC Fellow 2019–20

Email: yolonda.wilson@howard.edu

@ProfYolonda

Anne-Marie Womack

Professor of Practice, Tulane University

Email: awomack1@tulane.edu
@Amwomackdr
accessiblesyllabus.com

Christina Villareal

Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas, El Paso

Email: cmvillarreal@utep.edu

@QVillarreal

Participants

Meet your fellow participants. Clink on an individual participant to see their profile.