Volume 2 | Issue 1
August 2015
TILE
Fall events for instruction in TILE.
Featured event:
TILE Celebrates 5 Years
Tuesday, September 29, 12-1pm
University Capitol Centre 2520-D
TEACHING
Workshops for teaching and learning excellence.
Featured event:
Teaching Showcase 
Monday, September 14, 10-1pm
University Capitol Centre 2520-D
REGISTER
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Effective rubrics, micro-teaching and more.
CONTACT US
Center for Teaching
319-335-6048
Welcome to the Start of a New Academic Year
by Maggie Jesse, Senior IT Director

The start of a new academic year is a time of high energy and excitement. The ITS Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology (OTLT) staff welcomes all new and returning instructors, including faculty, lecturers, visiting instructors, and teaching assistants.

Change is a theme for any new academic year, and the ITS OTLT staff members have worked diligently during the summer to provide innovations that support our commitment to continuous improvement for the faculty, staff and students we serve.
 
With many leadership changes across the University, the launch of several new Center for Teaching programs, improvements in our technology spaces and systems, and the upcoming new location for the Center for Teaching, this will be a pivotal teaching year at Iowa.  We look forward to meeting new instructors and reinvigorating our ties with current and past partners, faculty, staff, and administrators alike. Please stop in soon to visit with one of our staff or to attend one of our many workshops and events.
Predictive Modeling Shapes Student Admissions
Members of the Class of 2019 will begin to tackle their UI academic lives in August, but the office responsible for bringing that class to campus took on its own challenges many months before, including successfully meeting ambitious enrollment goals set by then-President Sally Mason. During that time, the Office of Admissions also was quietly re-inventing itself as an enterprise informed by data to better meet future enrollment goals.  

With the December 2014 arrival of Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Brent Gage, PhD, the Offices of Admissions and Financial Aid have been combined into one enrollment management unit in which data analytics will inform both strategic recruitment as well as the strategic use of financial aid scholarships. Staff members in both offices have begun to lay the foundation for using data analytics to shape future incoming classes. 

"The level of sophistication being used at the University of Iowa to build our incoming class represents a trend that will likely become the future of how college admissions will successfully function," Gage says. "We are working diligently to become a learning organization that evolves to continually meet the needs of our students and achieve institutional goals."     

Teaching Showcase: Transforming the Large-Lecture Student Experience
On Monday September 14 the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology will host the second University of Iowa Teaching Showcase. This year's event will highlight the teaching and scholarly collaborations between OTLT Center for Teaching staff and UI faculty members involved in the multi-year Large-Lecture Transformation Project.  Funded by a Student Success grant from the Office of the Provost, the LLT project has incorporated and assessed teaching strategies that actively engage students in large-lecture courses.

To learn more about the Large-Lecture Transformation Project, please join the LLT faculty members, UI administrators, and OTLT staff members for the 2015 UI Teaching Showcase, which will include brief presentations about the three courses and opportunities to discuss the project outcomes and how they could be incorporated into other UI courses.  Lunch will be provided.  Register: https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bw8BXeZyXdQBZ0F


Excellence in Technology-supported Teaching
The Academic Technologies Advisory Council (ATAC) funds the Innovations in Teaching with Technology Award (ITTA) to support a variety of innovative applications of instructional technology in the classroom. The goal of the awards is to raise the level of instructional excellence at The University of Iowa by supporting the implementation of significant and innovative instructional technology across campus.

Off to a Good Start

The first week of class sets the tone for the entire semester, and the Center for Teaching has a number of resources and ideas for engaging students from the start.   
In this month's video from The Extraordinary Teaching Project,  AmyRuth McGraw (American Sign Language and Theatre Arts) explains how she uses icebreaker exercises that inspire her classes to interact as a dynamic group of learners throughout the semester.