{"id":2607,"date":"2020-10-28T15:44:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T15:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=2607"},"modified":"2025-02-11T10:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T15:30:49","slug":"what-makes-remarkable-teachers-remarkable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/28\/what-makes-remarkable-teachers-remarkable\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes Remarkable Teachers Remarkable?"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col{padding-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-bottom:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-left:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column2607_f82bcc-1a dynamic-main-col\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"close-your-eyes-imagine-your-favorite-teachers-what-made-them-special\">Close your eyes. Imagine your favorite teachers. What made them special?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilmington University\u2019s best teachers have enhanced their teaching effectiveness by enjoying professional development and training programs at the New Castle location. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic changed things up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over five days in May, the Online Learning and Educational Technology department hosted its 11th annual Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium. Hundreds of WilmU faculty members attended via Zoom. Each year, the program offers faculty an expansive menu of training on technical topics and adult teaching strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past, this event took place on one day and featured different tracks. Faculty could get up to six hours of professional training by attending five of 20 sessions, then enjoying a keynote presentation. Thanks to stay-at-home orders and other restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the Educational Technology team seized the opportunity to transform the usually one-day event to five virtual days via Zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The symposium opened with a keynote titled \u201cChart Your Course,\u201d presented by WilmU\u2019s Sandy Bennett, Pam Huxtable, Dr. Josh Simpson, and Mary Beth Youse, who discussed Pathways to Instructional Excellence. Trainers from Educational Technology, library, and the Center for Teaching Excellence taught 18 workshops on various subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presenters are fellow teachers, an important distinction that Assistant Vice President and Dean of the College of Online and Experiential Learning Dr. Sallie Reissman has stressed as vital. \u201cOur trainers are not just showing faculty what buttons to push to use an educational technology tool,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are teachers themselves, so they know how to utilize technology to better help students master learning objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instructional Technologist Pam Huxtable taught \u201cUsing Groups in Canvas.\u201d Librarian Melissa Jones offered a PIE workshop called \u201cOpen Educational Resources.\u201d Multimedia Specialist Kelsey Styles led the popular and new PIE session \u201cUsing Images to Enhance Content,\u201d and Stephen Scheib presented \u201cGamify! Make Your Course Exciting!\u201d. A trainer from Instructure, Canvas\u2019s parent company, delivered a full day and led a question-and-answer session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Attendees were encouraged to turn on their webcams, which created a grid of&nbsp; faculty members\u2019 familiar faces. While separated by physical location, faculty connected virtually in the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen our department\u2019s biggest training event of the year was forced to move online, we could not have expected to have one of the most well-attended symposiums in years,\u201d said Director of Educational Technology and Multimedia Russ Lichterman. \u201cIn subsequent years, this event will likely follow a flexible modality, allowing instructors to attend either in-person or online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>COVID-19 meant that participants were legally required to learn behind keyboards and backlit screens. But the immediate transition from face-to-face courses to online modalities demonstrated their dedication to enhancing academic excellence and strengthening the teaching skills of faculty, regardless of modality.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Close your eyes. Imagine your favorite teachers. What made them special? Wilmington University\u2019s best teachers have enhanced their teaching effectiveness by enjoying professional development and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[634],"class_list":["post-2607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-magazine-fall-2020"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":135,"label":"MAGAZINE"}],"post_tag":[{"value":634,"label":"Magazine Fall 2020"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/TLT-Speakers-Large-Grid-with-session-titles-643x480.jpg",643,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Rebecca Slinger","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/rebecca\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":135,"name":"MAGAZINE","slug":"magazine","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":692,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":431,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":135,"category_count":431,"category_description":"","cat_name":"MAGAZINE","category_nicename":"magazine","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":634,"name":"Magazine Fall 2020","slug":"magazine-fall-2020","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1191,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":17,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15800,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions\/15800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}