Event Name - 0221--Faculty Learning Communities in the Development ... (RKL181171)

Gail Rathbun: Hello, Albert. Welcome to TOHE
Gail Rathbun: You will want to turn on the recording of your presentation using the traffic light, just before you start.
Albert Ingram: Hi Gail.
Albert Ingram: The traffic light shows green, is that what I want?
Albert Ingram: I
Albert Ingram: Oops. I'm not sure that I'll get a lot of folks on a Friday evening, though.
Gail Rathbun: Yes, you do want a green light once you start.
Gail Rathbun: Here's Jim.
Albert Ingram: Okey dokey.
Jim Ou: Hi, Dr. Ingram, I am here!
Gail Rathbun: Where are you from
Albert Ingram: Hi, Jim
Jim Ou: Hi, Gail.
Albert Ingram: He's one of my students. Although he counts in class, I'm not sure that he counts here!
Albert Ingram: [Kidding]
Jim Ou: Taiwan, an international student from Kent State
Gail Rathbun: A future co-author!
Jim Ou: Dr. Ingram is my instructor and my BOSS.
Gail Rathbun: You have a Taiwanese community at KSU?
Albert Ingram: Yes, I think so. He's the GA for one of our Learning Communities.
Jim Ou: Ya. Not big, though
Albert Ingram: We've had a handful of Taiwanese students go through our program. Two doc students right now.
Gail Rathbun: Albert, would you like to do a presentation and then do QA,or take questions?
Jim Ou: Well, right now I am preparing for typing very "fast"...
Gail Rathbun: Here's Iskandar the Program Chair
Albert Ingram: Hi, Iskandar, we've corresponded.
Iskandar Hack2: Hello Gail  and Albert
Albert Ingram: My plan was to raise questions that people could respond to.
Jim Ou: Hi, Iskandar, this is Jim Ou(You may remember me?)
Gail Rathbun: OK, that's just fine.
Iskandar Hack2: Yes, I do
Jim Ou: thanks for your assistance. (Take a bow)
Jim Ou: ?? Hello??
Gail Rathbun: Should we wait for more people?
Albert Ingram: I was going to wait a couple more minutes, just in case.
Albert Ingram: Jim already knows much of this... I don't know whether Gail and Iskandar are "real" participants or not.
Iskandar Hack2: I would start - This is last scheduled session (we do have one chaged on at 8:30 - which I doubt will have any activity) Friday night is a mistack
Iskandar Hack2: mistake
Albert Ingram: Yeah, I was afraid of that, too. (Friday night)
Iskandar Hack2: mark it down as a rookie mistake
Albert Ingram: So, do you want to go through this or just read the paper? I won't be hurt if you say that the paper is enough for you.
Iskandar Hack2: Gail, next year we may want to consider MTW instead
Gail Rathbun: TOHE has always been on WTF :-)
Iskandar Hack2: I know
Chris Huang: Hi, Dr. Ingram.
Gail Rathbun: I read the paper and as a FD I had some questions.
Albert Ingram: Iskandar.... If there is any place in your plans for help from people like me, feel free to call upon me next year.
Albert Ingram: OK, Gail, that might be a better way to go with this group.
Albert Ingram: Hi, Chris.
Jim Ou: Although I already know some of this..I will keep silent(The stage is yours, Dr. Ingram)
Jim Ou: : )
Gail Rathbun: I think a distributed planning committee is a good idea if we have tools like this for meeting
Jim Ou: Hi, Chris
Albert Ingram: I'd love to be part of it, Gail.
Chris Huang: hi, Jim.
Chris Huang: I'be listening too.
Gail Rathbun: Wonderful. Maybe you could help pay my big bill! :-)
Iskandar Hack2: I will take you up on that, we discussed that in the first meeting - having outside ppl on both the planning and review committees
Albert Ingram: Well, the thrust of this paper is that we have found that Faculty Learning communities are a useful way to further faculty development at KSU.
Albert Ingram: If you have questions I can try to elaborate on anything you'd like.
Albert Ingram: Great, Iskandar.
Gail Rathbun: Please define exactly what you mean by a learning community, how is it implemented
Albert Ingram: Well, we have been struggling with that a little.
Albert Ingram: It is a group of faculty (and often GAs and staff as well) that come together around an area of interest.
Albert Ingram: We have ones that focus on new faculty, on freshman students, on large classes, on online learning, and other things.
Albert Ingram: We started out with the Miami model (Miami U of Ohio).
Gail Rathbun: These are F2F
Albert Ingram: Primarily F2F but we use various online tools, such as Groove and WebCT:Vista
Albert Ingram: Miami has a proposal process, picks faculty for a one year membership, and structures the communities.
Gail Rathbun: So you give everyone a login to Vista for a particular LC
Albert Ingram: KSU has a much looser organization.
Albert Ingram: Yes, for our ONline Learning and Teaching FLC, we were all on Vista anyway.
Albert Ingram: We just added another "course" with everyone as Designers/Instructors.
Gail Rathbun: A distinctive feature of your LCs is the project. How do people react to that requirement
Albert Ingram: Although a community usually has one or more faciilitators, we do try to foster egalitarianism.
Albert Ingram: Our progress with the group projects is mixed.
Albert Ingram: Usually a smaller group of people do most of the work.
Gail Rathbun: Here you would have to pay someone to do the project
Albert Ingram: Out of say 12-15 people, maybe half a dozen are really involved to the point of putting work in on group projects.
Albert Ingram: We had some money to hire Jim as a GA... mostly to keep the project going.
Gail Rathbun: How many LCs dyou have now
Albert Ingram: We haven't had much luck with buying peopleout of a course... they don't automatically do the work anyway.
Albert Ingram: We have 13 FLCs this year.... a new record.
Gail Rathbun: But if they had to do the project to get the mney...
Jim Ou: Incentives!
Albert Ingram: We do offer prof development money in some of the FLCs (travel, books, etc.) contingent on doing the work.
Gail Rathbun: WoW. Is there cross-membership-same bodies on many LLCs
Albert Ingram: It works with some people  but maybe $300 - $500 isnt' enough.
Gail Rathbun: That amount is all one could hope for here, too
Albert Ingram: Yes, there is some cross-membership. But there are 120+ people involved at some level in the FLCs now.
Gail Rathbun: that's super!
Albert Ingram: That's one of the things we are excited about, because it is many more people than we get for more traditional workshops, etc.
Gail Rathbun: We hve just started a local listserv called teachnology run by a faculty memeber
Albert Ingram: Are you getting good activity?
Gail Rathbun: It's not easy. Constant activity on the part of the facilitator is required
Albert Ingram: Yes, people don't automatically participate, do they?
Jim Ou: What kind of activities are most effective?
Albert Ingram: What topics are you covering in that listserv?
Gail Rathbun: But the quality of the posts of the four or five people is high
Albert Ingram: Are they people who are already heavily involved in technology?
Gail Rathbun: Anyone who uses technology or wants to in teaching either F2F or at distance.
Albert Ingram: One thing that we are aiming for in our online community is a mix of novices and experienced online teachers.
Gail Rathbun: It is difficult to find any faculty who are not using Tech. in some way.
Albert Ingram: Jim, your email said that that OLT had a good meeting today.
Gail Rathbun: We thought that the listserv would allow people to lurk and learn
Jim Ou: Ya. Some interesting topics emerge
Albert Ingram: Yes, lurking seems to be a useful activity for some.
Jim Ou: Mainly, how to facilitate collaborative learning by online technology
Albert Ingram: I think that some beginning faculty can be a little intimidated at first.
Albert Ingram: Interesting, Jim, I'll want to hear more.
Albert Ingram: One thing about the FLCs is that we have some interesting intellectual discusssion across disciplines that I haven't often had at colleges.
Jim Ou: And, Lyle's disability and technology issue(Special Ed.)
Jim Ou: Jim Flick's Internet Ethics(Culture team)
Albert Ingram: Oh, good, Most of the members of this community have individual courses and projects that they are working on, too, so we report on our progress.
Albert Ingram: Other issues that you would like to discuss?
Jim Ou: I agree. We have LC memebers from politic science, English, psychlogy, history, communication, etc.
Albert Ingram: And those of us in Education, too!
Gail Rathbun: How many students at KSU
Albert Ingram: About 38,000 on 8 campuses
Albert Ingram: One large campus (Kent) and 7 regionals.
Albert Ingram: Kent has I think 26-27 K of that.
Gail Rathbun: How does your institution measure the success of your program
Albert Ingram: It's been hard to get a count of faculty, because it depends so much on who you count.
Albert Ingram: The FLCs? That's been difficulty. The evaluations have focussed on case studies and the like.
Albert Ingram: There was a FIPSE evaluator, but she concentrated on understanding the FLCs rather than on judging them.
Gail Rathbun: The success of your faculty development program
Albert Ingram: Right now, we are simply measuring increases in participation. We do hope to look at increased student learning.
Albert Ingram: Well, we have gathered a lot of participation data.
Albert Ingram: Again, we would like to be able to show real effects sometime.
Albert Ingram: How about you?
Gail Rathbun: Currently it's the head counts. But I also want to use hits on a web site that supports learning and consulting, books borrowed from the library, and shared, public course portfolios that document teachig and learning.
Albert Ingram: Yes, we are looking at some of those..
Albert Ingram: We are especially interested in the portfolios of people who have been in FLCs, for example.
Albert Ingram: We know we have had some individual successes.
Gail Rathbun: Also lots of comments and value statemnets from those using the service
Albert Ingram: What kinds of activities and services do you offer?
Gail Rathbun: Yes, that;s why having the project is an excellent idea, it is a meaningul evaluation tool
Albert Ingram: Good point.
Chris Huang: Can you give an example of what portfolio is like for the FLC member?
Jim Ou: I am interested in this,too.
Albert Ingram: Well, Chris, we are focusing on teaching portfolios that might include materials that are developed for a class, student evaluations, peer evaluations, student products, etc.
Albert Ingram: What else, Gail?
Chris Huang: So that's like an unit of instruction, right?
Gail Rathbun: We run a multimedia lab, that just started. We do 2-3 big conferences a year. In Sept and Oct we ran over 20 events and we are initiating several piolot tech projects as well as publishing a newsleter for the first time.Istarted July 1
Albert Ingram: It could include that, Chris, but it is meant to showcase what the faculty member has done and can do.
Chris Huang: I see.
Albert Ingram: This is IPFW, Gail?
Gail Rathbun: I like the notion of the course portfolio because it folds in studet learning.Yes IPFW. about 12K studnts
Albert Ingram: As part of the FLCs, we have started to hold a number of big events, too. We call them Learning Institutes and other things.
Albert Ingram: Our FD function is actually surprisingly new... only the last few years.
Gail Rathbun: I like what Dan Berstein has done with the visible knowledge project. Thi si what I have in mind.
Albert Ingram: That's familiar, Gail, but could you elaborate a little?
Gail Rathbun: Dan Bernstein has put course portfolios online. They show what the teachers have assigned as activities and show in detail how the teachers graded the activities. This in addition to all the other parts of the course. Then there are peer's comments on this.
Jim Ou: I would like to know more, too.
Albert Ingram: That makes it very public. Are these faculty volunteers?
Gail Rathbun: They show excelletn student work and not so good and how the instructor thinks about it. The portfolio explains how anything in the course helps reach the objectives.
Gail Rathbun: Yes, they are volunteers.
Albert Ingram: Must be brave to show all that to the world!
Gail Rathbun: I thought I had the URl for the web site
Gail Rathbun: Well, this is part of scholarship, that it be public.
Albert Ingram: Good point.
Gail Rathbun: I started to do somehting like this when I told the story of the student journal that I started and put it on the web. I felt very good about it.
Albert Ingram: Kind of a blog for students?
Iskandar Hack2: I'm going to go downstars to see my wife off to work. I'll be back in about 5-10 minutes.
Jim Ou: Could you explain "blog" more? I am still confused..
Gail Rathbun: Well, it was more formal that that, It was called Undergrduate Research Today and had a theme for each issue. Students did library and primary research
Albert Ingram: Blog = Web log
Albert Ingram: Where one can post opinions and ideas and have others comment on them.
Gail Rathbun: I started it based on conversations with my office mate.
Albert Ingram: How so, Gail?
Gail Rathbun: And I realized exactly what the value added of the web was.
Albert Ingram: Which is?
Gail Rathbun: So I wrote down all of this thinking which often remains invisilbe. Also the process
Albert Ingram: That's interesting. I think that one thing I have liked about the FLCs is the oppty to test some of the hidden assumptions with people from other disciplines.
Gail Rathbun: Writing teachers will have students make a class magazien, but it is cumbersome. They do it so that the students will have a real aucdience. The web just makes it easier to do this, and easilty provides a very wide audience that the students can think about as they write. Writing is almost entirely about audicne--within yourself and external
Gail Rathbun: Yes, albert that is a fascinating aspect
Jim Ou: Publish or perish. : )
Albert Ingram: Yes, that's true, and often the only audience is a single teacher... which isn't very interesting to many students.
Gail Rathbun: W
Iskandar Hack2: back
Albert Ingram: How does the journal differ from a discussion board for you?
Gail Rathbun: Wehen students have a real audience then the issues of plagiarism and clear writing and purpose become seamless, they aren't extra things to worry about.
Gail Rathbun: The journal is very formal academic discourse
Gail Rathbun: We write papers for others to read and those people respond formally by writing other papers.
Jim Ou: So, could we make the online course discussion public?
Albert Ingram: So it isn't random jottings.
Gail Rathbun: Oh no
Gail Rathbun: My students were great at converstation not too great at logical writing
Chris Huang: I wonder do you need a consent form from students.
Jim Ou: You are right, Chris
Albert Ingram: Speaking of writing instruction. Chris Schunn at the Univ of Pittsburgh has an interesting system for peer evaluation of writing.
Gail Rathbun: I got indrect consent from them. Also only the C and above papers went there. If they did not want to post they did not have to
Chris Huang: I see.
Albert Ingram: So, Jim and Chris, would you post yours?
Chris Huang: He He He.. I am not bold enough.
Gail Rathbun: This was also in another country where these issues are not too critical
Jim Ou: Well, I .....am not sure....
Albert Ingram: We are very sensitive to those issues, aren't we?
Gail Rathbun: Yor reactions raise issues about pubic posting of reflections as many courses require. I am not sure about these public journals
Chris Huang: True.
Albert Ingram: You teach English and do FD work, Gail?
Gail Rathbun: But any of us as academics should not hesitate to post our research
Jim Ou: My instructor in Taiwan kept a portfolio, which contains all works of "excellent" students..
Albert Ingram: Quite true, Gail.
Gail Rathbun: As long as we display the copyright
Chris Huang: I think it is not about privacy issue, I think it is about the selfperception of worthiness of one's own paper.
Iskandar Hack2: Some of our ECET students aren't even happy about their Senior Design Project report being placed in the library for future students to use as refereence
Albert Ingram: I do try to keep the great projects as examples for future classes.
Gail Rathbun: In fact this is a good litmus test. If I wouldhesitate to publish on the web, then I'm not ready for prime time, am I?
Jim Ou: We have to follow that standard to get good points.
Albert Ingram: Yes, Gaill, that could be part of the final decision about your own paper.
Albert Ingram: Why is that, Iskandar?
Gail Rathbun: Iskandar went to say goodby to his wife
Iskandar Hack2: I'm back
Gail Rathbun: I got up to put more water in the pot
Albert Ingram: We put masters theses and doc disserations in the library.
Iskandar Hack2: The only reason I know of is that they're embarrashed
Chris Huang: Similar to my point.
Iskandar Hack2: But of course is the their capstone project - if anything is worthy of being placed in the public sector it should be this report.
Albert Ingram: Yes, that's what we would hope.
Gail Rathbun: The certainty that ones work will be public is the cornerstone of scholarship
Albert Ingram: It's certainly an incentive to try to do it right.
Chris Huang: Incentive is good.
Iskandar Hack2: I always get my student's permission to use one of their lab reports as an example (I remove the name) which I post on my web site
Gail Rathbun: Albert be sure to save your chat log when we are finished
Jim Ou: For not "losing face"
Albert Ingram: I will, Gail.
Albert Ingram: I get permission, too.
Gail Rathbun: Do you end up with students copying the lab report? I have
Iskandar Hack2: losing face is an Asian concept - I am very familar with
Albert Ingram: We've moved far afield from FD and FLCs.  Not that that is bad, but any other ideas in those areas?
Iskandar Hack2: nope - because it's an example and I use one that I'm not assigning this semester.
Jim Ou: Yes, Iskandar..
Albert Ingram: People copy the example... isn't that pretty easy to catch?
Chris Huang: Dr. Ingram, I aways have a question at the back of my mind. How do we get the funding to run the FPDC and other learning cells? By writing grants?
Gail Rathbun: This is why you can count on the success of brownbags and communties, putting a bunch of faculty in a room can usually lead to sometihing fruitful. Can we train our students to do this?
Iskandar Hack2: I have to change my projects every semester in my project course that is online - otherwise the students will get the project files (not the report - but the design files) from the previous students
Albert Ingram: Our FPDC gets some money from the university (it's in the contract with faculty) and a number of grants.
Gail Rathbun: Yes, they copy but they expect you not to notice.
Chris Huang: I see.
Gail Rathbun: I tell them that that is insulting. They had not thought of it that way
Albert Ingram: That's another issue, GAil. I would love to know how to turn grad students into a community of practice, let alone undergrads.
Chris Huang: It must take a lot of effort to start... back then...
Jim Ou: But, is "copy" very subjective?
Albert Ingram: Good response, Gail.
Gail Rathbun: This is a multi-threaded discussion
Iskandar Hack2: multitasking in one window
Albert Ingram: This is often how it goes in my classes when I have synchronous discussions.
Gail Rathbun: F2f this would be very disruptive
Albert Ingram: Gets very intense sometimes.
Chris Huang: Sorry to go off-tengent.
Gail Rathbun: I was not scolding only describing, I hope
Albert Ingram: I had a student diagram a discussion once... it was fascinating.
Albert Ingram: To see how things interlaced.
Gail Rathbun: Our chat logs would make a good discourse analysis project about online professinal conferences
Albert Ingram: Yes, we should look into that (with some GAs, of course)
Jim Ou: WOW!
Iskandar Hack2: I know some of the sessions got off into some interesting tangents - such as resturants and tastes in food ....
Albert Ingram: Hey, in comparison, we stayed right on target.
Gail Rathbun: I hav ejust been to 2 F2F conferences and I am finding this just as interesting and enriching except that I do like having food and unfamiliar sights
Albert Ingram: It can be good to get out of the familiar place.
Gail Rathbun: That is the appeal of the F2F
Jim Ou: Novelty
Albert Ingram: By chance, I am in Orlando right now, not Ohio... at another conference.
Gail Rathbun: Going away
Iskandar Hack2: The thing I discovered was that if stayed in the office - I couldn't attend the sessions because even with my door closed and do not distrub on the door, students (and even my chair) would bang on the door anyway.
Gail Rathbun: Now that is interesting. Changes my whole view of you :-)
Chris Huang: The beauty of spontenety.
Albert Ingram: Iskandar, I've been wondering if that is why there are only a few people at each of the sessions I've attended.
Jim Ou: Or person like me will call you, Iskandar
Iskandar Hack2: When I"m a f2f conference that doesn't happen
Albert Ingram: Not that I'm complaining, we are starting a virtual research team based on one of the sessions.
Iskandar Hack2: true Jim, of course that's my job at this conference
Albert Ingram: A lot warmer here, Gail.
Gail Rathbun: Now that's a worthy news story. Please send me details
Iskandar Hack2: I put my home number on my voice mail so ppl called me at home instead.
Albert Ingram: I'll do that, Gaill.
Iskandar Hack2: I think that is one reason that most session had few attendees
Albert Ingram: It must be an intense few days for you guys.
Gail Rathbun: Your research project would help keep the TOHE going, because I am really taking a bath on it this year after 5 years of free ride
Jim Ou: at most 5(my experience)
Iskandar Hack2: I found that I was asked many times if the chat logs were going to posted.
Gail Rathbun: On the contrary I have been in sessions with 10 or more. Sam reports one with 20
Albert Ingram: OK, Gail. I'll see where it stands when I get back home, and let you know.
Albert Ingram: That's good, Gail.... I didn't see those.
Iskandar Hack2: I've seen some with LOTS of ppl, and others with none
Iskandar Hack2: today's average is about 4
Albert Ingram: So is topic or time of day important, too?
Albert Ingram: Yesterday was a holiday for some, did that help?
Gail Rathbun: But the one that I attended earler in the pm was really qite good. and lively with just 3 or 4, which is fine for discussion
Iskandar Hack2: yesterday was sporatic but I think it helped. the busiest was Wed.
Iskandar Hack2: Friday afternoon and this evening is very light.
Albert Ingram: Yes, the small groups do seem to have some good discussion.
Albert Ingram: So, final call on issues of faculty development and faculty learning communities.
Gail Rathbun: Yet Sam reports 10 people enrolled for Closing!
Jim Ou: I don't get lost..
Gail Rathbun: Thanks Albert.
Iskandar Hack2: I found the sessions with only the presenter and one or two others had the most meaniful discussions
Jim Ou: "They have to say something" (Kidding)
Albert Ingram: Did you try to monitor most of them?
Iskandar Hack2: I sat in all the sessions, but didn't actively participate in all (esp when there was three going at one time.
Gail Rathbun: Sort of like the paper posting
Iskandar Hack2: Yes, I was in all of the sessions.
Albert Ingram: A little tough to be active in two, let alone three.
Iskandar Hack2: I'm starting to get chat room burnout after 3 days 9 - 9 in multiple chat rooms
Albert Ingram: I'll bet.
Albert Ingram: I'm fading fast here. I had a three hour f2f workshop this morning at this conference... now this one.
Iskandar Hack2: There were a few ppl I noticed that attended a lot of the sessions
Gail Rathbun: After the conference we will move everything to the tohe website, papers, chats, presentations
Albert Ingram: Oh, good, so it will all be available.
Gail Rathbun: These things will be available to the world
Albert Ingram: In the past you put it all together into a zip file.
Gail Rathbun: :-)
Gail Rathbun: We are using a different system this year. Things are a very collaborative effort
Albert Ingram: Spreading the workload?
Iskandar Hack2: I know that Sam is going to make up a zip file of everything to send to one person that couldn't get in consistently. So we could make that available.
Gail Rathbun: Yes, and althought youmay not think so improving the technology
Albert Ingram: I think that a comprehensive downloadable file would be great.
Gail Rathbun: On request, but the web site is the mode of delivery after the conference
Chris Huang: Gail, tell you the truth, my thought on the 3:00 one is very different than  yours.
Iskandar Hack2: In the past this was almost a one person show - this year really about 3 people did most of the work
Albert Ingram: How many people registered?
Iskandar Hack2: but many others were involved as well.
Gail Rathbun: 140
Iskandar Hack2: about 150 as I recall
Albert Ingram: Is it increasing?
Iskandar Hack2: Gail knows better than me - she's handling the money part ofit.
Gail Rathbun: 140 without us IPFW organizers
Gail Rathbun: No, this is less than we had last year. Last year there were tech diffs, I guess
Chris Huang: My eyes are sore.
Iskandar Hack2: I think is a down a little from last year, we were late in getting the cfp out. - rookiee error (actually I didn't come on board until July, and think you started about same time Gail on the project.
Gail Rathbun: So it must be time to say good bye and thank you
Jim Ou: Well, Chris, you are IT major. : )
Albert Ingram: I think we can safely bring this session to a close.
Albert Ingram: Thanks for all the info and discussion.
Iskandar Hack2: okay - I'll save the log
Albert Ingram: I will, too.
Gail Rathbun: Thanks to all of you for making the cofnerence a worthwhile experience!
Jim Ou: Thanks, Gail
Albert Ingram: I'm more than willing to help next year, if I can be useful.
Iskandar Hack2: Thank you for presenting. And I will ask you Albert for sure.
Albert Ingram: Thanks to Iskandar and Gail for all your hard work on the whole thing.
Gail Rathbun: Thanks so much Albert I ook forward to meeting you again
Albert Ingram: OK, BTW, my nickname is "Chip"
Iskandar Hack2: okay Chip - I actually go by Is
Albert Ingram: I don't always remember to answer to Albert.
Albert Ingram: OK
Albert Ingram: Bye all.
Iskandar Hack2: bye
Gail Rathbun: Good by