CoTL 2023
13th Annual South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning
Monday, May 8 | 6pm - 8pm (CST) - SOLD OUT
Dinner and performance by the South Alabama Indian Music Ensemble
Tuesday, May 9 | 9am - 2pm (CST) | In Person
Wednesday, May 10 | 9am - 2pm (CST) | Virtual
Theme: Looking Within & Looking Beyond
Learners feel welcomed, valued, and safe in an inclusive environment, requiring intentional and deliberate instructional strategies, which have led to significant increases in student success across disciplines and learner populations (e.g., Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Sathy & Hogan, 2022; Winkelmes, et al., 2016; among many). While we know the influence of inclusive strategies, it is still important to ask: Who are our learners? Armed with this knowledge, we can design learning environments, within the traditional classroom, online, and in other campus spaces, that genuinely incorporate the needs of our learners. Looking within, we seek to investigate our classrooms, course design, and delivery to explore intentional instructional practices and connect with our students.
Identifying our learner鈥檚 needs incorporates multiple voices. We seek to take into account employer-valued skills and career-readiness practices to reach our students in addition to the student, faculty, and community perspective. Merging these diverse viewpoints leads to the development of coordinated and innovative programs such as virtual global exchanges or a transdisciplinary curriculum, potentially with a focus on the sustainability of our local region. Then, Looking beyond, we not only aim to address the current trends in educational technology and how these platforms can support our learner-centered mission but also the joint efforts of campus units that enhance learning outside of the classroom (e.g., Gulf Scholars and IDEAS grants). We may explore how new AI tools are changing the way we teach and assess and ask how can I use ChatGPT in my classroom? We may also ask, how could my class connect with relevant problems in the local community?
As a partnership between USA, Spring Hill College, University of Mobile, and Pathway USA community colleges including Bishop State, Coastal Alabama, Mississippi Gulf Coast, this conference reaches a diverse audience, all of whom are engaged in a variety of ways of supporting students. This year鈥檚 theme, 鈥淟ooking Within & Looking Beyond,鈥� allows us to reflect on how we pay attention to, identify, and, ultimately, make use of who our learners are and what it means to be a facilitator of an inclusive learning environment, no matter what that environment looks like (i.e., online, face-to-face, an advising meeting, etc.).
The conference will feature two keynote speakers and a lunchtime plenary presentation. One keynote will feature a noted STEM educator who is leading the conversation in many circles on truly inclusive learning environments that can support the success and career progression of students from communities underrepresented in many STEM fields. He will challenge us to 鈥榣ook within鈥� for ways in which our teaching, our assessment, our institutional structures can change to provide equitable opportunities for all learners. The keynote on the conference virtual day (May 10) will be 鈥榣ooking beyond鈥� - especially focused on the promises and challenges of educational technology trends to be disruptive to doing things 'the way we have always done them鈥�. A published author of two books, this virtual keynote presenter will speak to both our online faculty as well as those utilizing technology in their teaching on a daily basis. Finally, the lunchtime plenary on day one (May 9) of the conference will be led by an actor, dramatist, and theater-educator who will engage the audience in considerations of time, space, assessment, and power within our learning environments. It promises to be active learning in the truest sense of the phrase.