2021 Rutgers Active Learning Symposium

Flower Darby

Whether you’re new or experienced online faculty you can make small but impactful adjustments that significantly boost student engagement and learning. In this talk, Flower discussed brief learning activities, minor course design modifications, and simple changes to your interactions with online students based on the approach outlined in Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes (2019). Those teaching in blended and face-to-face formats gained Learning Management System strategies that enhance the in-class experience. Together, Flower and attendees discovered how rewarding online teaching and learning can be.

Flower Darby celebrates and promotes effective teaching in all class formats to include, welcome, and support all students as they learn and succeed. As faculty and an instructional designer, she’s taught community college and university classes for over 24 years in a range of subjects including English, Technology, Leadership, Dance, and Pilates. A seasoned face-to-face and online educator, Darby loves to apply learning science across the disciplines, and to help others do the same. Flower speaks, writes, presents and consults on teaching and learning theory and practice both nationally and internationally. She has helped educators all over the world become more effective in their work. She is the author, with James M. Lang, of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes, and she’s a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her new book on emotion science and teaching with technology is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.

Flower Darby

When our questions are met with silence from students—whether in a classroom setting or video conference—we’re missing an opportunity to cultivate a deeper, richer learning experience. You’ll likely encounter the same introverts and extroverts in your courses; the medium, however, can serve as an unintended stumbling block for all. And while some principles do transfer from in-person to online teaching, there are research-based strategies that specifically enable equitable participation and thoughtful interactions. Together, attendees and Flower discovered feasible approaches that encourage greater online engagement through lively student discourse—ideas which you can implement next week or next semester.

Flower Darby celebrates and promotes effective teaching in all class formats to include, welcome, and support all students as they learn and succeed. As faculty and an instructional designer, she’s taught community college and university classes for over 24 years in a range of subjects including English, Technology, Leadership, Dance, and Pilates. A seasoned face-to-face and online educator, Darby loves to apply learning science across the disciplines, and to help others do the same. Flower speaks, writes, presents and consults on teaching and learning theory and practice both nationally and internationally. She has helped educators all over the world become more effective in their work. She is the author, with James M. Lang, of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes, and she’s a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her new book on emotion science and teaching with technology is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.

Chris Drue, Christina Bifulco

One of the challenges with incorporating active learning in large online classes is the difficulty of coordinating activities for large numbers of students. Even with teaching assistants or learning assistants, it can be difficult to determine when students are present and engaged, gain feedback on whether students are learning, shuffle students into groups for group work, and find ways to measure and reward participation. This workshop explored four technology tools that instructors can use to improve the delivery of active learning in large online classes: Canvas Quizzes for synchronous session participation and immediate feedback, Playposit for ensuring that students stay actively engaged with pre-recorded video content, Discussion Forums for asynchronous engagement, and Breakout Rooms for turning lectures into opportunities for practice, feedback, and human connection. Even if you have used these tools before, this session explored the innovative ways Rutgers faculty have used these tools to support fully immersive, engaging, and active, digital learning experiences.

Chris Drue, PhD is the Associate Director of Teaching Evaluation at the Center for Teaching Evaluation & Assessment Research (CTAAR) at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He is primarily responsibility is helping schools and departments develop meaningful and useful methods of evaluating teaching including peer review, teaching portfolios, and student feedback. He also offers workshops on effective teaching strategies and develops teaching resources to assist instructors across the Rutgers community. Chris has more than a decade of university teaching experience in a variety of subject areas and in several institutional contexts. He has studied teaching pedagogy and was awarded for Teaching Excellence. Chris received his PhD in sociology from the University of California San Diego.

Christina Bifulco, EdD is the Associate Director for Teaching & Learning Analytics at the Center for Teaching Evaluation & Assessment Research (CTAAR) at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her primary responsibility is supporting instructors, schools, and departments in the development and analysis of meaningful measures that provide actionable data to understand and improve instruction at the university. Christina is passionate about assisting instructors in utilizing research-driven methods to advance their teaching and learning. She has 12 years of teaching experience in K-12 and higher education. Christina received her BS in Civil Engineering from Rutgers University and her EdD from Johns Hopkins.

Matt Charnley

The Calculus classes at Rutgers have contained an Active Learning component in the form of workshops for years. As of late, particularly in the online environment, there has been interest in adding more active learning to the "lecture" components of the class as well. One way these have been done is using poll questions and worksheets. This poster outlined and showcased how these have been used in the online environment and what they might look like in the classroom as well.

Matt Charnley is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Mathematics Department at Rutgers University, where he started in Fall 2019 after completing his PhD. He is particularly interested in active learning to promote student engagement in large "lecture" courses and flipped classrooms. With the transition to remote instruction, he has become (more) interested in the creation of videos for content delivery and their use in the classroom. He is currently a part of the P2C2 project, looking to reform and improve the introductory mathematics courses by including more active learning, as well as an effort with the School of Engineering to redesign our differential equations course to better serve the needs of their students.

Dave Wyrtzen

Converged learning occurs when some students are physically in a classroom while other students join virtually over videoconference. In anticipation of an increased demand for learning spaces that can accommodate converged classes, Digital Classroom Services (DCS) now supports 14 Synchronous Learning Spaces that utilize technology designed to create an engaging experience - by easing the barriers to effective dialogue - and an equitable experience - by providing a similar experience for both remote and in-person students. During the Spring 2021 semester, 14 converged courses were taught in these rooms serving as our first true trial run of these spaces with many more converged classes planned for the upcoming summer and fall semesters.

This presentation was led from a DCS Synchronous Learning Space and demonstrated the room's features. Particular focus was given to how classroom cameras, screens, and area microphones are designed to connect both groups of students and the instructor with minimal interference. Dave spoke about his experience of this first round of classes, based on observations, conversations, and surveys.

Attendees were introduced to the concept of converged learning and how it can broaden a course's audience while adding flexible means of attending. Dave demonstrated how the rooms are used and the best practices for teaching that have been developed to ensure an engaged and equitable experience. Finally, he discussed converged learning's potential to add value by not only offer different modes of deliver but by combining the best aspects of in-person and online learning.

Dave Wyrtzen is the Digital Classroom Services Associate Director for Faculty Training and Outreach. Dave first joined DCS as a Student Technician while working towards his B.A. in American Studies. In 2010, he received his J.D. from Rutgers School of Law – Newark, where he was an editor for the Rutgers Law Review. Since joining DCS, Dave has filled many roles - installing classroom equipment, training faculty, and overseeing the department’s daily support operations. As the Associate Director for Faculty Training and Outreach, Dave oversees the branch of DCS responsible for supporting the daily use of in-class equipment, interacting with faculty to teach them how to use classroom technology, informing instructors of emerging teaching methods, and helping to shape DCS technology to meet pedagogical needs. In this role, he has helped drive several technology-aided University initiatives, including the introduction of new active learning spaces, Immersive Synchronous Lecture Halls, and spaces for converged learning. 

John Kerrigan

John discussed how he transformed three different in-person flipped classes to online flipped classes.  This session was designed for practitioners looking to learn about the setup, supports, and corresponding tools of online flipped classrooms.

John Kerrigan holds an Ed.D. in the Design of Learning Environments from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.  John has taught undergraduate mathematics courses, undergraduate educational psychology courses, and graduate courses in educational statistics and measurement.  As a member of the Math Department's P2C2 committee, his research and work are focused on online and hybrid learning in gateway STEM courses.

Justin Kalef

Immersive activities -- activities that put students in a situation (real or simulated) in which they must apply ideas and make autonomous judgments that are informed by the course material -- can be a very effective teaching method. They show students the importance of what they are learning, give instructors a chance to see how well the students can apply the course ideas, and emphasize student autonomy. In this workshop, participants will be guided step-by-step through the process of designing an effective immersive activity for their courses.

Justin Kalef is Director of Teaching Innovation in the Rutgers Department of Philosophy. He is a long-standing member of the Rutgers Active Learning community, and is known for his experimental teaching method.

Corey Ptak, Sari Katzen

This workshop detailed how the Learning Assistant (LA) Program adapted the role of LAs to meet the needs of different faculty in the remote environment and promote engagement, communication, and motivation within virtual classrooms. The program includes an intensive online training component to prepare the Learning Assistants to support lectures, labs, recitations, and study groups. As part of their training, LAs participated in a pedagogy course that was offered fully online, with one asynchronous learning module and one synchronous meeting per week, which saw great success both in student learning outcomes and feedback. They also receive professional development as part of their continuous peer leader training through asynchronous and synchronous workshops, promoting a space for engagement and community-building. LAs in remote classrooms support student engagement individually and in small groups, and enhance communication between students and faculty to create an engaging and effective learning environment. Through group discussions and a video featuring an LA’s online study group, workshop participants explored and analyzed the best practices for embedded LAs and online active learning.

Corey Ptak earned his Ph.D in Environmental Toxicology from Cornell University. In his postdoctoral career, Dr. Ptak became interested in STEM education and served as a lecturer at Cornell University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Ptak has extensive knowledge of education theory, practice and evaluation. In addition to his teaching in the biological and environmental sciences he has developed and coordinated programs focused on research based teaching practices in STEM classrooms. He also helped found the ACCESS network -- a national information sharing network for programs seeking to improve equity and inclusion in STEM.

Sari Katzen is the Development Specialist of Training and Professional Development Programs for the Learning Centers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. With B.A. and M.S. degrees in biology, she connected with higher education both personally and professionally while working as an undergraduate peer leader and academic coach at Rutgers. Her current role involves training, teaching, and mentoring peer leaders who work for the Learning Centers and co-coordinates the Pedagogy of Peer-Led Learning course offered by the Learning Centers. Sari has also advised and instructed for programs supporting first-year international students and students on academic probation.   

Megan Lotts

The Rutgers University Art Library looks closely at learning through play by providing dynamic hands-on creative experiences which engage patrons in non-traditional ways. In the Fall of 2018, Spring of 2020, and Fall of 2021 the Rutgers University Libraries- New Brunswick Art Librarian taught the Byrne Seminar “Playing to Learn in Higher Education.” Traditionally this course meets in the Rutgers University Art Library teaching space, once a week for 80 minutes, over 10 weeks. Course activities include readings, films, participating in a LEGO workshop, playing games, weekly discussions, and a visit to Rutgers Special Collections & University Archives to view unique games found in newspapers, books, from exhibitions, and more. All of these experiences prepare students for their final assignment, creating a game out of a 14-inch pizza box. However, things changed when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in March of 2020 and this course moved to a virtual environment.

This presentation included a brief discussion on play pedagogy, an overview of the course, and provided tips on how to encourage a culture of creativity and play within the classroom. But also, how to adapt a hands-on course based on play and engagement into an online environment during a global pandemic.

Megan Lotts is the Art Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she regularly embraces creativity when working as a library liaison, teaching, building collections, and facilitating programming and events across the New Brunswick campuses. She has presented her research on creativity, makerspaces, play, and the work of library liaisons both nationally and internationally and has published articles in Art Documentation, portal: Libraries and the Academy, College and Research Libraries News, and more. Lotts is the author of Advancing a Culture of Creativity in Libraries: Programming and Engagement published by American Library Association, forthcoming July 2021. She earned an MFA (2004) and MLIS (2007) from University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a BFA in Painting (2000) and BFA in Art History (2002) from the University of Illinois- Champaign-Urbana. She currently lives in New Brunswick, NJ where she continues to explore, make, and engage in daily activities involving creativity and play.

Veronica Armour

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that involves a collection of guided inquiry activities focused on a human-centered approach to problem solving. It is a practice employed in many disciplines: literature, art, science, engineering, and business. Design Thinking methods enable students to understand content and people, challenge assumptions, build community, and apply course content to solving real world problems. Veronica guided attendees through the Design Thinking process with an active learning design challenge. Afterwards, she walked participants through selecting individual Design Thinking methods to use in online, hybrid, or in-person course formats.

Veronica will guide attendees through the Design Thinking process with an active learning design challenge. Afterwards, she will walk participants through selecting individual Design Thinking methods to use in online, hybrid, or in-person course formats.

Veronica Armour is the Associate Director for the Innovation, Design, & Entrepreneurship Academy at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.  Veronica brings a background in education as well as a commitment for designing with the learner in mind to facilitate guided pathways that connect students with the information they need to think creatively. 

Geeta Govindarajoo, Mary Emenike

Chemistry faculty members agree that one of the primary purposes of a laboratory course is for students to develop skills and techniques with laboratory equipment, instrumentation, procedures, and processes. However, it has been found that students who work in groups often approach the laboratory activities with a “divide and conquer” mentality, which can mean the student who is most familiar with a technique performs it, while other students take on different aspects of the project. Digital badges are one way for each student to demonstrate his/her/their conceptual learning and competence with a technical, manipulative skill.

Professor Geeta Govindarajoo is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and has taught various chemistry courses for 22 years. During this time, she has sought to employ innovations in Chemistry Education while teaching. She recently originated and developed the “Chemistry of Art” course that is taught at Rutgers University after being inspired by an art forger’s autobiography to research the interplay of chemistry and art. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology, and then a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1998 from the University of California, Irvine.

Mary Emenike is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is a chemistry education researcher who Directs the TRIAD Coalition in SAS's Office of STEM Education. She supports faculty in their course transformation efforts and collaborates on various discipline-based and STEM education research projects. She teaches an Introduction to Chemistry Education course to chemistry teaching interns pursuing a Certificate in Chemistry Education or a chemistry education minor. Mary is a founding member of Rutgers Active Learning Community. Through the Learning Assistant Alliance (LAA), where she currently serves on the LAA Leadership Council, she supports faculty development and adoption of the LA model nationally. Mary earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Nazareth College and her Ph.D. in Chemistry Education Research from Miami University.

Richard Anderson

Game Research and Immersive Design (GRID) has worked with Rutgers faculty to create assignments mediated by off-the-shelf machine learning technology. This poster session showed how this approach has helped create the CAMILE project, which helps language learners learn from dynamic real-world assignments that fit within the web browser.

Rick Anderson is Director of Virtual Worlds for Rutgers University and directs Game Research and Immersive Design (GRID), a part of Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT). He's demonstrated a commitment to active learning by sponsoring and mentoring the Information and Informations (ITI) Capstone project for the last ten years. The students make a thing and pitch it as a product for their own company. He is currently working with faculty from the social sciences and the humanities to integrate the latest in machine learning and game technology to create immersive and interactive learning assignments.

Michael Weingart

Mastery Based Grading (“MBG”) is an alternative to traditional points based grading systems. MBG creates incentives and opportunities for students to continue working toward mastery in each learning goal and reduces the importance of one-time performances. Although MBG and Active Learning can be implemented independently of one another, there are productive synergies in implementing both at once, as has been done in several Math courses at Rutgers in the 2020-21 academic year. This presentation discussed how this has been done in two courses and the results thus far.

Michael Weingart is a teaching professor in the Rutgers Mathematics Department, and has focused in recent years on implementing active learning strategies, especially in a hybrid, flipped classroom format. Thus his courses were half in person, half online for several years before the recent switch to fully remote instruction. The circumstances of the fall 2020 semester created many challenges, but also opportunities for innovation, both in implementing active learning in the remote setting, and in introducing mastery based grading.

Tatiana Rodriguez, Veronica Armour

As educators we ask our students to put aside their preconceived notions, assumptions and biases in order to approach things with a fresh perspective. Yet building a culture of inquiry can be challenging at times as students do not always take the time to develop their own questions about a topic. The Question Formulation Technique (QFT), developed by the Right Question Institute (Links to an external site.), is a process designed for people to follow to create, work with, and use their own questions. In this workshop, attendees were led through the steps of the QFT and show how you they can be customized for individual and group projects regardless of whether a course is online asynchronous, online synchronous, or in-person.

Tatiana Rodriguez is a Creative Public Speaking Adjunct Professor, Interactive Leadership Corporate Trainer, and Photo and Video Maker. She strives to create an educational space where students can share their voice, challenge themselves, explore creatively and feel welcomed. Students experience these through consistent and open communication, interactive and experiential class time, challenges, celebrations, relationship building, and multi-media content.  Her goals are to empower students to believe in the strength of their voice and learn know how to communicate as they intend to [Public Speaking], guide students to realize that they are capable of strong leadership, foster in-class networks and relationship building [Leadership], encourage students to enjoy, create and explore as they learn and develop specific skills [Creativity], and discuss healthy habits of self-care that students can bring with them into adulthood [Self-Care]. 

Veronica Armour is the Associate Director for the Innovation, Design, & Entrepreneurship Academy at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.  Veronica brings a background in education as well as a commitment for designing with the learner in mind to facilitate guided pathways that connect students with the information they need to think creatively. 

David Freeman

David Freeman is a faculty member at Pace University where he teaches Jazz Music History, The Entertainment Industry, Public Speaking and Writing for Print Media. His practice of making music with his students in the classroom has proven successful in fostering community, trust and engagement across fields of discipline. In this workshop, David leads a rhythm workshop participants can share with their own learning communities.

David K Freeman is a musician/producer based in New Jersey whose work is infused with a passion for Jazz, Latin, and Folk music traditions. David is celebrating his latest album Overview Effect and remains an active member of the Outer Bridge Ensemble, The Biryani Boys, Sha’ar and collaborates on projects in the visual arts, dance, and film, including the composition and performance of original music for PBS' The Mind of a Chef and The Love Guru motion picture soundtrack.

Xenia Morin, Bill Sciarappa

To replace in-person laboratory activities in a course called "Developing Ideas in Agriculture and Food Systems Education (11:020:425)", we sent to students' homes a small commercial Aerogarden hydroponic growing unit to allow students to grow, observe, and document plant growth. This project also provided student choice and experimental design. Students shared their work with their classmates via a PowerPoint presentation. We found that students were highly engaged in this project and that this hands-on learning was one of the highlights of their pandemic learning.

Xenia Morin is an associate teaching faculty member in the Department of Plant Biology and serves as the undergraduate program director of the agriculture and food systems programs. She teaches a variety of courses in the program. She is also the Sr. Associated Dean for Learning at SEBS.

Bill Sciarappa, Ph.D. is a Rutgers-NJAES Extension Agent/Associate Professor in the Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources on Cook Campus. He teaches Adult clients (commercial growers/Master Gardeners/NJ residents) and has taught undergraduate courses in Innovations in Greenhouse Plant Production, Organic Farming and Gardening, Entrepreneurial Agriculture, Agricultural Education and Issues in Environmental Pollution  - conventionally, on-line and as a hybrid for 16 years. 

Jonathan Singer

Over the past four years, Jonathan has taught Multiphysics Simulations, a senior-level course he created, seven times. This course became a general requirement for all Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering majors in 2019, and class size grew progressively from 13 to over 100 students. To meet this challenge, he designed a flipped approach, requiring minimal resources, in which all lectures are recorded, including guest lectures.

The key goal of this course was to teach skills that would be applicable to any future platform that the students may use in their careers. Considering that this was the sole simulations class in the curriculum, this meant that there was not time to dive into all of the features of the software. Instead, the strategic aspects of simulation were emphasized—coming to a completely new problem, how do we make the decisions of what aspects need to be simulated to give us the information we want and then how can we translate this into the physics, geometry, and boundary conditions of a given software package.

To enable this approach, Jonathan invited a diverse selection of faculty to present seminar-style guest lectures with examples from their current research. Then, through a combination of tutorials and discussion, they broke down what it would take to realize this problem or an analogous problem in silico using primarily ANSYS CFD and Mechanical, though students are also required to begin by writing their own molecular dynamics and finite difference codes such that they can appreciate what is under the hood of the software. Students leaving the class are therefore equipped with how to connect what they want to learn with what they can realistically model. Students then take what they learn and execute a final simulations project completely of their design, with submissions ranging from air foils to lunar habitats.

Students have found this experience particularly rewarding and have highlighted this course as a standout compared to other courses in the curriculum. Jonathan anticipates that this course can be a template for how tools such as ANSYS Student can be used to effectively scale a flipped course model, a method that is generally reserved for more traditional courses. Future efforts will look to add additional simulations content to lower-level courses such that we can explore more advanced applications from a firm foundation.

Jonathan Singer obtained his PhD (2013) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MSc and BS (2008) from the University of Pennsylvania, all in Materials Science and Engineering. After receiving his PhD, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate in Yale University’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University, where he researches the manufacturing hierarchically-structured materials that incorporate the extraordinary properties of nanostructures into complex geometries. He is also an accomplished teacher and mentor, recognized by the Rutgers students and faculty respectively through a 2019 Engineering Governing Council Students’ Professor of the Year, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and 2020 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Innovative Teaching.

Chaz Ruggieri

In a mixed-methods study of large enrollment introductory physics service courses, student perceptions and spontaneous uses of open online education resources as supplements to course-provided materials and activities were investigated. Specific focus was given to the increasing use of popular online media resources such as YouTube and Khan Academy, and textbook solution repository services such as Chegg. In the quantitative portion of this study, students were surveyed on their textbook and open online resource usage, revealing that most students rely primarily on online resources as they navigate the course. In the qualitative portion, an investigation of the patterns and culture of online resource usage revealed that students report using online resources as supplements to, or in place of, the course-provided materials when engaging with online homework or studying for an exam.

This presentation included suggestions for changes in instruction approaches and course-provided materials to better engage our students in the course. Recent work suggests that providing greater breadth of, depth of, and guidance for course-provided activities and materials reduces students' reliance on Chegg.

Charles (“Chaz”) Ruggieri is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Office of STEM Education and the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and serves as a member of the TRIAD Coalition. He conducted postdoctoral research in physics education research at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, earned his Ph.D. in experimental surface and interface physics from Rutgers.

Chaz collaborates with faculty members in the Department of Physics and Astronomy to transform courses and evaluate transformations. He conducts physics education research focused on: (i) students’ perception and use of resources in introductory physics courses, and (ii) graduate teaching assistant pedagogical preparation for active learning settings in physics. He aims to help students regain their inherent drive for observation and discovery, guide students toward improving their understanding and use of mathematics within the context of physics, and motivate students to grow as independent learners.

Corey Ptak, Stacey Blackwell, Mary Emenike, Phil Brown and Charles Ruggieri

The COVID-19 Pandemic has thrown structural issues faced by students and faculty in higher education into sharp relief. Teaching and learning have been reimagined in a very short time and issues of student engagement have come to the forefront. However, the work of keeping students engaged within academia has not been equally distributed among the faculty, with some shouldering a larger amount of the shift to remote instruction. With the advent of the COVID-19 vaccine and the prospect of the return to face-to-face instruction, the Rutgers community is in a unique situation where we can begin to envision what higher education will look like in a post-COVID environment and lead the charge in addressing the structural factors that prevent faculty from investing in their teaching to ensure student success in the classroom. The lessons are there for us to learn if we take the time to reflect upon them and act.

This session outlined some of the lessons to be learned from the pandemic and described a new initiative at Rutgers to empower STEM faculty to make these changes in their classrooms by removing institutional barriers and leveraging faculty assets to create lasting structural change.

Corey Ptak earned his Ph.D in Environmental Toxicology from Cornell University. In his postdoctoral career, Dr. Ptak became interested in STEM education and served as a lecturer at Cornell University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Ptak has extensive knowledge of education theory, practice and evaluation. In addition to his teaching in the biological and environmental sciences he has developed and coordinated programs focused on research based teaching practices in STEM classrooms. He also helped found the ACCESS network -- a national information sharing network for programs seeking to improve equity and inclusion in STEM.

Stacey Blackwell earned an Ed.M. in the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from Rutgers University, an M.A in English from The College of New Jersey, and her B.A. in English with a minor in Spanish and concentration in Education from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. After teaching English and composition courses at several PA and NJ colleges and universities, Stacey returned to Rutgers in 2011. She worked as the Director of Training, Outreach, and Academic Coaching before becoming the Senior Director of the Learning Centers. She also teaches a section of the Pedagogy of Peer-Led Learning course required for all first-semester learning assistants. She serves as chair of the RU-NB Student Success Steering Committee and serves on the editorial board of ​The Learning Assistance Review​, as well as on the National College Learning Center Association's (NCLCA) Conference Proposal Committee. Stacey has also earned the Level 3 Learning Center Leadership Certification from the NCLCA.

Mary Emenike is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is a chemistry education researcher who Directs the TRIAD Coalition in SAS's Office of STEM Education. She supports faculty in their course transformation efforts and collaborates on various discipline-based and STEM education research projects. She teaches an Introduction to Chemistry Education course to chemistry teaching interns pursuing a Certificate in Chemistry Education or a chemistry education minor. Mary is a founding member of Rutgers Active Learning Community. Through the Learning Assistant Alliance (LAA), where she currently serves on the LAA Leadership Council, she supports faculty development and adoption of the LA model nationally. Mary earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Nazareth College and her Ph.D. in Chemistry Education Research from Miami University.

Charles (“Chaz”) Ruggieri is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Office of STEM Education and the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and serves as a member of the TRIAD Coalition. He conducted postdoctoral research in physics education research at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, earned his Ph.D. in experimental surface and interface physics from Rutgers. Chaz collaborates with faculty members in the Department of Physics and Astronomy to transform courses and evaluate transformations. He conducts physics education research focused on: (i) students’ perception and use of resources in introductory physics courses, and (ii) graduate teaching assistant pedagogical preparation for active learning settings in physics. He aims to help students regain their inherent drive for observation and discovery, guide students toward improving their understanding and use of mathematics within the context of physics, and motivate students to grow as independent learners.

David Goldman (Moderator), Ana Paula Centeno (Panelist), Andrew Parker (Panelist), Åsa Rennermalm (Panelist), Mai Soliman (Panelist)

This panel discussed faculty's experiences preparing for and implementing remote instruction over the past year, with a focus on constructively identifying experiences and findings that can inform teaching practices in the in-person classroom. Topics included the impact of breakout rooms and other strategies for encouraging active student engagement; the potential for incorporating more technology into in-person instruction; how the remote classroom led to increased accessibility for some students; and, more generally, the impact of being forced to re-think and systematically plan how one teaches.

Ana Paula Centeno, Associate Teaching Professor of Computer Science, is interested in a broad range of problems in Computer Science. Her past research areas included management of power, energy and temperature on data centers, and optimization to reduce the length of stay of patients in emergency rooms. Currently she is interested in computer science education, particularly to reduce the gender and minority gaps in the field. She holds a B.S. (UCPel), M.S. (UFRGS and Stony Brook Universities) and Ph.D. (Rutgers University) degrees in Computer Science.

David Goldman, Director of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, SAS Office of Undergraduate Education,works with instructors and teammates on the SAS Teaching and Learning team to cultivate and support a community of passionate teachers at Rutgers. David has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UCLA and has taught at UCLA, Yale, Ohio State, and Rutgers. Before coming to Rutgers, he was Program Director for Humanities and Social Sciences at UCLA Extension, where he helped to build the UCLA Prison Education Program.

Andrew Parker, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, taught English at Amherst College from 1982-2012. He chaired Comp Lit from 2014-2020, and was the PI at Rutgers for the Mellon-funded international consortium "Critical Theory and the Global South." His recent publications include The Theorist’s Mother (Duke UP) and “The Age of Frankenstein” in Reading Sedgwick, ed. Lauren Berlant (Duke UP). Work in progress includes an online, collaborative, multilingual version of Julio Cortázar’s novel Rayuela/Hopscotch.

Åsa Rennermalm, is an associate professor at the Department of Geography at Rutgers. Her research interest is hydrology and glaciology of the Arctic region. She teaches courses in physical geography and data analysis, including large introductory courses and smaller upper-level courses. Since 2013, Åsa Rennermalm has served as the undergraduate director for Geography, Environmental Studies, and International and Global Studies.

Lyn Baier, Susan Bennett, Topher Sutton

The Rutgers First-year Interest Group Seminars (FIGS) team successfully coordinated 56 student-led online synchronous seminars adapted from highly interactive in-person courses. In this presentation, they discussed how they confronted the challenges of this shift before and during the semester. Their advice on how to update course policies and assignments, on facilitating activities using online teaching tools, and building community online will benefit any virtual course. What this video to explore why 95% of course evaluation respondents agreed that their instructor “created an engaging classroom environment in a virtual setting.

Lyn Baier serves as Associate Director for Experiential Learning and First Year Engagement in Career Exploration and Success and oversees the First-year Interest Group Seminars (FIGS) program and the Rutgers Internship and Co-op Program (RICP). The courses affiliated with RICP are all taught online and the 56 sections of FIGS were moved to a virtual synchronous format for the first time in fall 2020. Lyn presents regularly on peer instruction models, first-year experience programs, and career readiness competencies. She received her Bachelor's degree in Music from the University of Northern Iowa and her Master’s degree in Student Personnel Administration from NYU.

As Assistant Director for First-Year Engagement, Topher Sutton supports the First-year Interest Group Seminar (FIGS) program within the office of Career Exploration and Success. Topher assists with the selection process for Peer Instructors, reviews Peer Instructor curriculum development, and teaches the Peer Instructor Education course. During spring and summer 2020, the FIGS program adapted all of our trainings for Peer Instructors to a virtual environment and during fall 2020 all Peer Instructor Education sections and FIGS classes were taught virtually.

Susan Bennett joined the First-Year Interest Group Seminars (FIGS) team in 2014. Susan supports FIGS Peer Instructors, highly talented undergraduates developing and independently teaching their own courses, as both the primary coordinator of their extensive training process and as an instructor for their 300-level pedagogy course. The FIGS team successfully transitioned the Peer Instructor course and 56 student-taught FIGS courses to a virtual format in fall 2020. Before her role in the Office of Career Exploration and Success, Susan worked in academic advising and new student orientation programming.