August Our Turn opens classrooms to RU faculty and staff
For two decades, Our Turn has provided peer-directed training in a variety of academic and skill areas for RU faculty and staff.
Coordinated by the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) and the Office of Faculty Development, August Our Turn is celebrating its 20th anniversary of discussing best teaching practices, providing essential training opportunities and offering insights into new campus initiatives.
August Our Turn runs from Wednesday, Aug. 14 – Friday., Aug.16 at sites across campus. A full schedule of course offerings and registration is available at the CITL training and development website.
For the August 2013 sessions, among the forty Our Turn offerings are:
- Work-Life Balance: Overcoming Stress to Find Joy, Peace, and Balance in a Busy World, facilitated by Alan Forrest. Balance is good and necessary for overall emotional health and well-being. However, the dichotomy between life and work requires greater clarification and exploration.
- First Look at the New MyRU Portal, facilitated by Jackie McNabb. A reimagined MyRU portal this fall will be unveiled that offers streamlined access to campus resources and a one-stop shop for the business functions of Radford University.
- What's New in D2L 10.1, facilitated by Lisa McDaniel, Charley Cosmato and Judy Hurst. Over the summer, D2L was upgraded and now includes exciting enhancements and new features.
The Scholar Citizen Initiative (SCI) is fostering the development of “mature, responsible citizens” by preparing students to put their intellectual skills to work for the public good. Through integration of classroom and co-curricular learning opportunities, SCI experiences attend to the whole student, help them develop records of achievement in public service, leadership and applied research. In conjunction with SCI, the following August Our Turn courses are being offered:
- See You in a Hundred Years: Faculty and Staff Book Group, facilitated by Susan Van Patten and Erin Webster-Garrett. See You In a Hundred Years is a memoir written by Logan Ward of his family's year spent on a rural Virginia farm as if it was 1900. Session includes an informal breakfast and free copy of the book.
- Simple Times: Memoir Writing Workshop of Lived Experiences, facilitated by Judy Ayyildiz. Guided writing experiences will help participants capture a time in their lives in which they made a great leap to experience, learn or return to the basics and discover their own best voice, imagery or point of views.
- Peace Studies Pedagogy at RU: Past, Present and Future, facilitated by Michele Ren, Alan Forrest, and Courtney Ross. A discussion session that will introduce Peace Studies as a discipline and share the plans developed at the Kroc Institute for the future of Peace Studies. Session includes lunch.
- D2L 10 ePortfolio: An Overview, facilitated by Samantha Blevins. ePortfolio is a new technology available for use through D2L 10 that can be used for demonstrating learning, documenting assessment, capturing professional development and marketing to employers. This session will include a hands-on introduction to the tool and question session.
- Understanding Poverty in the NRV, facilitated by Timothy Filbert, Terry Smusz, Eric Bucey, and Vicky Collins. Did you know that nearly 26% of Radford residents and over 18% of area residents are living below the poverty threshold? Or that more than forty percent of area children participate in the free and reduced school lunch program? RU faculty engaged in these issues will discuss their work, and collectively explore possibilities for RU to support efforts to alleviate the hardships of poverty as well as revitalizing low-income communities.
Registration for these and other valuable learning opportunities can be done at CITL training and development website.
Learn more about Radford University at www.radford.edu.