6th Annual Big 12 Teaching and Learning Conference
Individual Session Descriptions
The following schedule will be updated until the start of the conference. Unless otherwise indicated, all events will take place in the Texas Union.
Friday, June 14, 11:30am-12:30pm: Session 17 (Santa Rita Room)
"Mentorship Model to Support Doctoral Student Development, Goal Setting, and Problem Solving"
Jessica Toste (University of Texas at Austin)
Success in a doctoral program can be captured by students’ adjustment to the academic community and their achievement. In recent years, growing concerns have been raised by media, policy makers, and academics about reported mental health issues amongst PhD students. Research suggests that the mental health of PhD students can be improved when there are available supports related to management of work-life balance, workload, decision-making, and leadership styles that lead to satisfactory and constructive work relations (Levecque et al., 2017). Faculty advisors play a central role in the overall adjustment and trajectory of development for students completing doctoral programs.
In this session, I will present ongoing work related to the development of a model to support students’ self-determined learning—Self-Determined Learning Mentorship Model (SDLMM). Persons who are self-determined have an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses and base their choices and goals on this self-assessment (Wehmeyer & Metzler, 1995). Self-determination has evidence to predict achievement (Zheng et al., 2014) and there is evidence that suggest self-determination is associated with positive adult outcomes (Shogren et al., 2015). The SDLMM is based on the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI). The SDLMI was designed to provide a model to enable educators to teach students to self-direct the instructional process as a means to achieve educationally relevant goals and enhance self-determination, and has been shown to be an effective intervention for achieving enhanced student outcomes. This workshop will focus on training, advising, and mentorship practices to support graduate students. We will discuss barriers to success in PhD programs, and explore the use of the SDLMM to promote goal attainment and problem solving.
Friday, June 14, 11:30am-12:30pm: Session 18 (Quadrangle Room)
"Crossing the Core: Teaching Critical Skills via Interactive, Interdisciplinary Faculty Development"
George Schorn and Lin Winton (The University of Texas at Austin)
UT-Austin's Skills & Experience Flags, part of the General Education requirement give students critical experience in writing, quantitative reasoning, ethics, independent inquiry, and global and U.S. cultures. This session will focus on faculty support for the Writing and Independent Inquiry Flags.
In all disciplines, students must be able to write cogently and according to disciplinary norms. All students also benefit from doing independent, creative work that synthesizes the content and skills they have acquired in their discipline. The Writing and Independent Inquiry Flag requirements ensure that these opportunities are available to all students.
To foster innovative teaching in these courses, which fill thousands of seats annually across twelve colleges and schools, Curricular Specialists have developed interactive instructor workshops that speak to and leverage the diverse experience of participating faculty from varied disciplines. The common focus on core skills allows faculty to compare disciplines, unpacking the "why" behind the "how" of research and writing expectations in their fields, which so often are tacitly held by disciplinary experts and thus difficult to make visible to students. The active learning strategies modeled in the workshops foster instructor confidence and buy-in; attendees report excellent transfer of new methods to their classroom, improved student engagement, and greater gains in students' core skills.
Friday, June 14, 11:30am-12:30pm: Session 19 (Eastwoods Room)
"Motivation is not Enough: Proactive Strategies to Promote Success for ALL Students"
Karen Huxtable (University of Texas at Dallas)
Case Study Handout for Session
Students bring high hopes to their pursuit of an education, but too often, they also experience internal and external obstacles that can interfere with their success. By identifying and planning for these obstacles faculty can support students in coping with unexpected events that come as no surprise to faculty. In this research-informed workshop participants will use case examples to identify typical obstacles and develop proactive strategies for faculty to help students. Principles of Universal Design can inform the development of strategies that help all students even before they need help, and without students having to ask for special accommodations. We will examine research that shows how faculty can improve students’ academic resilience and self-regulation and create an atmosphere that promotes help-seeking and autonomy. Being compassionate does not require that we lower our standards. Rather, we can help students understand what it takes to learn effectively, develop self-discipline, and believe that their efforts will be successful. Key themes of the discussion will be (1) faculty-student interactions, (2) fit (self-efficacy) and belonging (shared values), (3) faculty and student mindsets (and the necessity of avoiding a student-blaming model), and (4) students' understanding of learning, or metacognition.