Scott Seagle | Coulter Faculty Commons

What do hairballs and the DOJ have in common?

by Scott Seagle | Feb 26, 2026 | Accessibility, Blog, Canvas

Ready for April 24th?

Now that we have your attention, April 24 is National Hairball Awareness Day and the day that all digital materials are required to be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. As you’ve probably heard, the U.S. Department of Justice has issued a final rule requiring state and local government entities, including WCU, to ensure that web content and mobile applications are accessible to people with disabilities. The compliance deadline is April 24, 2026.

The rule applies broadly to digital content created or managed by WCU faculty, staff, and students. This includes college websites, mobile apps, digital documents, online course content, as well as materials posted in Canvas. To meet the requirements, content must conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, the recognized international standard for digital accessibility.

In practical terms, this means ensuring images have descriptive alternative text, documents and web pages use proper heading structures, and video and audio materials include accurate captions and descriptions, among other requirements.

With the compliance date approaching, now is the time to review your digital content and begin making necessary updates. A great resource is WCU’s Digital Accessibility Self-Paced course. We also recommend the downloadable Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist and to familiarize yourself with the resources contained in the Fact Sheet related to final rule updating Title II regulations of the ADA and WCAG Guidelines:

We trust that these resources, and your partners in the CFC, will make reviewing and revising your materials more efficient.

From $100 Textbooks to Zero: One History Instructor’s OER Revolution

by Scott Seagle | Feb 25, 2026 | Blog, OER, Teaching & Learning Tip

When I hit “publish” on my first OER-based syllabus, I’ll admit I was nervous. Would the materials hold up? Would students take free resources seriously? Would I regret abandoning the familiar, glossy textbook and publisher resources I’d used for years?

Three weeks into the semester, a student emailed me at 11 pm. Not to complain but to thank me. She’d just accessed our primary source collection from her phone while waiting tables, squeezing in reading between shifts. “I never could have afforded the old textbook,” she wrote. “This changes everything.”

That’s when it hit me: I hadn’t just changed my course materials. I’d changed what was possible for my students.

Five years ago, I took the plunge and replaced my standard $100+ U.S. History textbook with Open Educational Resources, or OER for short. The decision came after years of watching students show up to class without required readings, not because they didn’t care, but because they couldn’t afford them. Some waited weeks for financial aid. Others simply went without, cobbling together whatever they could find online or hoping a classmate or I would share.

The results of switching to OER? For one, the financial impact was immediate. Twenty-eight students, zero textbook costs. That’s roughly $2,800 staying in students’ pockets. Money that went toward rent, groceries, and other course materials instead of a single book they’d use for one semester.

Another impact of my adoption was that access barriers vanished overnight. On day one of the semester, every single student had complete access to all course materials. No waiting for paychecks. No scrambling for library reserves. No apologetic emails about not having the reading. They had instant, universal access from any device, anywhere.

But here’s what surprised me most. The content itself fit my teaching style better. The OER materials I curated included primary sources from the Library of Congress, digital archives, and a textbook which engaged students in ways my old textbook never did. They weren’t passively highlighting paragraphs; they were analyzing Ida B. Well’s actual words, zooming in on Civil War photographs, and exploring multimedia narratives that brought history alive and made the class relevant.

As for my own workload, the transition was more or less a wash. There was some upfront time spent identifying quality OER materials and making sure they covered what I needed, but once that foundation was laid, things ran pretty smoothly. I wasn’t constantly working around a publisher’s chapter structure so, in some ways, having the flexibility to pull from multiple sources made my planning feel a little more intentional.

Making the switch wasn’t just about saving students money, though that alone would have been worth it. It was about rethinking what’s possible when cost isn’t a barrier to learning.

Interested in exploring the potential of adopting OER materials for your classes? CFC is partnering with the Bookstore and Hunter Library to provide funding and support. Visit the OER Grant Program website for more details.

Hunter Library (2026): Open Educational Resources (OER). Research Guides. https://researchguides.wcu.edu/oer/home

Information on what OER is, how to find and evaluate course appropriate OER, as well as tips on adapting OER resources.

Do You Have a Minute?

by Jeffrey Seagle | Aug 29, 2025 | Active Learning, Activity, Assessment, Blog, Pedagogy, Teaching and Learning

Teaching & Learning Tip: Engage Your Students in Just One Minute

Think about ways that you can help your students set short-term academic goals – ones that are challenging, but attainable. You might review some goals with a class that will be met over the next couple of weeks, for example. And then ask your students to set their own goals dealing with a particular content area. The students could then outline what they need to do to meet those goals and identify what resources they need from you to help them meet those goals. By helping students realize what they can do to control their own learning, you can help students begin to take responsibility for their own learning.

Clock showing the time of one minute after twelve.

Another activity to build on this idea is the One Minute Paper. These quick, short bits of writing can help students check what they know. Hand out paper slips to your students or ask them to pick them up as they come into the classroom. Ask students to write an answer to a question about the content, lecture, or chapter for one minute (yes, time them!).

The question prompt for these papers is an important component of the activity. Traditionally, the two questions used are “What was the most important topic in today’s class?” and “What questions do you still have on this topic?” (Chiou et al. 2014, Campbell et al. 2019). Collect the papers for review or ask students to review each other’s answers and discuss. Research on the use of minute papers has shown increased student learning (Stead 2005, Chiou et al. 2014) and reduced anxiety (Chiou et al. 2014). Students also indicated that minute papers were beneficial to their learning (Stead 2004, Chiou et al. 2014).

References

Campbell, M., E. M. Abel, and R. Lucio (2019). The one-minute paper as a catalyst for change in online pedagogy. Journal of Teaching in Social Work 39:519-533.

Chiou, C., Y. Wang, L. Lee (2014). Reducing statistical anxiety and enhancing statistics learning achievement: effectiveness of a one-minute strategy. Psychology Reports: 115:297-310.

Morrison-Shetlar, A., Marwitz, Mary R (2001). Teaching creatively: Ideas in action. Outernet Publishing.

Stead, D. R. 2005. A review of the one-minute paper. Active Learning in Higher Education 6:118-131.

We Want to Hear from You!

by Jeffrey Seagle | Aug 29, 2025 | Blog, Feedback, University Support

Help Shape the Future of the Coulter Faculty Commons

At the Coulter Faculty Commons (CFC), everything we do is grounded in our commitment to supporting our teaching community members – as teachers, scholars, and leaders. This year, we’re taking a closer look at how you experience the resources and support available to you, and how we can better align our programs with what you truly need.

To start, we’ll soon launch an online survey/needs assessment. By taking part, you’ll help us better understand your teaching experiences, priorities, and challenges, so we can design programming that reflects your reality in the classroom and beyond.

Listening Sessions This Fall

Alongside the survey, we’ll also be hosting a series of listening sessions, both in-person and online, throughout the fall semester. These sessions are relaxed, open conversations where you’ll be invited to share your thoughts, ideas, and insights with the CFC staff.

Think of them as our way of asking: 
What do you need from us? What’s working? Where are the gaps? What would make your teaching and leadership journey easier or more inspiring?

Why Your Voice Matters

Your perspective will directly shape how the CFC evolves in the years ahead. The feedback you share will help us create programs, practices, and resources that are meaningful, practical, and innovative – designed to support you and, in turn, enrich the experience of our diverse community of students.

Join the Conversation

We’re excited to hear from you and to work alongside you as we plan for the future. Whether through the survey or a listening session, your voice will make a difference. Together, we’ll build a stronger, more connected community of teachers and learners. We can’t wait to listen, learn, and grow with you this year!

We Recommend: The Present Professor

by Jeffrey Seagle | Aug 26, 2025 | Blog, We Recommend

Why authentic instructors produce strong classrooms: Lessons from Liz Norell’s The Present Professor

September 2025

Recommended by Scott Seagle, Educational Developer

We all know it’s hard for students to learn when they’re stressed – but it’s just as hard for us to teach when we’re carrying stress, too. Between institutional pressures, global challenges, and the personal demands we all juggle, it’s no surprise that teaching can sometimes feel like a heavy lift. That’s exactly the reality Liz Norell takes up in The Present Professor, a book that feels both timely and deeply needed.

Book cover of "The Present Professor" by Liz Norell.

Norell, E. A. (2024). The Present Professor. The University of Oklahoma Press.

Norell reminds us that our presence in the classroom – our ability to be grounded, authentic, and fully engaged – can make all the difference for our students. But being present isn’t just about showing up with good slides or a clear syllabus. It’s about doing the inner work: noticing the insecurities, stresses, and habits we’ve learned to hide in academic spaces that often reward knowledge over vulnerability. By addressing those inner struggles, we create more room for teaching that really transforms students – and, honestly, transforms us too.

What I appreciate most about this book is that it doesn’t stop with theory. Norell offers practical strategies and research-backed insights that help us think critically about what presence looks like in our own teaching. For anyone wrestling with how to make their classroom more inclusive and supportive, her message is refreshingly simple: if we want students to feel safe and empowered to learn, we have to give ourselves that same permission.

In a time when higher education feels stretched and uncertain, The Present Professor reads like both a guide and a companion. It encourages us to take a breath, to look inward, and to remember that the best teaching begins with the person we bring into the room.

Liz is coming to WCU Sep 11 & 12!

Be present.
Teach authentically.
Live Western

Register for ETLE

To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.