2025 SoTL Design Institute Ignites Faculty Innovation

by April Tallant | Jun 5, 2025 | Blog, Faculty Development Workshop, Professional Development, Research, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, Teaching and Learning

In May, the Coulter Faculty Commons hosted the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Design Institute at the Waynesville Inn & Golf Club, bringing together faculty from across disciplines to explore how classroom questions can become publishable research.

Led by SoTL expert Dr. Laura Cruz (Penn State) and supported by Western Carolina faculty panelists Susan Braithwaite (Health Sciences), Chip Ferguson (Engineering and Technology), and Katharine Mershon (Philosophy and Religion), the Institute offered sessions on framing meaningful research questions, research design, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) considerations, all in service to excellence in teaching and learning. The agenda focused on helping participants align their curiosity with methods that transform everyday classroom practice into evidence-based inquiry.

Many left energized by the realization that any teaching curiosity could become a SoTL project. “It is fantastic to know that there are experts in the CFC who can help with design,” one attendee noted.

Faculty are already planning classroom changes, emphasizing metacognition, involving students in research, and using SoTL to guide innovation. The Institute planted seeds that will grow into engaged classrooms and impactful scholarship. Participants will be supported by the CFC throughout the summer with personalized coaching sessions and into the fall through a Write and Learn Collaborative, designed to help them implement classroom innovations, share progress, and support one another through dedicated collaboration and focused writing time. For more information about SoTL, please contact April Tallant atallant@wcu.edu.

SITL 2025 Recap: Teaching Magic, Shared Wisdom, and Huzzahs

by Anabel Livengood | Jun 4, 2025 | Blog, Professional Development, Summer Institute for Teaching & Learning (SITL), Teaching and Learning

Looking back at our Summer Faire of Ideas, Innovation, and Inspiration

Our 2025 Summer Institute for Teaching & Learning (SITL) brought together 51 faculty and staff over two energizing days filled with ideas, innovation, and inspiration.

Each morning featured presentations from 12 incredible faculty and staff members, followed by hands-on afternoon workshops designed to explore new strategies and deepen practice. The energy was fantastic; you could feel the teaching magic in the air!

Participants at the opening session at the 2025 Summer Institute for Teaching & Learning.

Faculty and staff connecting over lunch.

From lively hallway conversations to thoughtful discussions in sessions, SITL reminded us that great teaching doesn’t happen in isolation. Thank you to everyone who shared their work, asked thoughtful questions, and helped make this year’s event such a meaningful gathering.

Huzzah for teaching and learning!

Register for the 2025 Summer Institute for Teaching & Learning (SITL)

by Anabel Livengood | Apr 21, 2025 | Blog, Professional Development, Summer Institute for Teaching & Learning (SITL), Teaching and Learning

Summer Faire of Ideas, Innovation, and Inspiration – 20th Anniversary of SITL

Join us for two energizing days of interactive workshops, inspiring presentations, and practical takeaways you can use right away. Whether you’re looking to refresh your teaching or try something new, SITL is a great way to connect with colleagues and leave recharged for the year ahead.

The theme for this year’s institute is Renaissance of Teaching: A Summer Faire of Ideas, Innovation, and Inspiration and will be held May 14 & May 15.

The full program is now available – take a peek and start planning your experience!

Don't forget to register!

Your RSVP helps us plan and—most importantly—order enough food to nourish all our hungry scholars.

Register for SITL 2025

Open Up Learning: Apply for an OER Grant

by Anabel Livengood | Apr 3, 2025 | Blog, OER, Teaching and Learning, University Support

A Million Reasons to Go Open

OER Grants Now Available!

Open Education Resources (or “OER”) are openly-licensed, free or low-cost materials that can be modified and redistributed to educate students while reducing the cost of a college education. We are excited to announce a partnership between the Bookstore, Hunter Library, and Coulter Faculty Commons (CFC) to sponsor up to $1,000,000 in faculty grants for the adoption of OER materials into the Book Rental program.

OER graphic depicting an open book and the text "Open Educational Resources"

This program is designed to:

Promote additional course flexibility in the Book Rental program,
Support faculty with largely unrestricted grant funds,
Foster long-term savings for students,
Give faculty the tools they need to explore and adopt materials with the assistance of Hunter Library, and,
Help faculty integrate OER materials through course redesign assistance with Coulter Faculty Commons

OER materials can be made available digitally and/or as a printed book through the Book Rental program to accommodate all styles of teaching.

Visit our OER Grant Program page for more information on grant types, how to apply, and support resources.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Learning Community

by April Tallant | Jan 15, 2025 | Blog, Pedagogy, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, Teaching and Learning

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Faculty Learning Community Interest Meeting

Friday, Jan 24 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Hunter Library 166

Coulter Faculty Commons is thrilled to announce the launch of a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Faculty Learning Community (FLC) for Spring 2025! This exciting opportunity invites educators across disciplines to explore evidence-based teaching practices, exchange experiences, and grow as instructors through the lens of SoTL, meeting five times over the Spring semester.

Join our FLC interest meeting on Friday, Jan 24, 2:30–3:30 pm in HL 166 (Coulter Faculty Commons Course Design Studio) to learn more, decide on upcoming meeting times, and to gain priority access to upcoming SoTL initiatives. Reach out to Faculty Fellows Chad Hallyburton, Darby Harris or CFC Senior Educational Developer April Tallant if you have questions.

Increasing Student Engagement With Regular and Substantive Interaction

by Eli Collins-Brown | Nov 17, 2023 | Active Learning, Blog, Canvas, Educational Development, Help Your Students, Learn, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning, Teaching with Technology

How many days do you log into Canvas and interact with the students? How quickly do you give helpful feedback on activities and assessments? Do you set your students’ expectations by including an email/discussion response statement in your syllabus?

Why do we pose these questions? Frequent interaction and purposeful engagement with students are a hallmark of excellence in teaching and learning. It looks different depending on whether you are teaching in-person, hybrid/blended, or online. We ask students in our in-person courses to log into Canvas every day to see announcements, their grades and feedback, and content. This provides opportunities to increase engagement with students outside of the scheduled classroom time. For hybrid and online faculty, we can use best practices to increase engagement with students who may be residential or remote.

decorative image of regular and substantive interaction

Faculty who teach online regularly or occasionally should be aware of Regular & Substantive Interaction (RSI), a regulation from the Department of Education that went into effect July 2021. RSI is a determination of whether an online course is a correspondence course (which doesn’t qualify for Federal financial aid) or a distance education course. These recommendations also apply to in-person teaching.

Fortunately, we have resources like the Quality Scorecard from the Online Learning Consortium to help us identify how we are meeting RSI and areas where we may need to improve our efforts. Over the next few months, we will share the criteria with suggestions on how to put them into practice.

The scorecard is divided into 6 sections: Course Overview and Information, Course Technology and Tools, Design and Layout, Content and Activities, Interaction, and Assessment and Feedback.

Let’s look at the first two sections.

Course Overview and Information:

The course includes a welcome and how to get started, as well as an overall orientation. Content is organized in Modules.
Module overviews make content, activities, assignments, due dates, interactions, and assessments transparent, predictable and easy to find. *A suggested best practice is to include an overview page as the first page of each module.
Course outcomes are observable and measurable, and congruent with the assessments and assignments.
Include the online learner success resources and contact information for the department and program, in addition to instructor information.

Course Technology and Tools:

It is extremely important to use Canvas, WCU’s approved and supported LMS.
Include information on how to contact the IT HelpDesk in a prominent place so students can find it when they need it.

Remember, these RSI standards are useful in increasing student engagement in any modality!

Next up in this series:

Designing for Student Engagement using RSI

The CFC would love to partner with you to design, redesign, or make improvements to your Canvas course. Let us know what you need through our Consultations Scheduling Page.

Source: Regular and Substantive Interaction, SUNYOnline – https://www.sunyempire.edu/dlis/design-your-course/regular-and-substantive-interaction/