Acting President Targett to open 2016 SFI, register now

5:26 p.m., May 4, 2016--University of Delaware Acting President Nancy Targett will kick off the 2016 Summer Faculty Institute with a presentation entitled “From the classroom to the president’s office: 32 years at UD” on Thursday, May 31.  

The Summer Faculty Institute is open to everyone involved in teaching -- faculty, graduate students and support staff -- allowing them to take advantage of the latest research and technological advances in classroom and online instruction to improve students’ learning.

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Registration is now open for the Institute, to be held Tuesday through Thursday, May 31 - June 2. 

After Targett’s opening presentation, the program will continue with more than two dozen sessions presenting faculty perspectives on teaching, recent instructional research and the latest technological capabilities.  

During the three-day event, participants will make connections across all disciplines and will learn more about both online and classroom teaching strategies. Participants can apply concepts and techniques learned at the institute to their upcoming courses. 

This year’s themes cover three important areas of current instructional design:  

• Maker thinking for active learning. Georgia Guthrie, executive director, The Hacktory, and Amy Hurst, assistant professor, Human-Centered Computing, University of Maryland Baltimore County, will introduce this theme. Hurst will discuss her research working with educators, therapists and clients to understand the opportunities to integrate Do it Yourself (DIY) and Maker Culture into their work. Follow-up sessions will consider creation and rapid prototyping as extensions of problem-based learning. Faculty will learn how to incorporate creation technology into their courses while capitalizing on teaching opportunities throughout the design process.

• Information literacy. Starting with a keynote by Thomas Mackey, vice provost for academic programs at SUNY Empire State College, this theme will highlight the evolving nature of information literacy and methods for developing and supporting classrooms that focus on metaliteracy. Metaliteracy advances the concept of information literacy by shifting the focus from consuming to producing of information. The concept also implies that learners are no longer just users of information, but creators working in collaborative makerspaces that are actual and virtual, networked and social. Faculty will walk away with examples of innovative assignments, tools and collaborations based on work from a community of faculty and information professionals who are passionate about information literacy.

• Computational thinking. Jim Kurose, assistant director of the National Science Foundation for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, will provide the opening session for this theme. The sessions in this track will explain what computational thinking is and how it can be applied in a course that does not use programming. Computational thinking is an important part of UD's new General Education objectives. Session leaders will provide attendees with tools and examples for applying it in their courses. 

For more information and registration, visit the Summer Faculty Institute website.  

SFI 2016 is hosted by the partners of Faculty Commons, including the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL), Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE), IT Academic Technology Services (IT-ATS) and University of Delaware Library.