Teaching, Learning, &

Global Engagement

Weekly News & Updates

By Kelli Allen, English Faculty, Davie Campus

I am a life-long writer, dancer, and traveler. I have authored seven books (info about these can be found on my website) and I am the founding editor of the international literary journal Book of Matches. When not writing, editing, and teaching (literature, creative writing, and academic writing), I also love to cook and bake, explore the world, and entertain my two tiny dogs and African pygmy hedgehog. Essentially, do everything I can to stay wide Awake. This means that I feed curiosities as they arrive, and I am fortunate to be ever curious, nearly all the time. The world baffles me and I no more understand my place within it than what the It is in the first place. My poetry, choreography, and teaching are all attempts to get closer to deciding why the Universe is more than turtles all the way down. 

Before moving to North Carolina at the end of 2020, I lived in Changchun, China where I was a Visiting Professor of Poetics for Rutgers University at their sister university. The pandemic led me and my husband from China to South Korea to Thailand with an end-point in Raleigh, NC. I have been with the DDCC family for one semester thus far and have greatly enjoyed getting to know students and faculty. As a former military brat, I have little concept of “home,” but have made significant promises to myself to keep searching—and landing on as many beaches as possible along the way.

Five Things to Know

1. Travel: I have spent a decent amount of time in 29 countries thus far, so selecting a "best" is rather difficult. Perhaps the most "beautiful" space I have occupied is within a tiny village near Khao Lak, Thailand. The weeks I spent wandering sand and trails are among the most dream-like of any of any of my travels. As close second would be Kilkenny in Ireland. A third would be sailing amongst the karsts in Halong Bay in Vietnam. 
2. Books: I have been re-reading Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and diving into a new collection of Chinese mythology. 
3. Food: This is nearly an impossible question to answer as I love to cook, bake, and experience food from.... just about everywhere. My two current food obsessions, though, are heritage pastas and Turkish cuisine. 
4. Shows & Movies: The only US show I currently watch is The Bear, but I adore film. I recently watched 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' and 'The Fall'-- both visually stunning! I also love all Studio Ghibli films.
5. Joyful Experience: Swimming with sharks in the Bahamas. There is little more invigorating than recognizing alien worlds are already here-- in the clearest waters. Simply: For me, being near and in water is almost always instant joy (with or without aquatic friends).

Upcoming Events

• Culture Café: Christmas in Argentina, France, Ireland: December 8 from 10:30-11:30 am in Gee N139-142
• Course Improvement Using Student Data: January 10 from 1:00-2:30 pm on Zoom. Register through the Piedmont Hub

By Gretchen Benton

Think of Open LMS’s Personalized Learning Designer (PLD) as your digital teacher assistant. You can set up rules to automatically provide students with support for their unique needs! 

Here are some examples of how PLD can be used: 

• Course Retention - Send automatic email alerts to students, teachers, and/or advisors when a student has not logged into Moodle for a certain number of days. 
• Guided Course Pathway - Strategically schedule pop up messages or redirects to point students toward activities like reading the syllabus, completing the course entry assignment, buying books, checking their grades, or completing course evaluations.  
• Student Support - Automatically alert a student and/or embedded tutor when a test score is low to recommend scheduling a tutoring session or share additional study resources. 
• Due Date Reminders - Notify students who have not yet completed an activity when an important due date is near. 
• Encouragement - Congratulate students who achieve a high score. Message students who got a low score, encouraging them to retake formative assessments or engage with other activities that will support their learning and/or grade improvement needs.

You can create a PLD rule in your course by selecting Open LMS in your course menu and then selecting Personalized Learning Designer. Each PLD rule requires at least one Event, Condition, and Action. PLD can be used in many ways to optimize and automate important tasks that can save you time and greatly impact student success! 

Leverage PLD in Moodle today! 

Watch Open LMS’s full Personalized Learning Designer - Workshop (1hr 19min)