Teaching, Learning, &
Global Engagement
Weekly News & Updates
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April 18, 2024 | Volume 10 | Issue 31 | |
Five Things to Know About Laura Van Meter | |
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By Laura Van Meter, Learning Commons Math & Accounting Coach
Brief Bio
- I grew up in several towns in North Carolina and my family and I are getting ready to build a house in north Davidson County.
- I have an B.S. in Math/Computer Science from Meredith College and a Masters of Engineering in Computer Science from NCSU.
- I have been working at DDCC since 2016 and have been coaching math & accounting full-time since 2019.
- My family has four dogs: one German Shephard, one poodle and two pound puppies.
- I enjoy hiking, handicrafts (knitting, crocheting, tatting, weaving), coloring, and learning foreign languages.
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Five Things to Know
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Travel: I'd like to tour France on a canal boat.
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Audio: Foreign Language practice (Armenian, Korean, German, Italian, French, Spanish)
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Food: Tteokbokki (Spicy Korean Rice Cakes)
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TV: I've been watching "So Help Me Todd", two British mystery shows, ("Death in Paradise", "Beyond Paradise"), and a Korean variety show called "Running Man".
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Joyful experience: Hiking along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains
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By Christina Kirwan
Jamboard is going away--forever! If you use Jamboard for interactive or collaborative teaching, here are some important dates to keep in mind.
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Until September 30th, 2024: You will have normal access to Jamboard to create and engage with your students
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Starting October 1st, 2024: You will only be able to view your previously created Jamboards. You will no longer be able to create new or edit current Jamboards.
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January 1st 2025: You will no longer have access to view your Jamboard creations. Instead, any created Jamboard will be converted to a PDF automatically and stored in the same location as the original Jamboard.
So, as you begin planning for your courses in the Fall of 2024, you will want to consider an alternative method of collaboration where students can share ideas. There are few ways you can still provide students with a space for collaboration including using the Zoom Whiteboard (opens in a new window) feature or Google Slides. If you want to learn more about how you can use these current features, don’t hesitate to reach out to an instructional designer! If you have another way you have your students collaborate that could be a great tool for other instructors, feel free to share!
How often do you use Jamboard?
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By Demetria Nickens
Hello! For those of you who haven’t met me yet, I am Demetria Nickens, the Senior Director of Student Belonging & Well-Being. Most of you know me though because you see my name on the Academic Support Plans (ASP = accommodations) for students. As the main point of contact for Accessibility Services, I want you all to be informed about our students, educated on processes, and know that I have an open-door policy when it comes to questions.
For this Accessibility Minute, I want to share a statistic and two specific professional development resources with you. Every semester I keep track of the number of students with ASPs, and their specific diagnoses. Did you know that approximately 15% of students with plans are diagnosed on the spectrum of Autism? And before you say that most of those students aren’t in curriculum classes, think again. That is only counting my students in curriculum classes. Remember that when you have met one student with autism, you have met one student with Autism. Each student is going to show up very differently.
The two resources I want to share are from the Innovative Educators platform.
- Students With Autism: Strategies For Inclusion, Engagement & Success
- Front-Line Customer Service: Supporting Students On The Autism Spectrum
If you have never been to the platform, you can create an account and log in. You can search the titles above or if you are logged in, click on the links above to access.
I hope these webinars are helpful to you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions at accessibility@davidsondavie.edu. This has been an Accessibility Minute. Look out for more of these in future issues!
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A weekly column brought to you by International Education | |
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Days in Denmark
By Sarah Wright
Last week, Tim Gwillim and I had a chance to go to Denmark and meet with many students and employees at the largest vocational college in Denmark, Zealand Business College (ZBC). The experience was beyond fantastic.
We spent time touring Copenhagen on our own, as well as making a quick trip to Malmo, Sweden. The weather was beautiful on our major sightseeing day, so that was a bonus. Otherwise, we found Denmark to be mostly wet, gray, and windy, but in as welcoming of a way as possible. The weather did not deter the Danish people from running, biking, and living their best lives. They don’t need the sun to perpetually place high on the happiness index, so I think there’s a lot we can learn from them.
Speaking of learning, the college has many campuses, mostly an hour or so outside of Copenhagen, so in some ways, the college shares that similarity in proximity to a larger city (cities in our case) that DDCC has. We visited their international office where I presented our model for campus internationalization. We also toured their working farm where they have programs in landscape design, agriculture, animal science, large equipment operation, and others. They also have shops at several of the schools run by students. On the farm, they have a shop that sells the produce and plants the students cultivate. (And I should add that we enjoyed the culinary programs at all of their campuses.) We visited their coffee production lab in which the students made beer to practice the process of roasting coffee. Additionally, we visited several engineering classes as well as machining and metal works. They have a welding program that specializes in the traditional welds that students in the US learn, but they are also specializing in welding plastic. Most of their operations are designed to lower their energy consumption and lower their carbon footprint.
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In addition to technology oriented classes, we saw their education and healthcare labs. The students have healthcare and educational mannequins that are being programmed to respond with AI for life-like interactions. Perhaps, one of the most interesting things that we saw was a group of students experiencing empathy building exercises in which their mobility was limited through braces and bindings adorned on their bodies. They understood the mobility and balance issues that many geriatric patients may endure because they put on those movement limiting apparatuses and experienced it themselves.
On our final day, we toured the butcher school. The butchering process begins with live pigs awaiting their fate (humanely) to cleaning to butchering and then finally to their customer facing market where people in the community can buy meat, lunch, and a variety of other products. Their food regulations in the European Union require significant education for all people working in the food production and preparation industries. We were able to see a lot of their training and see their industry model for education.
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They are extremely hands on learning in the classroom. Additionally, their vocational education is about 4-years in length because students alternate between school and internships/apprenticeships for various lengths of time throughout those years. Keep your eyes open for more information and upcoming possibilities that we develop with our friends in Denmark. I think there’s a lot we can learn from them, but we can probably show them a few things too.
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CTL Needs Advisory Board Members | |
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By Gloria Johnson
Wrapping Up the Spring Workshop Series
The CTL Spring Workshop Series concludes on Wednesday, April 24th at 2:00 PM with Creative Writing Activities to Enhance Student Learning and Engagement. Join Kelli Allen in this mini-workshop to learn about using creative writing activities to engage students in creative thinking and self-evaluation, and to encourage a growth mindset. You can read more about the workshop on the Spring CTL Events website. This workshop is held virtually on Zoom.
Advisory Board Applications Open Through April 23rd
The Center for teaching and learning is currently accepting applications for the CTL Advisory Board. We are seeking to fill a full-time faculty seat for Workforce and Community Engagement and part-time seats for Workforce and Community Engagement, Health Sciences, Davie, and Arts, Science, Business, and Technology. For more information, visit the DDCC CTL Professional Learning website and click Join the CTL Advisory Board. Please consider this opportunity to contribute to the growth of professional learning programs at Davidson-Davie.
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Do You Have a Story to Share? | |
We want to promote faculty and staff stories! Please contact Amy Holmes (amy_holmes@davidsondavie.edu) if you have ideas or referrals for stories. | |
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