CoTL 2021

11th Annual South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning

Wednesday, May 12 | 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. CST | Fully Online

Theme: Innovations in Learning: Creative Solutions for Challenging Times

Teaching during the pandemic has presented a dynamic set of obstacles, forcing us to rethink our instructional practices to design inventive, yet practical and accessible, solutions. On one level, we pivoted the mechanics of our courses, such that we rethought our content delivery, application activities, and educative assessments to fit our new virtual classroom. On another level, we developed new ways to create a community of learners, making use of our learning management systems (LMS) and other communication platforms to foster connections between students and take a step towards addressing the disconnectedness caused by the uncertainty of the pandemic. Our shared experience of responding to the challenges of shifting our courses online has led to numerous innovative solutions.

As a partnership between USA, Spring Hill College, University of Mobile, and Pathway USA community colleges including Bishop State, Coastal Alabama, Mississippi Gulf Coast, CoTL reaches a diverse audience who have all experienced the effect of the pandemic in unique ways. This year’s CoTL theme, “Innovations in Learning: Creative Solutions for Challenging Times,” seeks to celebrate and learn from how we have supported student, staff, and faculty academic and personal well being.

Factors you may consider when selecting a topic include those that have had an evidence-based impact on student learning, such as (but not limited to) consistent course and module design, transparent assignments, positive course climates and the development of social presence, student engagement techniques, and the use of technology tools, such as those native to the LMS (e.g., Discussion Forums) or external tools (e.g., student response systems, collaboration tools) that align with the overall course learning objectives. We encourage the sharing of creative uses of technology in our daily professional lives, such as Zoom, Google Meet, Google Docs, Chat, Slack, etc.

Keynote Speakers

"Mathematics for Human Flourishing" Francis Edward Su, Ph.D. Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics Harvey Mudd College "It Takes a Village: Collaborative Learning in a Pandemic and Beyond" Prof. Cloda Jenkins Professor (Teaching) in Economics University College London "It Takes a Village: Collaborative Learning in a Pandemic and Beyond" Prof. Parama Chaudhury Professor (Teaching) in Economics University College London

Presentation Types

Interactive Workshops | Pecha Kuchas | Virtual Poster Exhibit | Flipped Forums

Points of Contact

Dr. S. Raj Chaudhury, Innovation in Learning Center, schaudhury@southalabama.edu
Dr. Lisa LaCross, Innovation in Learning Center, lacross@southalabama.edu

 2021 Conference Partners