Dean's Community Message

July 21, 2020

Dear College of Engineering Community,

I hope all of you had a great weekend and start to your week. As we continue to plan for the fall semester, please reach out to our response team at COE_CORONA_CRISIS_TEAM@engr.psu.edu with your concerns, questions, and input. As I have mentioned before, the college is taking the engineering community’s feedback into strong consideration as we plan our next steps forward, so thank you to everyone who has shared their feedback thus far!

Today’s inspirational quote was submitted by Brad Sottile, lecturer in computer science engineering and aerospace engineering:

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”
—Aristotle Onassis

Here are today’s updates:

University Hosting Fall 2020 Lunch & Learn Webinar Series for Instructors

The University is hosting a series of webinars that is designed to provide critical information for faculty as they prepare their courses for the fall 2020 semester. Each webinar will address specific considerations for course design and teaching effectively both in-person with social distancing and remotely. The next webinar in this series will take place Wednesday, July 22, at noon. Join here. More information on upcoming webinars in this series can be found here.

Upcoming Workshops on Instructional Strategies and Technologies for FA20

The Leonhard Center and the Office for Digital Learning currently offer a weekly workshop series throughout July to help you prepare for teaching in the fall. The workshops are offered in pairs: the first workshop focuses on instructional strategies and the second on instructional technologies. The next pair of workshops focuses on assessments. Registration is required.

  • Rethinking assessments! What other options are there beyond the final exam?
    Tuesday, July 28, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
    Registration
  • Digital Tools for Exams and other Assessments
    Thursday, July 30, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.
    Registration

Office of Educational Equity: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources Page

Penn State’s Office of Educational Equity recently created an Outlook SharePoint site for Penn State students and employees that contains curated research and resources that are all focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The content on this site focuses on helping the Penn State community think more critically about these topics. Check it out here!

Teaching Tip #27 – Creating empathy and community in your course

If you are teaching in the remote synchronous or mixed mode this fall, one tip for building community in your course is to encourage students to turn on their cameras during synchronous Zoom sessions. Ask students to post a photo to their Zoom profile if they are not able to turn on their camera. For more tips, register for this Thursday’s Leonhard Center/Office for Digital Learning workshop on Digital Tools for Building Community.

Be well!

Justin Schwartz
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean, College of Engineering