2023 NDEC CONFERENCE WITH SUPPORT FROM W.W. NORTON

Central Community College – Columbus
4500 63rd St, Columbus, NE 68601

Hotel Rooms Reserved: Reserve by 8/22

Ramada Inn   Address: 265 33rd Ave, Columbus, NE 68601
Call Maria at 402-562-9504. The block is under NDEC Conference

Thursday, September 21

Tour of the CCC Adult Education Center 5:30pm
3020 18th Street, Columbus, NE 68601

Pre-Conference Dinner 7 p.m.
Where: Dusters  2804 13th St, Columbus, NE 68601

Friday, September 22

Conference

Where: Center for Science and Technology Lecture Hall 330

8:30 a.m. – 9 a.m. Coffee and Check-in

9 – 9:50 a.m. State of Colleges or warmup talks

Big Picture & Close-Ups: New Classes, Placement (self-placement), Data, Course Re-Design … “What has your institution implemented in last year as a result of your college has implemented?” Facilitator: Phip

10-10:50 a.m. 

1A - Emotional Intelligence strategies to help students be more successful in a developmental math class (Math focus)

Teaching students EQ (Emotional Intelligence) strategies in my developmental math course gives them more tools to be successful, both in the math course, and in college as a whole.  This helps all students, including those who previously had a bad relationship with math.  Math courses are notoriously dense in the amount of material that must be taught and learned.  Due to this, implementing strategies to help in the 4 EQ skills is done in small ways, like group mini-quizzes, announcements containing inspirational quotes, post exam reflections, and group application questions.  EQ strategies are part of my math course through both direct and indirect ways, and permeate the entire course.  I will share the general EQ skills, provide a short list of strategies in each, and share ways I implement them in my course.  The participants in this session will get to take part in a few of these engaged activities used to help students increase their Emotional Intelligence.

1B - Storying in the Developmental Writing Classroom (English focus)

Storytelling is an essential art that enables students to communicate their experience, needs, and desires in the classroom. The art of storytelling is often seen as a creative act, but in this co-presentation, the speakers will examine the different ways they use storytelling to motivate and connect with students. The first presenter will reflect on how storytelling has become a part of her teaching practice, enabling students to communicate in more meaningful, connected ways, drawing from their own experience as a fiction writer, storyteller, and teacher. The second presenter will the speak about the usefulness of demonstrating Counterstory in the developmental writing classroom as an act of radical vulnerability in order to empower non-normative students to speak to their lived situations and educational goals. This presentation will also include interactive exercises that can help instructors bring storytelling into their own classrooms. - Rachel Hruza and  Jason McCormick

11-11:50 a.m.

2A - Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom: Gauging Student Reactions and Offering Response (English focus)

Based on departmental goals at SCC, we created and implemented an Emotional Intelligence survey based on Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009) to gauge student reactions to a major assignment grade and feedback. The goal of the survey was to provide students with emotionally intelligent ways to react to grades and feedback. The presentation would speak to the goals, process, and outcomes after the survey’s inclusion within a Comp. I setting. This would be followed by a discussion about what others are doing to address student emotional intelligence in the classroom. - Rachel Hruza and Tammy Zimmer

2B - Using AI and ChatGPT in the Classroom (M/E focus)

We will discuss strategies to prevent plagiarism using artificial intelligence, while empowering students to use AI as a learning tool. We will explore how to teach students to innovate with artificial intelligence to build future job skills. We will also discuss how you can leverage AI to build efficiency into your workday and have a frank discussion about its limits in education. Save yourself time and cognitive load by embracing AI for educators. - Amy Mancini, Dean of Arts, Science, and Business, CCC

12-1 p.m. - Lunch - 2023 NDEC Educator of the Year Recognition

1:10-2 p.m. 

3A- Keeping the Community in a Community College Classroom (M/E)

One of my areas of research and interest is dialogical education. Community college classrooms are an ideal place to foster good dialogue for learning. Unfortunately, especially post-COVID, fostering discussion within a classroom is often difficult. Today, we will discuss and try out several ways to ease classroom discussion after a brief “stand-and-delivery" to introduce the topic and supply some background. Then I will facilitate a group discussion over their ideas, thoughts, feelings about using and generating good discussion in class. Third, I will lead the group in one or two activities that I have developed to generate good discussion, and finally I will invite participants to model and lead the group in activities they have developed to generate good discussion. We will wrap up with a closing discussion.  - Kale Riley

3B - AI in the Classroom: Beyond ChatGPT  (M/E)

In this session, participants will learn about a variety of other AI-powered tools available for education and workplace purposes and how to leverage the power of AI in the classroom to support student learning and exposure to using these 21st-century emerging technologies. A brief overview of different platforms and their educational applications will be discussed with time for interactive Q&A throughout the session. Participants will have an opportunity to brainstorm potential applications in the English and Math classrooms. – Amy Doty

2:10-3p.m.

4A - Barriers & Bridges: Building Ecosystems to Support Diverse Populations (math/English)

Using recent research on characteristics, assets and barriers to student success as a springboard, this multi-disciplinary work session will explore the data and will discuss ways in which we can creatively engage our classroom environments to meet our students where they are. A 10-minute introduction to the data will set up a 30-minute group challenge about how the data can translate into classroom practices, and then a 10 minute share-out.   - Susan McDowall and Phip Ross

4B - Using Polypad in the Math Classroom (Math focus)

Virtual manipulatives, dynamic geometry, graph plotting, data science and more: We will explore the what is being called a “mathematical playground.” -  Otis Pierce, ESU7

LAST BOOSTER ACTIVITY -  Tiffany: Reflective activity