Day 3: Student Affairs Team

I know that this is a little late, but it was a busy day both yesterday and today. The blog is about to be flooded with so many awesome pictures and stories from our adventure today on safari. I wanted to quickly get in before to recap what the student affairs team went through in day 3. We started off our meeting with Jennifer Winstead. Going to the 16th floor of the administration building never gets old because there is a beautiful view of the Indian Ocean and the nature reserve that the campus sits on. We spent the morning prepping for our presentation later on that day that involved meeting with seven different student societies to move them along in the pilot stages of the co-curricular record. The team worked to put the content together for the presentation to figure out how to best convey the information to the societies. Dr. Matt Wawrzynski led this session with Trace, Garrett, Mikey, and Bernell (that's me) helping to facilitate group activities and answer an questions that student may have had. Dr. Wawrzynski did an amazing job as always and the students seemed much more receptive to the process than we were expecting. Jennifer left the session felling very positive about the progress that we had made and optimistic as she moves forward with the pilot for the co-curricular record. After a lunch break, we met with Kim and Dee to have a conversation about best practices in women's leadership programs and community outreach programs. This sessions was more of an informal conversation where we shared our thoughts on the two topics based on research that we had done. Kim and Dee both seemed really pleased with the information that we had for them. At the end of this day of work, we spent some time together in reflection about the experiences that we have had so far. Since Matt and Ann had a dinner to attend, the student affairs team met up with the teaching and learning team to celebrate Heather's birthday. We went to a sushi restaurant and explored the Boardwalk area. We ended the night with an awesome water light show at the Boardwalk. It was a very eventful and very tiring day. Keep on the look out for our continued adventures!

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Happy Naming Day Inese

Big Day for Teaching and Learning!

Today was a big day for the Teaching and Learning Team.  We had a full day of collaboration with NMMU faculty on Backwards Instructional Design, Using Formative Assessment to promote Engaged Learning, and Active Learning in Higher Education.

Karla, Inese, Dawn, and Linda getting ready for our big day!

Dr. Austin introducing the workshop for today with Heather and Dawn

Session Participants:

Presentation on Formative Assessment:

Group Participation:

 Formative Assessment in action:

Dawn interacting with a participant in a breakout group during the session on formative assessment.

Heather, Karla and Amanda talking after the formative assessment session:

Between presentations we ran into the Student Affairs team:

 Michelle and Karla presenting on Active Learning Strategies

Active learning participants:

Karla and Michelle explaining tech tools to enhance active learning in an online classroom.

Heather's Birthday Dinner!  Thanks Group!

There was a wonderful sunset last night.

Happy birthday Heather!

A Glimpse on the Inside

Today was a fascinating day for the Teaching & Learning group! We had the chance to participate in a day-long retreat with the NMMU Teaching and Learning Committee Meeting (retreat) which included faculty (a.k.a. administrative staff), administrators, and a student representative. The retreat entailed a variety of engaging presentations on topics such as Peer Collaborative Learning, a proposal for a first year, year-long course (Earth Stewardship Science), Dr. Austin's presentation, Strategies that Encourage Organizational Change: Advancing a Teaching & Learning Agenda, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, an overview of a research project titled Factors Impacting on First-Year Student Success, and a final presentation by an undergraduate representative on ideas for curricular change. Infused with dialogue and debate, we were all pleasantly surprised at how the meeting moved forward and deeply engaged such a diverse group of academics toward united objectives. We had the opportunity to have rich discussion with a variety of faculty and administrators, sharing our opinions and learning first hand the successes and challenges facing NMMU. The proposed course had us all sitting on our hands to prevent ourselves from volunteering to help with the creation of such an amazing course! This course will infuse issues facing South Africa within various disciplines, offer a larger perspective of the continent of Africa as a whole, and will examine where South Africa fits (historically, economically, socially, environmentally, health, resources, origins, systems, etc) in a larger, global context! My head was spinning but boy was I inspired!  Informal conversations over lunch and tea breaks yielded insight to the merge of NMMU in 2005 to its current institution (merger of several universities), including post-apartheid history, challenges, tensions, successes, and oh, so much more! We ended the day with a wonderful T&L group dinner to reflect on our day and unpack some of our learning. We will all be up late tonight polishing our presentations and modifying based on what we learned/heard today. Tomorrow we begin our presentations at the university! Wish us luck!

Aside:  Our view at lunch was looking out over the sea with the sun shining and palm trees blowing in the wind!  It is BEAUTIFUL here!

 A large campaign to build Mandela values in the new generation aimed to build Mandela's legacy. Love it!

Cheryl Foxcroft and Dr. Austin brainstorming something brilliant! The woman, Amanda, in the background was part of Dr. Austin's first class (a week long) at NMMU! She was very excited to share her scholarship of teaching and learning with us!

 Inese and Michelle diligently taking notes during the retreat.

 Dr. Austin pointing out many "important questions" during her 2 hour presentation today.

The view from our restaurant at dinner (with Gangnam Style blaring in the background while the choreographed fountains danced)!

Student Affairs Day 2

Today was a great day. We kicked off the day with Jennifer Winstead discussing the co-curricular transcript. Then Bernell and Mike presented to student leaders on marketing their leadership skills in the job search. In the afternoon we got to visit one of NMMU's community outreach sites Zama, which is an art education program for children in the township. Finally Mike and Bernell presented again to supplemental instruction leaders. There were many great conversation had today with both students staff, looking forward to learning more in the coming days.

Our first day as a group

I don't think any of us were fully aware of what today would be. We went onto the NMMU campus for the first time today and joined a group of fourth year students (called their honor year which starts after their third year of undergrad) and we all went through a very interesting module around "The Champion Within" which results in a pledge that each of us will work to carry the lessons of Nelson Mandela within ourselves, our lives, and impact our community.

We all enjoyed getting to know the students:

Tonight was our township tour. I know I'm not alone when I say that the images of poverty brought me to tears. Here are just a few of the pictures:

These men are buying fresh beef.

The number of shacks seem to go on for miles!

We were able to give a little by purchasing african art and jewelry at a small craft shack on site: 

We then went to dinner in the township and had amazing local entertainment:

It was definitely an unforgettable day!!

(I promise there will be more insightful blog posts and  other people blogging on this starting tomorrow... I just didn't want a day to pass without sharing/showing what happened today and it is very late here).