Certification of completion offered for every session attended in this professional development series

Macmillan Learning, a privately-held, family-owned education publishing and services company announced a new professional development series for educators to help support student engagement and success in college. The virtual “Engage Students to Achieve More” series is free for college faculty and administrators and will explore the techniques and technologies used to support active learning and student engagement in and outside the classroom, as well as timely lessons about effective teaching pedagogies gleaned during the pandemic.

Student engagement continues to be an area of concern due to educators’ diminished ability to work one-on-one with students and the decreasing levels of student motivation and morale versus pre-pandemic. It ranked as instructors greatest challenge in 2020, up from their third greatest challenge just two years ago, according to Digital Promise.

“While student engagement plays an important role in helping students in their coursework, its impact reaches far beyond the classroom,” said Charles Linsmeier, General Manager of Macmillan Learning. “In order to close COVID-19-related learning gaps, educators and student advocates are seeking new ways to best reestablish meaningful connections and timely interventions for deeper learning and engagement with their students. This is even more important with the variability and blending of synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning environments, which is the norm for many institutions for the foreseeable future.”

Throughout the complimentary virtual professional development series, which begins in August and continues throughout the fall, participants will hear about student engagement practices and solutions informed by the experiences of instructors, students, and administrators during the pandemic. The series explores various strategies, methods, and techniques that help increase students’ attention, interest, curiosity, and positive emotional connections to their learning and college communities.

Participants will receive certificates of completion for every session attended. The sessions include:

Returning to Normal? What we should keep from pandemic teaching: Faculty Perspective: Aug. 19 at 1 p.m. ET. In the first of a two-part series, we examine what strategies, methods, and techniques we should keep going forward as well as relevant data points from the faculty perspective. Hear from University of Arkansas at Little Rock Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Heidi Harris and Associate Professor of Political Science at the Rebecca Glazier.

Encouraging Growth Mindsets with Active Learning: Sept 16 at 2 p.m. ET. A student’s mindset has a heavy impact on whether or not they can grow and learn in response to challenges. This session will provide practical tips for using active learning exercises to enhance students’ growth mindset and help foster resilience and flexibility alongside course content subject matter.

Insights and Lessons on College Students’ Sense of Belonging During Covid-19: Sept 21 at 2 p.m. ET. The pandemic created challenges for building connections and community with students both inside and outside the classroom. In this session, we explore a four-part framework as well as a national study on the impact of the pandemic to analyze the challenges and lessons learned related to building community and belonging during the pandemic.

Using Remote Response for Peer Learning: Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. ET. Research has shown that students often learn best from other students. In this webinar, Spellman College Senior Instructor in Mathematics, Kiandra Johnson, will demonstrate how she uses remote response (in her case, iClicker) to facilitate just-in-time learning. This empowers students to be interactive, learn from one another, and get the benefit of students explaining concepts as a regular part of her class time.

Engagement as a Matter of Equity: Fostering student engagement for improved equity and inclusion: Oct. 22 at 1 p.m. ET. Instructional technology can be used to support your institution’s equity and inclusion initiatives in meaningful ways. Hear from University of Louisville Psychology Professor Edna Ross and Instructional Technologist Emily Ravenwood as they explore pandemic-era lessons that can help you create and deliver more inclusive and equitable learning experiences for every student.

Other webinars in the “Engage Students to Achieve More” professional development series include: Returning to Normal? What we should keep from pandemic teaching: Student Perspective; Active Learning in the Math/Stats Classroom; Insights and Lessons on College Students’ Sense of Belonging During Covid-19; Student Lifecycle Assessment Strategies: Early Alerts, Interventions, and Improving Student Outcomes; and Student Affairs Assessment Lessons from the Experiment We Didn’t Want.

The series will provide information about Macmillan Learning’s educational technologies and assessment solutions including its new digital learning platform (Achieve), its classroom response system (iClicker), and its assessment and survey technology (Benchworks). Participants can sign up to participate live or to receive the recording afterwards. New webinars are being added regularly to the fall schedule. To learn more about the webinars or to sign up, click here.

About Macmillan Learning

Macmillan Learning is a privately-held, family-owned company that improves lives through learning. By linking research to learning practice, we develop pioneering products and learning materials for students that are highly effective and drive improved outcomes. To learn more, please visit macmillanlearning.com or join our Macmillan Community.

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In order to close COVID-19-related learning gaps, educators & student advocates are seeking new ways to best reestablish meaningful connections and timely interventions for deeper learning and engagement with their students @MacmillanLearn