Earlier this fall, we asked TWU faculty what kinds of support would be most useful from the Faculty Commons. We’re grateful to the 135 faculty members who responded, especially to those who took the time to describe specific challenges, interests, and ideas.
The survey invited you to select up to three priorities. The table below shows the areas selected most often, and the written responses helped explain what's behind these numbers.
Specifically, you want practical help with
creating more engaging online teaching, especially by building interaction, relationships, and a community of learners without creating an unmanageable workload;
designing authentic, application-based assignments that promote meaningful thinking in the age of generative AI while keeping grading and feedback manageable;
organizing courses in Canvas and using tools such as Gradebook, rubrics, discussions, and peer review more effectively;
sustaining writing productivity through protected time, accountability, feedback, and support moving projects toward publication;
strengthening face-to-face teaching through active learning, discussion, critical thinking, and student engagement, including in large classes;
using Watermark efficiently for specific tasks, including entering activities, updating and formatting CVs, and preparing materials for review;
designing or substantially redesigning courses by aligning objectives, activities, and assessments, improving accessibility, changing modalities, or identifying the highest-leverage place to begin;
preparing for your performance review by clarifying expectations, timelines, narratives, portfolios, and requirements at different career milestones; and
developing SoTL projects from an initial question through IRB, evidence gathering, analysis, and publication.
You also want flexible ways to participate: brief workshops and recordings, hands-on working sessions, individualized assistance, and sustained communities.
We’re now using these results to develop both short- and long-term goals for the Faculty Commons. That work includes identifying what we can address quickly, what will require sustained planning or partnerships, and what kinds of support best fit each need.
We’ll share those goals as they take shape: we’re developing a dashboard where you can keep track of how we're responding and when, and we'll include updates in our monthly newsletter and weekly bulletin.
Keep an eye on the Faculty Commons newsletter and weekly bulletin for regular updates—and please keep telling us what would be useful.