(re)Connecting by Design

Join us online on Thursday, September 1 at 10:00am as we start a new school year off with a keynote by renowned speaker and educator Flower Darby, who will lead a discussion on how to re-energize our teaching, as many of us return to campus, through the creation of meaningful connections with students. Flower will share concrete strategies and tips to help faculty feel motivated to re-engage, in the face of ongoing challenges in higher education.

As many of us head back to campus this fall, we hope to re-connect with one another with intention; connecting by design rather than by default. What have we learned over the past two years about the value and importance of community? Of having a physical space to gather? What new ways of connecting with our learners and colleagues have we discovered, and how might we take these forward into our future practice? Join us to reflect on and reimagine the ways that we connect with one another, both online and in-person, and to re-invigorate our teaching through building meaningful connections with our learners, and the teaching and learning community at-large.

Flower Darby celebrates and promotes effective teaching in all class formats to include, welcome, and support all students as they learn and succeed. As faculty and an instructional designer, she’s taught community college and university classes for over 24 years in a range of subjects including English,Technology, Leadership, Dance, and Pilates. A seasoned face-to-face and online educator, Darby loves to apply learning science across the disciplines,and to help others do the same.

Flower speaks, writes, presents and consults on teaching and learning theory and practice both nationally and internationally. She has helped educators all over the world become more effective in their work. She is the author, with James M. Lang, of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes, and she’s a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Her new book on emotion science and teaching with technology is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.