May 4th’s DOLCE featured James Carey, distinguished professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and Jeanette Ruiz, a lecturer in the Department of Communication.

James Carey’s presentation, “Advanced PowerPoint Techniques: Examples from across the disciplines,” focused on effective principles for faculty to use in their teaching and dissemination of research. James Carey focused especially on design principles, noting that “design is a requirement, not a cosmetic addition.”

Jeanette Ruiz’s presentation, “Moving Online: Some lessons learned,” focused on her experience transforming her interpersonal communication course into a hybrid version, which has already launched, and a fully online version, which will be offered for the first time during the summer of 2018. Jeanette Ruiz offers practical solutions and examples of how to integrate both interaction and a feeling of connection with the instructor when moving a course online. Her talk emphasizes the iterative design of online courses and highlights how she used student feedback to refine and improve her course over multiple iterations.