Wednesday, February 26, 2025 (Rescheduled)
University of Southern Indiana | Virtual
Program Poster Gallery Presentation Abstracts Abstracts in SOAR
You are invited to the ninth annual Celebration of Teaching & Learning Symposium, hosted virtually by the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. The Symposium includes works focusing on improving and transforming student learning, academic success, and curriculum in higher education as we celebrate the value of teaching and learning. It provides opportunities to share and discuss teaching and learning efforts framed as Teaching Practice or the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) with colleagues from across the region.
The program features lightning and standard presentation sessions, a keynote presentation, and poster discussions. The keynote session "Making Team Projects Work: Tips to Improve Your Student Team Projects" will be presented by Timothy M. Franz, Ph.D. (St. John Fisher University).
Word cloud created from the presentation abstracts
** Update (2.19.25): The Symposium is rescheduled to Wednesday, February 26 since USI campus is closed today due to weather. This is to accommodate participants who may rely on the university for internet and computing resources or have additional responsibilities during the snow day. We look forward to seeing you on February 26. Registration continues to be open.
**Update (2.17.25): With the forecasted snow, we have decided to move the event to a virtual format since many participants would be traveling to Evansville from across the region. We hope that this will provide everyone with the opportunity to participate.
Please note that should the university close due to inclement weather on February 19, the Virtual Symposium will be rescheduled to Wednesday, February 26.
Making Team Projects Work: Tips to Improve Your Student Team Projects
| Presented by Timothy M. Franz, Ph.D., with Lauren Vicker, Ph.D. |  |
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Presentation Slides | Recording Link
A key role of educators is preparing students for today’s world, where a top skill demanded by almost every employer is the ability to work in teams. This session will help instructors learn and develop some of the concepts and tools that can help students to work successfully on team projects. The interactive session will provide several foundational ideas about how to improve team projects in the classroom. In addition, the session will include tips for how to improve team projects when teaching remotely.
About the speakers
Dr. Tim Franz is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist at St. John Fisher University. He is a Professor of Psychology and past chair of graduate Human Resource Development and the undergraduate Departments of Athletic Performance, Criminology/Criminal Justice, and Psychology. He works as an organizational consultant through his consulting organization, Franz Consulting, to develop organizations by improving teamwork and leadership. Prior to his work as a professor, Dr. Franz worked full time as a human resources consultant. He earned his Ph.D. in Social/Organizational Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, his M.A. from the University of Buffalo, and his B.A. from SUNY Oneonta.
His areas of expertise include applied research in organizations, individual and team decision making, improving team performance, improving team leadership, and using teams to drive organizational change. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in many top-tier journals, such as Journal of Applied Psychology and JAMA, as well as many practical papers. He has three books, including Making Team Projects Work: A College Instructor’s Guide to Successful Student Groupwork, (2025, coauthored with Lauren Vicker), Meaningful Partnership at Work: How The Workplace Covenant Ensures Mutual Accountability and Success between Leaders and Teams (August, 2021, coauthored with Seth R. Silver), and Group Dynamics and Team Interventions: Understanding and Improving Team Performance (2nd edition forthcoming) and is currently writing on his fourth, tentatively titled Best Boss: How to Make New Managers into Exceptional Leaders (coauthored with Seth R. Silver).
Dr. Lauren Vicker is a Communications Professor Emerita at St. John Fisher University. Her goal is to provide people with confidence in their interactions with others in a wide range of situations, including her experience with professionals in health care and business. She enjoys biking and is a volunteer with Sun Sounds of Arizona and the Tempe Needlewielders.
Drs. Franz and Vicker coauthored the book Making Team Projects Work: A College Instructor's Guide to Successful Student Groupwork (2024).
You are invited to the Poster Session to learn more and have conversations with the presenters.
Thank you to our 2025 Symposium Committee members, who serve on the organizing committee and as proposal reviewers and session facilitators, and staff providing support!