Presented:

• EdgeCon Winter. Princeton University. Princeton, NJ. 9 January 2025.
• EdgeCon Spring. Seton Hall University. West Orange, NJ. 10 April 2025.

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS

Leveraging Your LMS

Challenge: Faculty Have to Access

• LMS (e.g., Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, Moodle)
• CRM (e.g. Starfish, Salesforce)
• Email (e.g., Outlook, Gmail)
• College/University Website
• Students (e.g., Remind)

Don’t add another destination!

Digital Solution: CTL on Canvas

Virtual Roundtables

One-hour topic-specific organic conversations led by CTL and subject experts.

Challenges: Meeting and Attendance

• Full-time faculty have differing schedules.
• Adjunct faculty have other jobs.
• Online instructors live out of town.
• Satellite centers and campuses are far away.

Digital Solution: Microsoft Teams or Zoom or Google Meet

In-Person Special Sessions

Challenges: What do faculty need?

Obvious Solutions: Interpersonal Communication

• Ask them! (e.g., SurveyMonkey, MS Forms)
• Open line of commination for requests.

Digital Solution: AI-Aided Research

Use AI like a research assistant. Be as specific with parameters as you would with a student. (e.g., Cite sources and use only industry publications and peer-reviewed journals from 2022-present.

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DATA AND RESEARCH

Top Five Key Professional Development Needs Among College Faculty

1. Teaching and Pedagogical Skills
2. Technology Integration
3. Student Success and Career Preparation
4. Developing Inclusive Teaching Practices
5. Research and Scholarly Activities Support

(Bakso, Clarkson, Eynon et al., Hochstaeter)

Social Media in Higher Education

• 55% of college faculty use social media in a professional context outside of teaching.
• 65% of college professors use social media for teaching in their classrooms.
• 70% of faculty use social media for personal purposes.
• 85% of higher education institutions use social media for academic and professional purposes.

(Bakso, Clarkson, Eynon et al., Hochstaeter)

The Average College Professor

The average age of college professors in the United States is 46.

Age Distribution:

• 40+: 67%
• 30-40: 21%
• 20-30: 11%

(“College Professor,” Flaherty )

Most-Used Social Platforms by Age Group (Other than YouTube*)

*YouTube is number-one across all age groups. (It is also the second-largest search engine.)

Age 18-29

1. Instagram
2. Facebook

Age 30-49

1. Facebook
2. Instagram

Age 50-64

1. Facebook
2. Instagram

Age 65+

1. Facebook
2. Pinterest (really.)

Social Media and Age Data Tell a Story

• We are using the same platforms as our students.
• Social media is an opportunity to be relevant to our students.
• Social media is an integral part of our professional lives.
• Opportunities abound for the CTL to support faculty.
  • Examples:
    • Faculty profiles.
    • Assessments.
    • Video lectures.

CTL Programming Based on Social Media Data

Faculty Headshot Event

• We are using the same platforms as our students.
• Social media is an integral part of our professional lives.

CTL Program: Faculty Headshots

A professional photographer visits campus every fall so faculty can update their headshots for social media and
the LMS.

Best Practices for Video Engagement
(Based on Social Media Data)

Remember, YouTube is #1 across all age groups. (It is also the second-largest search engine.)

Video by the Numbers

• 82% of all internet traffic in 2022 was video consumption (up from 73% pre-pandemic).
• 89% of internet users in the U.S. watched online videos in 2022.
• 2.6 billion+ people around the world use YouTube every month.
• 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
• 97.8% of U.S. internet users aged 18 to 24 consider themselves to be digital video viewers.
• 86% of US viewers frequently use YouTube to learn new things.

(Lukan, “Social Media”)

Why Video in Teaching and Learning

• Viewers retain 95% of a message when watching a video (compared to 10% reading text).
• Visual content is processed by the human brain 60,000 times faster than text.
• When there’s a visual overlay on screen, there’s an 80% chance viewers will look at it. 
• Personalized videos are 35% more likely to retain viewers.
• 94.67% of students report using YouTube in their education.

Keep it Short (No 45-minute lectures! You know who you are.)

• Globally, more than half of all produced videos (56%) are shorter than 2 minutes.
• Short and concise video content increases focus and encourages long-term information retention by 80%.

(Lukan, Greeves and Oz)

Recommendations for Success

• Upload video lectures to YouTube in addition to LMS.
• Use video lectures on LMS for on-ground classes and online classes.
• Create playlists and offer “learn more” links on LMS.
• Become an education influencer.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Keep growing your CTL with data and digital.
2. Leverage video conferencing when needed.
3. Create a one-stop CTL depot in your LMS.
4. Research top topics for professional development.
5. Use social media.
6. Learn and implement video best practices.

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Works Cited

Basko, Aaron. “The Case for Requiring Professional Development.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 January 2022. www.chronicle.com/article/the-case-for-requiring-professional-development 

Clarkson, Kari. “3 Ways to Make Professional Development Meaningful for Faculty.” D2L, 17 February 2023. www.d2l.com/blog/3-ways-to-make-professional-development-meaningful-for-faculty/

“College Professor Demographics and Statistics in the U.S.” Zippia: The Career Expert, 2025. www.zippia.com/college-professor-jobs/demographics/

Eynon, Bret, Jonathan Iuzzini, H. Ray Keith, Eric Loepp, and Nicole Weber. “Teaching, Learning,  Equity and Change: Realizing the Promise of Professional Learning.” Every Learner Everywhere, 17 January 2023. www.everylearnereverywhere.org/resources/teaching-learning-equity-and-change-realizing-the-promise-of-professional-learning/

Flaherty, Colleen. “The Aging Faculty.” Inside Higher Ed, 26 January 2020. www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/01/27/aging-faculty

Greeves, Scott and Mustafa Oz. “YouTube in Higher Education: Comparing Student and Instructor Perceptions and Practices.” Frontiers in Education, vol. 8, 7 January 2024. www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1330405/full

Hochstaeter, Brittany. “Faculty Professional Development into the Next Decade.” Community College Daily. 29 March 2023. www.ccdaily.com/2023/03/faculty-professional-development-into-the-next-decade/

Lukan, Ema. “50 Video Statistics You Can’t Ignore In 2025.” Synthesia, 6 December 2024. www.synthesia.io/post/video-statistics

“Social Media Fact Sheet: Tech Adoption Trends.” Pew Research Center, 13 November 2024. www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/