SRU hosting ‘new normal’ education and training workshop July 28

Slippery Rock University is hosting a virtual workshop, July 28, to help people engage students, employees or any type of learner in the COVID-19 pandemic environment.

June 24, 2020

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. — Slippery Rock University is hosting a virtual workshop to help people engage students, employees or any type of learner in the COVID-19 pandemic environment. The event, titled "Best Practices for Education and Training Dealing with the New Normal," will take place July 28, via Zoom, at an afternoon time to be determined.

"It's necessary as we adapt to a 'new normal' for people to come together and share their expertise," said Erin Strain, director of leadership development, and co-organizer of BPTEN2. "If we are lifelong learners, then why wouldn't we want to find new and better ways to perform our jobs, especially in these changing times?"

The event's other co-organizer, Nitin Sukhija, assistant professor of computer science, has experience facilitating workshops for regional, national and international audiences. Rather than limit the BPTEN2 workshop to the SRU community, he decided to open up participation to presenters and attendees from those on campus and beyond.

"There's no time or 'me, me, me;' progress is made as 'we,'" Sukhija said. "We're trying to be collaborative and help each other when it comes to sharing new approaches to what we do, including the effective delivery of online education. There's a lot of people who say, 'Oh, we did X, Y and Z,' and this event provides a place to share solutions and provide different perspectives on subject matter."

Sukhija also encourages students to participate because they can provide feedback on what works well and what doesn't when it comes to receiving education in different formats.

Topics will include, but will not be limited to:

• Scalable and sustainable approaches for training and education.
• Recruiting and retaining diverse individuals and communities.
• Emerging online environments and tools for education and training.
• Delivering effective hands-on labs and practical activities.
• Identifying training and education gaps.
• Evaluation, assessment of training and instructional materials.
• Security, procedures and legal issues involved in online training.

People interested in presenting can submit proposals as 150-word abstracts through an online form by July 6. An online registration form for people interested in registering as attendees is also available and it will be updated with an agenda of accepted proposals after July 6.

MEDIA CONTACT: Justin Zackal | 724.738.4854 | justin.zackal@sru.edu