Pedagogy Luncheons

Thursday, September 28th (Evans-Lively)

Practical Strategies for Teaching with Kindness & Respect

What does it mean to teach students with care and respect in all circumstances while maintaining high academic standards and avoiding burnout? We will discuss what we learned in our Spring 2023 Learning Community about how to approach common teaching challenges such as building classroom chemistry, supporting student mental health, working with challenging students, and maintaining academic rigor. We will suggest practical strategies to address these challenges as well as exercises to connect more deeply with students.

Facilitated by Kaelyn Wiles (SOC), Danielle La Londe (CLA), Eva Cadavid (PHI), John Harney (HIS), Iulia Sprinceana (SPA), Lori Hartmann (IST), and Michelle Burdine (ARS)

Thursday, October 26th (Evans-Lively)

From Career Competencies to Centre Competencies: A Faculty-Driven Approach

How might Centre faculty approach career readiness concepts to develop a holistic education for students? This panel explores the benefits of a faculty-driven perspective of NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) competencies, focusing on the idea of adoption, translation, and collaboration in a pedagogical setting. We will discuss potential futures and pitfalls of dovetailing career competencies into existing assignments and syllabi. The concept of creating a novel set of competencies for Centre will be examined from an interdisciplinary panel. We suggest competencies can serve as a creative catalyst for instruction that can benefit professors and students alike.

Facilitated by Amy Frederick (ARH) and Career Champion Faculty

Tuesday, November 14th (Evans-Lively)

Assigning and Assessing Non-standard Assignments or Creative projects 

We all have standard assignments for our fields; essays, problem sets, lab reports, and other regular assignments are traditional ways of measuring student understanding. Over the past decade, however, the “unessay” or non-traditional assignment has become a more popular assessment tool in higher education.  These assignments can allow students to model analytical skills and subject mastery in ways these traditional assignments cannot, but they can also feel challenging to create and grade effectively.  In this session, Tara will facilitate a discussion about what learning goals these assignments can demonstrate and how we might assess non-standard assignments. Should students be graded on technical proficiency? What does a visual argument look like? How do you compare the effort and thought that some students put into a video with the effort and thought other students put into papers? Tara invites you to bring examples of “unessays” or non-traditional assignments or ideas for assignments you have considered.  

Facilitated by Tara Strauch (History) 

Thursday, February 8th (Evans-Lively)

(Re)norming Attendance Policies to be More Inclusive

One of the few syllabi inclusion policy requirements for our faculty is to include a student attendance policy.  While there are no specific requirements for attendance outlined in the Faculty Handbook, there’s are challenges to setting one’s own attendance policy.   Since the pandemic (and maybe earlier), student requests for mental health breaks and other wellness breaks have risen.  For the most part faculty determine their own attendance policies.  

We want to be compassionate and we want to be inclusive, but is it time for the faculty to define some common parameters, particularly in light of students’ request for mental health days/breaks?

In this interactive, workshop-style, session faculty will work together to define some parameters and think through ways better align policy and one’s teaching practices.  We will discuss the results from the pre-survey.  We will look a few cases (from Kristen Fulfer and Danielle La Londe) of faculty who’ve worked to (re)norm their attendance policies and also work through a set of questions that all of the faculty can engage.

Please note, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence (commonly known as HHMI) grant is generously supporting/covering the cost for this meal.

Some reading for reference:  

Do Mental Health breaks help students?  https://www-chronicle-com.ezproxy.centre.edu/newsletter/teaching/2023-04-27

Student Wellness Tip: Create Mental Health Day Reflections https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/health-wellness/2024/01/05/professor-creates-three-mental-health-day

Pedagogical Wellness https://dtei.uci.edu/initiatives/pedagogical-wellness/

Course Design Factors: Course Design as a Gateway to Student Well-being – Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

Student Mental Health Notes and Resources: https://centreedu-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/o365_ctl_centre_edu/EaEereZgCSNJk8gn-OS0enMBxHTsxWMkl-W8UWiDs_nnAA?e=OHgwyh

Thursday, March 7th (Evans-Lively)

Effective and Equity-Minded Teaching Strategies, Guest Speaker: Dr. Bryan Dewsbury

During our time together we will discuss how teaching that acknowledges the importance of skill development (but transcends that by cultivating ethically minded individuals) is possible. We will use examples for an introductory STEM course that can serve as an inspiration for reconsidering how we can center humanity in our approaches to teaching.

About Dr. Bryan Dewsbury…

Dr. Bryan Dewsbury grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and immigrated to the United States in 1999. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Morehouse College and an Master of Science and PhD in biology from Florida International University. His work focuses on how students (especially those in underrepresented groups) develop perceptions of the world and others, and how these perceptions might in turn affect their engagement with science content, career choices, and ultimately their academic performance. Dr. Bryan Dewsbury is an Associate Professor of Biology at Florida International University where he also the principal investigator of the Science Education and Society research program, which focuses on the social context of teaching and learning in a variety of education contexts. This Pedagogy Luncheon is sponsored by Centre’s Inclusive Excellence 3 grant (IE3) from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in partnership with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.