TBD
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participant
schedules

OBSERVATION CIRCLES: Developing Our Teaching through Constructive Observation Practices

Curious about how other faculty create dynamic lectures, facilitate effective discussions, or enact powerful active learning? Or trying something new yourself, and looking for thoughtful, confidential feedback?

Observation circles are very simple: faculty are put into teams of three, coordinating a series of visits to each other’s classroom. The goal is to provide each other with confidential, formative feedback on how we can make our classes and our teaching more effective. Previous participants have found Observation Circles to be a stress-free way to improve their work and to deepen collegiality.

Interested? E-mail phanstedt@wlu.edu, subject line “Observation Circles.” Be sure to include your department and your schedule for winter term.

Dates: TBD

Location: TBD

“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”—Angela Y. Davis

As educators, we need to ask: what it does it mean to be truly inclusive and where does one start? Anti-racism is continuous work, requiring active seeking and questioning of society and of ourselves, at times leading us to places of discomfort and frustration. However, through that engagement, productive conversation and curricular changes occur that truly promote a more inclusive environment. In this group, we will read and discuss works that engage with anti-racism and connect those messages and methodologies to pedagogy, thereby modeling ways to integrate anti-racism into the classroom and our daily lives. Readings will be manageable lengths (15-20 pages— however the content may take time to digest.

Interested? E-mail Dr. Adrienne Merritt at amerritt@wlu.edu.

Dates:

• 1/14/20
• 2/4/20
• 2/18/20
• 3/10/20
• 3/31/20

4:30-6:00 PM

Ruscio Center for Global Learning 123

SMALL TEACHING DINNER SEMINAR

What is SMALL TEACHING: EVERYDAY LESSONS FROM THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING? It’s a book by James Lang, a leading voice in the scholarship of teaching and learning, using the best science on classroom techniques to argue that we don’t have to make huge changes in our classes to deepen student learning.

What is the “Small Teaching Seminar”? It’s CARPE’s inaugural dinner/book club, a series of five linked sessions built around a tasty dinner and Lang’s book, designed to allow any professor in any discipline to strengthen long-term learning. Everyone who signs up for the seminar will receive a copy of Lang’s book.

Though we recognize that not all enrollees will be able to attend every session, attendees are encouraged to make space for as many of the dinners as possible, recognizing the power of collaboration and community to strengthen both our learning and our practice. 

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteachingseminar

8:30 AM –
4:00 PM

Ruscio Center for Global Learning 114

POGIL TRAINING SEMINAR—Strengthening Student Learning through a Proven Classroom Approach

POGIL is an acronym for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. Because POGIL is a student-centered instructional approach, in a typical POGIL classroom or laboratory students work in small teams with the instructor acting as a facilitator. The student teams use specially designed activities that generally follow a learning cycle paradigm. Developed in Chemistry before expanding to fields throughout the disciplines, the POGIL approach has two broad aims: to develop content mastery through student construction of their own understanding, and to develop and improve important learning skills such as information processing, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and metacognition and assessment. 

Interested in learning more? Faculty from all disciplines are invited to attend this comprehensive, full-day workshop over winter break led by experienced POGIL facilitator and Professor of Chemistry Gail Webster of Guilford College.

Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/pogil.

4:30-5:30 PM 

Northen Auditorium

James G. Leyburn Library

TEACHING DISTRACTED MINDS—A LECTURE BY JAMES LANG

As faculty struggle with the problem of distracted students on our campuses and in our classes, they have become increasingly frustrated by the ways in which digital devices can interfere with student learning. But are students today more distracted than they were in the past? Has technology reduced their ability to focus and think deeply, as some popular books have argued? Drawing upon scholarship from history, neuroscience, and education, this lecture explores productive new pathways for faculty to understand the distractible nature of the human brain, work with students to moderate the effects of distraction in their learning, and even leverage the distractible nature of our minds for new forms of connected and creative thinking.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.  He is the author of five books, the most recent of which is Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education and has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than a hundred colleges and universities in the US and abroad.

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteaching

8:00-9:30 AM or 12:00-
1:30 PM

Science Addition 202A (8:00 AM) or Hillel House
101
(12:00 PM)

SMALL TEACHING: FROM MINOR CHANGES TO MAJOR LEARNING

Research from the learning sciences and from a variety of educational settings suggests that a small number of key principles can improve learning in almost any type of college or university course, from traditional lectures to flipped classrooms.  This workshop—offered at two different times and locations—will introduce some of those principles, offer practical suggestions for how they might foster positive change in higher education teaching and learning, and guide faculty participants to consider how these principles might manifest themselves in their current and upcoming courses.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.  He is the author of five books, the most recent of which is Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education and has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than a hundred colleges and universities in the US and abroad.

Interested? Sign up at http://go.wlu.edu/smallteaching