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Information for New Faculty

This document, designed for new faculty to Colby provides an overview of the Center for Teaching and Learning and its services.

Peer Review of Teaching

The Center for Teaching and Learning has constructed a set of resources useful when engaging in peer review of colleagues’ teaching (such as when being reviewed for promotion or retention). Follow the links below to access these resources:

  • General Recommendations for Peer Review of Teaching (Google Doc)
  • Peer Review of Teaching I: Why do we engage in peer review of teaching? (Google Doc)
  • Peer Review of Teaching II: Recommended Strategies and Approaches for Peer Review (Google Doc)
  • Peer Review of Teaching III: Peer Review Rubrics, Methods, and Worksheets (Google Doc)
  • Potential Biases in Peer Reviews of Teaching (Google Doc)

Resources For Course Design

The Center for Teaching and Learning regularly works with faculty to design their courses, especially in the context of our Course (re)Design Institutes. Below are a set of resources the CTL often provides to improve pedagogical practice:

Other Frequently Recommended Resources

In addition to resources developed by Colby’s Center for Teaching and Learning, in our work we frequently recommend resources developed by practitioners and scholars elsewhere. Here are a few topics on which we often provide suggestions to instructors, and links to resources from elsewhere:

The Center for Teaching and Learning has a supply of Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique forms, commonly referred to as IF-ATs. These forms allow students and instructors alike to get an impression of where students’ understanding is relatively strong versus weak. If you would like some IF-AT forms to use in your courses, reach out to the CTL ([email protected]). The CTL can also provide you with a login to the IF-AT Testmaker to help you construct your own assessment with the IF-AT forms.

Community agreements are methods of establishing a mutual understanding of the expectations and modes of behavior in a gathering, group, or class. They are often partially or fully created by the group at hand. They are useful for building community, and they can reduce the likelihood of interpersonal or intergroup conflict, which is often valuable in classes with “charged” topics. The CTL has compiled some resources on community agreements in this Google Drive folder.

Because of differences in disciplinary utility and personal philosophy, Colby does not have a policy on AI use in courses, but has come up with resources and considerations about these tools (Provost Office website). Official policies that preclude the use of AI at a college or university are difficult to uphold, because many technology tools use AI (e.g., Google, Microsoft), so “preventing” the use of AI is often impossible.

When it comes to AI tools, the Center for Teaching and Learning would recommend some reflection on what you think is acceptable related to AI for your courses. As some food for thought, see some of the following resources that could be useful:

  • One piece worth considering is how AI writing fits in, or does not fit in, with your values.
  • Another is a piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about whether one should add an AI policy to one’s syllabus, complete with a lot of perspectives worthy of consideration.
  • Another piece suggests options for policies or practices that you might implement. Within this piece there is a link to a syllabus template from the institution of origin for this article, complete with examples or more or less lenient policies that you might endorse.
  • Another is an assignment that, if you wish to address how AI functions, might be of use. It was developed by the psychology professor Dr. Morton Ann Gernsbacher, and it’s available here. 

In addition to these resources, if you’d like to think more concretely about the impact of AI on writing in your course, I’d encourage you to reach out to the Chair of our Writing Department, Stacey Sheriff ([email protected]).