Workshops and Roundtable Discussions

Most syllabi provide students with the texts and reading assignments that will form the core of their exploration into the key concepts of a course. However, many Colby students indicate in mid-semester feedback sessions that they should be reading more closely, but are unsure as to how to do this effectively. During this session we will workshop what it means to do a close reading of a text, ways that to support close reading behaviors, and strategies students can use to engage more meaningfully into their reading assignments.

• Wednesday, December 4 – 12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Bullock Room (Dana Dining Hall)
• Thursday, December 5 – 8 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Bullock Room (Dana Dining Hall)

Facilitator: Carol A. Hurney Ph.D., Director, Center for Teaching and Learning

Registration Form: https://forms.gle/vGYuw624ARBZF9EG9

It’s okay to arrive a bit late or leave early.

The call for “open education” has become increasingly widespread in higher education. But what is open education? In what sense can education be “open?” What does the movement toward open education mean for teaching? Can open education serve as a valuable guide for pedagogy? What does it have to say about course design, content, assignments, and assessments? How does open education understand access and inclusion, and can it help us to make teaching more accessible and more inclusive? This roundtable discussion will examine these and other questions, working to build an understanding of open education and its pedagogical implications.

• Thursday, November 21- 8 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Bullock Room (Dana Dining Hall)
• Friday, November 22- 12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Robins Room, (Roberts Hall) (LOCATION CHANGE)

Facilitator: Kevin Murray, Center for Teaching and Learning Postdoctoral Fellow

Registration Form: https://forms.gle/4KwbcPFf9KWbN1Nc7

It’s okay to arrive a bit late or leave early.

Office hours are an integral part of the Colby experience, yet many students do not use office hours or do not understand the role of office hours in the learning process. This roundtable will examine ways to make office hours more accessible to your students, clarify the role of office hours in the learning for your courses, and enhance the office hours experience for you and your students.

Registration Link: https://forms.gle/hnLRrezD599FVDBr6

Facilitator: Carol A. Hurney, Ph.D., Director, Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates/Locations: 

• Tuesday, September 24, 12-1:30 p.m. in the Bullock Room, Dana Dining Hall (lunch provided) or
• Wednesday, September 25, 12-1:30 p.m. in the Bullock Room, Dana Dining Hall (lunch provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early

The potential for a more engaging and inclusive learning experience is already in your classroom. Semi-structured facilitation from undergraduate “learning assistants” enhances student learning and provides faculty members with a new perspective on their course. Participants in this workshop will experience the benefits of peer and near peer learning and consider the ways that learning assistants can streamline course planning, enhance opportunities for active learning, and bring equitable and rapid feedback to students.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/jHDHjw6NAiMYERbf1

Facilitator: Lynn Mandeltort, Ph.D. – Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bates College

Dates:

• Friday, April 5, 8:30-10:00a.m., Miller Library, Room 208 (Light breakfast provided) or
• Friday, April 5,12-1:30p.m., Miller Library, Room 208 (Lunch provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early

Led by Ronald Mace in 1997, a group of scientists, architects and designers outlined principles of universal design that continue to inform the inclusion of all students in higher education. Putting these principles into practice often highlights questions of fairness and equity that contradict belief systems found in higher education. At this roundtable, participants will explore central ideas of Universal Design such as access and equity and how they implicate practices and policies in academia.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/TtVau2pays5NS2sJ3

Facilitator: Kate McLaughlin, Associate Director of Student Access & Disability Services

Dates

• Thursday, Feb. 21 from 8-9:30 a.m., in Bullock Dining Room, Dana Hall (breakfast provided)
• Friday, Feb. 22 from 12-1:30 p.m., in Bullock Dining Room, Dana Hall (lunch provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early.

Assessing student learning using exams, quizzes or tests is common in many courses and disciplines. However, simply giving students an exam does not ensure that students learn all of the material they need to succeed in the next parts of your course or in future courses. This workshop explores creating a “Two-Stage” exam process, where students take the exam a second time, with a twist. Participants will explore the kinds of “Two-Stage” twists they can use to promote deep and reflective learning practices in their courses.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/jHDHjw6NAiMYERbf1

Facilitator: Carol Hurney, Ph.D., Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates:

• Thursday, Feb. 28, 8-9:30am, Room 002, Dana Hall (Breakfast provided)
• Friday, March 1, 12-1:30pm, Smith Room, Robert’s Hall (Lunch provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early

Some aspects of our disciplines are challenging for some learners and some concepts seem to form learning bottlenecks. Learning bottlenecks occur when most, if not all, of the students in a course get stuck, confused, or diverted at a particularly important point in a course. If left unattended, learning bottlenecks can make it impossible for students to productively move forward and achieve the desired learning. During this roundtable, we will explore the learning bottlenecks in our disciplines and discuss ways to help students overcome these roadblocks.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/5pBGwBaJvr3j0mEk1

Facilitator: Carol Hurney, Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates:

• Thursday, Dec 6 from 8-9:30 a.m., in Robins Room, Roberts Hall (breakfast provided)
• Friday, Dec 7 from 12:30-2:00 p.m., in Robins Room, Roberts Hall (lunch provided)
• • • •  

As always, feel free to come late and leave early.

Creative artists, teacher educators, and many other faculty from a range of disciplines challenge students to compile examples of their work into portfolios. These portfolios not only reveal the creative process but offer students the opportunity to develop discipline-dependent writing experience, demonstrate learning in novel ways, and support meta-cognitive reflection. In this workshop, we will explore the elements of learning portfolios, while reflecting on ways to effectively integrate this teaching and learning tool into a range of courses. We will also consider how select digital tools can support the development and presentation of portfolios.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/FNApKQQ2Pt7sMtRY2

Facilitators: Carol A. Hurney, Center for Teaching & Learning; Adam Howard, Education Program

Dates:

• Thursday, Nov 29 from 8-9:30 a.m., in Fairchild Room, Dana Hall (breakfast provided)
• Friday, Nov 30 from 12:30-2:00 p.m., in Robins Room, Roberts Hall (lunch provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a concept defined by Shulman in the late 1980’s as the relationship between the knowledge of subject matter, teaching methods and student learning.  Since then many scholars have explored ways of measuring and describing an instructor’s PCK.  Participants will examine select PCK models to reflect their journey as teacher scholars and explore how disciplinary expertise can be leveraged to develop high impact learning experiences for students.

Registration Link: http://www.cvent.com/d/sbq724/4W

Facilitators: Carol Hurney, Ph.D., Director, Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates: 

• Tuesday, Oct 2 from 12-1:30 in DANA-042 Bullock (Lunch Provided)
• Friday, Oct 5 from 12-1:30 in DANA-042 Bullock (Lunch Provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early.

Where: DANA-042 Bullock

Insights from mid-semester analysis conversations with Colby students from a range of disciplines and the Center for Teaching & Learning director reveal some common sources of academic anxiety. Specifically, students express concerns on how best to prepare for class, the role of office hours, and what to get out of course readings. Join Carol Hurney (Director, Center for Teaching and Learning) and Kate McLaughlin (Associate Director Student Access and Disability Services) in an interactive session exploring ways you can remove barriers by clarifying your approach to teaching and the best ways to prepare for your class, interact with course readings, and approach office hours.

Registration Link: http://www.cvent.com/d/sbq724/4W

Facilitators: Carol Hurney and Kate McLaughlin

Dates: 

• Thursday, Sept 20 from 8-9:30 in Miller 208 (Light Breakfast Provided)
• Friday, Sept 21 from 12-1:30 in Miller 208 (Lunch Provided)

As always, feel free to come late and leave early.

Where: Miller 208

Raising awareness about the range of multilingual learners at Colby starts by knowing who these students are and what best supports their learning needs. Join a conversation exploring the strategies to understand the landscape of multilingual learners in your classroom and to implement inclusive teaching strategies to support these learners. We will examine this issue from the perspective of inclusion to increase pedagogical awareness of the options available to address the unique needs of this group of learners.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/Dfgt9y08LNRhOjHc2

Facilitators: Ghada Gherwash, Colby Writing Program & Carol Hurney, Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates: 

• Tuesday, March 6 from 12:30-2 in Miller 205 (lunch included)
• Thursday, March 8 from 8:30-10 AM in Miller 208 (light breakfast included)

Arrive late, leave early is fine

Lecturing is one of the main pedagogical tools faculty choose to disseminate course content to students. Given the shift over the past few years to incorporate active learning, some faculty have misinterpreted this shift to active learning to mean that the lecture should be abandoned. However, lecturing should not necessarily be abandoned, but instead made more effective by being dynamic and interactive. This workshop will explore practical strategies to help plan and deliver more engaging, organized and dynamic lectures.

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/jB3Xsy6jjecd8Fqb2 

Facilitator: Carol A. Hurney, Ph.D. Director, Center for Teaching & Learning

When: Thursday February 15, 12-1:30PM or Friday February 16, 8:30-10AM

Where: Grossman 209

The Center for Teaching and Learning invites you to attend a roundtable discussion that explores strategies to document teaching excellence for annual evaluations or tenure and promotion packets. Evaluating teaching is a complex activity that reflects the contours of the academic discipline and instructional goals. Add your voice to this dialogue as we explore formative and summative processes to document excellence including the effective use of course evaluations, mid-semester feedback, and peer evaluations of teaching.

Registration Link: closed

Facilitators: 

Carol Hurney, Director – Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates: 

• Wednesday 11/8 – 8-9:30 (Breakfast provided)
• Friday 11/10 – 12-1:30 (Lunch provided)

Location: Miller 208 (come late, leave early is fine)

Join this roundtable discussion where we will explore what it means to be a scholarly teacher at a small, liberal arts college. Specifically, we will compare scholarly teaching to being a teacher scholar and engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). We will also examine the role pedagogical literature and teaching conferences can play in your journey to fully embrace the scholarly aspects of teaching that best align with your career aspirations.

Registration Link: closed

Facilitator: Carol Hurney, Director – Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates:

• Wednesday 10/4 – 8-9:30 (light breakfast included)
• Friday 10/6 – 12-1:30 (lunch included)

Location: Miller 208 (come late, leave early is fine)

Learn how to leverage the science of learning to maximize the impact of active learning in your courses.  Specifically, this workshop will showcase active learning strategies that (1) leverage students’ prior knowledge, (2) support effective practicing and use of feedback, and (3) help students meaningfully organize and connect new information into their mental models of our disciplines. Don’t expect to sit around during this session – we will all get active as we learn how best to engage our students.

Registration Link: closed

Faciltator: Carol Hurney, Director – Center for Teaching and Learning

Dates: Thursday 9/28 – 8-9:30 (Miller 208, light breakfast included) or Friday 9/29 – 12-1:30 (Miller 008, lunch included)

Location: Miller 208 – Thursday; Miller 008 – Friday (come late, leave early is fine)