Visualizing Design: Scaffolding faculty engagement in course (re)design

November 13, 2020

Teaching centers can help faculty engage in thoughtful teaching approaches by providing resources that facilitate ideation and planning around teaching and learning. Faculty often have multiple competing demands on their time; therefore, customizable templates may prove effective in supporting faculty course redesigns, particularly when rapid modifications to course design are needed. This presentation highlights an approach to scaffolding faculty engagement in course (re)design using visual organizers that guide faculty as they articulate learning outcomes, create and align learning activities and assessments, and write instructional plans. Participants will receive information and resources that will help them create templates for their settings.

Pivotal Pedagogy: A Compassionate Change Framework for Managing Classroom Disruptions

November 13, 2020

The poster describes Pivotal Pedagogy, a two-week online seminar for faculty developed in response to COVID-19. Pivotal Pedagogy encourages faculty to anticipate change and provides approaches for a quick pivot in response. Drawing on crisis communication theory, trauma-informed pedagogy and research on blended, flipped, and hybrid instruction, Pivotal Pedagogy advocates for content and strategies that complement face-to-face instruction and promote meaningful learning, while providing intellectual challenge and support for students. The poster describes outcomes, modules, assessment procedures, and assessment data collected from over 160 full-time faculty participants attending the seminar.

The Statement of Teaching Priorities: A Foundation for Evaluating Teaching

November 13, 2020

What is your institution's definition of good teaching? Exploring faculty's ideas and values regarding teaching can be a fruitful first step in the process of developing a program of teaching evaluation. At Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University, the Center for Innovative Teaching & Engagement led faculty through an iterative process of crafting a community teaching philosophy. This poster emphasizes the value of institutional teaching statements and describes an effective process for their development.

Assessing Learning Outcomes for Teaching Assistant Trainings: A Multitiered Approach

November 13, 2020

In our longstanding graduate teaching assistant (TA) development program, we recently implemented a multitiered training evaluation framework in order to link articulated learning objectives to cognitive and affective outcomes assessment for TAs that complete our training. With the Kirkpatrick Model, typically used in business settings, we evaluated outcomes in the three lowest tiers of the model: participants' 'reaction', 'learning' and 'behavior'. In this session, we will present this evaluation framework, describe how we have integrated it into our program, and share preliminary results. We will facilitate small-group discussions about learning outcomes and their assessment for TA training programs.

Laying the foundations: Impact of core pedagogy training for TAs

November 12, 2020

This session presents the results of a year-long evaluation of a series of five discipline-neutral pedagogy workshops, the Foundations Series, delivered at UCLA's Center for the Advancement of Teaching. These workshops were developed to address a gap in basic pedagogy training for GTAs provided at the departmental level. Survey results showed significant gains in knowledge of pedagogy topics and confidence in implementing strategies. Interviews and focus group participants echoed workshop usefulness and the implementation of specific strategies learned, while highlighting potential program improvements. Session visitors will be invited to consider the possibilities and challenges of enacting evaluations of campus-wide programming.

How is Teaching Effectiveness Assessed in Tenure-Track Hiring?

November 12, 2020

This session reports on a CTL action research study that examined how academic hiring committees consider a candidate's teaching effectiveness for tenure-track, assistant professor positions. We report on a nationwide survey of 168 hiring committee chairs from 9 different disciplines, and use this data to provide recommendations for preparing teaching philosophy statements and diversity and inclusion statements. Implications of this work are relevant for anyone entering the academic job market as well as for CTL's providing consultations to individuals on the job market or delivering programs to prepare future faculty.

Getting On the Balcony: Adaptive Leadership and Curriculum Reform

November 12, 2020

Curriculum reform -- typically a high-stakes enterprise -- can be challenging in today's climate. However, the theory of adaptive leadership empowers educational developers to successfully identify, analyze, and address "systemic problems with no ready answers" (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997). A flexible paradigm coined by business and public policy experts, adaptive leadership empowers us to approach curriculum design and development as an "adaptive challenge" (Wolfe, 2015). Using our flagship graduate program's ongoing reform as a case study, our interactive session encourages participants to reflect on their own adaptive challenges and, collaboratively, articulate innovative solutions to common obstacles to organizational change.

Teaching while Black: The Politics of Storytelling in Learning Communities

November 12, 2020

In higher education's endeavors to become more inclusive and equitable, it is critical for members of marginalized groups to share stories, build community, and co-create strategies for transformation. This interactive session will discuss the possibilities and challenges of such programs for instructors of color, with many lessons from a learning community of Black instructors entitled, "Teaching while Black," hosted jointly by Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching and the Bishop Johnson Black Cultural Center. This session will ask participants to explore collaboratively different learning community models for inclusion and equity, and the potential of storytelling in negotiating trauma, critique, and change.

Observing Critical Teaching Behaviors: What Does Good Teaching Look Like?

November 11, 2020

Educational developers, faculty, and administrators regularly observe teaching and provide formative or evaluative feedback. Many tools are available to guide observers, but rigidly defined guidelines often fail to flexibly encompass disciplinary differences and instructor preferences. The Critical Teaching Behavior (CTB) observation tools are grounded in the CTB framework, developed to help faculty and administrators identify, document, and assess effective teaching behaviors. Peer review guidelines create a structured, transparent process for giving and receiving holistic feedback that identifies teaching strengths and clear goals for development. The CTB observation incorporates self-assessment to promote reflection and integrates faculty voice in the observation process.

The Faculty Portfolio as a Site for Collaborative Faculty Development

November 11, 2020

The portfolio is a required reappointment, tenure, or promotion document for most faculty, involving reflection on teaching practice as well as on short and long term goals for research. This session explores how faculty developers can facilitate an intensive/retreat in which participants work with faculty mentors on writing and revising their portfolios. The portfolio intensive/retreat is designed to provide structured reflective writing activities on pedagogy, research goals, and other areas. It also provides developmental readings and discussion to help faculty embrace new teaching strategies when they are most receptive to learning and adopting them.