2004 January Teaching Workshop

Monday, January 12, 2004

Sponsored by the Teaching Resource Center and the University Teaching Fellows Program.

Approaching our teaching in a scholarly way includes taking time to consider and analyze teaching issues with colleagues. Join us for as many sessions as you can as we explore a wide array of teaching concerns.

8:15-8:50 CHECK-IN AND ON-SITE REGISTRATION, Ruffner Hall Lobby

9:00-9:20 WELCOME, Ruffner Auditorium G004A
J. Milton Adams, Vice Provost for Academic Programs; Biomedical Engineering; Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, 1997

9:30-11:00 CONCURRENT SESSIONS

Leading Discussions/Teaching with Cases, Ruffner 283
Robert Bruner, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and
Executive Director of the Batten Institute; Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, 1994
The best discussions help students self-discover new insights. This session focuses on the foundations of successfully structuring a discussion-based course and leading discussions in the classroom. We will discuss short cases about classic problems in discussion leadership, using vignettes from the classrooms at the Darden School.

Matters of Style: Learning Styles and Active-Learning, Ruffner 175
Janna Levin, TRC Graduate Student Associate; Environmental Science; Outstanding GTA Award, 2003
We can gain a better understanding of ourselves as learners by developing an awareness of how we best absorb, process, and retain new information. More importantly, by knowing ourselves as learners, we can also improve our teaching by gearing our teaching strategies to include all learners. In this session, we will assess our own learning-style preferences and discuss active-learning techniques that address learning-style differences among students in arts, science, and engineering classes.

Building Your Course Back to Front, Ruffner 223
Deandra Little, TRC Faculty Consultant; English
What do you hope students will remember from your course five years from now? How can you build a course for long-term learning? In this workshop, participants will discuss such questions, using the principles of backward design. Participants will examine the deep understandings they want their students to gain and work backwards, beginning with assessment methods and then on to course material and activities.

Meditation--A Pause that Re-flexes, Ruffner 281
John Alexander, Manager of Instructional Technology, ITC
Rachel Saury, Director of the Arts & Sciences Center for Instructional Technologies; Slavic
Chris Jackson, TRC Graduate Student Associate; English; Seven Society Graduate Fellowship Award Semifinalist
What tools do we have to help our students be more poised, creative, or resourceful? How can we help them maintain perspective, even when the course content is deeply disturbing or their stress levels seem overwhelming? How can we encourage them to engage with new ideas rather than to misuse their intelligence by resisting the new? Join us in this workshop to learn about ways to integrate a variety of techniques of meditation and deep reflection into course activities. During the workshop, you will experience and reflect on some of these techniques, even as you consider how you might integrate them into your particular course(s).

11:10-12:40 CONCURRENT SESSIONS

Using Psychology to Teach Anything, Ruffner 283
Jonathan Haidt, Dept. of Psychology; All-University Teaching Award, 2003
Psychology has been studying learning for over a hundred years, and some of its findings can make you a better teacher. This workshop will present specific tips from cognitive psychology about how memory and attention work, and how you can work with them to optimize learning. But most of the workshop will focus on findings from social psychology, which can help create a social context in which students are engaged and open-minded. Topics will include the importance of norms, emotions, self-disclosure, trust, performance feedback, and moments of moral inspiration.

Scaling the Active Learning Curve, Ruffner 187
Michael S. Palmer, TRC Faculty Consultant; Chemistry
Even faithful practitioners of active learning techniques encounter days when the participants don't participate and when discussion groups don't discuss. But were the hours spent planning the activity a waste of time? Before you scrap your next active learning initiative, consider that the problem may not be in the activity itself. During this session, participants will explore barriers which can inhibit active learning environments, experience some of these barriers firsthand, and discuss ways to alleviate them. Participants will also discuss these issues in the context of their own class.

Teaching Adults Successfully: Lessons Learned at the FBI Academy, Ruffner 281
Gene Klopf, Julie Linkins, David Corderman, FBI Academy Faculty
The FBI Academy offers many courses to law enforcement professionals from around the world: from a 17-week program for new trainees, to one-day workshops for current agents, to undergraduate and graduate courses in criminal justice accredited by U.Va. Challenges to faculty arise from the students' diverse backgrounds and experiences, as well as from the variety of settings. Hear about the pros and cons of various teaching techniques for adult learners that will also work in U.Va. classrooms, including critical thinking, reflection journals, and small group work.

Caught in the Web: Balancing Usefulness and Feasibility, Ruffner 277A
Yitna Firdyiwek, Instructional Technology Group, ITC
Just how useful is a course website? More importantly, how time consuming would it be to create one or even to learn how to do so? In this workshop, we will address these and related questions interactively, as participants access and discuss the relative merits of current faculty course websites and other helpful web teaching tools. We will also present and discuss existing support facilities for faculty members at U.Va., focusing on available resources appropriate for a wide range of technological knowledge and abilities from novice to advanced.

12:40-1:40 LUNCHTIME CONVERSATIONS, Ruffner Lobby
Did you miss a good session? Or want more ideas on a particular topic? To give you an opportunity to talk informally with each other, we have reserved lunchroom space in Ruffner Hall, where many of the morning's presenters will join you for conversations over lunch. Feel free to bring your own lunch; if you ordered a reasonably-priced lunch when you pre-registered, you can pick it up in Ruffner Lobby. Join in the conversation on the topic that most interests you:

Engaging Students Actively, Ruffner 187
Tried and True Teaching Tips, Ruffner 281
Open topic, Ruffner 175

1:45-3:15 CONCURRENT SESSIONS

Question-Framing, Argumentation & Critical Pluralism as Aids to Class Discussion, Ruffner 223
David Rubin, Emeritus Professor of French; Adjunct, University Seminar Program
This workshop proposes three related strategies to engage a humanities or a social science class in penetrating, rigorous, and continuously self-assessing discussion: namely student framing and critique of interpretive questions responses cast (and evaluated) as arguments using a quasi-judicial model of grounds, claim, and warrant (plus optional backup, qualification, and rebuttal) and pluralistic comparisons of questions and arguments to disclose a multiplicity of potentially valid frameworks. The session will model these three moves through the discussion of a brief poem, and participants will leave with a set of methodological handouts.

Developing Your Reflective Statement on Teaching, Ruffner 175
Mandy Hege, TRC Graduate Student Associate; Psychology; Seven Society Graduate Fellowship Award Semifinalist
Who are you when you teach? What is your teaching style? What are your teaching goals? Contemplating these questions can help you become a more effective and self-aware instructor. This session focuses on the components of a reflective statement on teaching, the benefits of writing one, and the how-tos of creating and refining this document. By considering these questions and others, participants will begin to develop their reflective teaching statements.

The Public Voice, Ruffner Auditorium G004A
Judith Reagan, TRC Associate Director; Drama
Public speaking is an ever-present aspect of faculty life. In classrooms and lecture halls, as well as at professional conferences and civic meetings, academics must convey complex material. In this session, participants will engage in vocal, physical, and concentration exercises aimed at increasing our personal connection to the words we speak. We will experiment with various short texts including poems, quotations, and Shakespearean insults.