ApprovedTeaching@IUPUI Webinars: 

Registration information for webinars and workshops desribed below will be available on the  Events Page.

 

Introduction to Classroom Assessment Techniques

Classroom assessment techniques provide faculty with feedback on what, how much, and how well their students are learning. Instructors can use this feedback to modify their teaching to improve student learning. Students can use it to learn more effectively. In this online mini-workshop session, participants will learn how to implement the “minute paper,” “muddiest point,” “think-pair-share,” and other quick ways to assess and enhance learning. Questions and discussion will be encouraged. 

Lecturing with the Learner in Mind

Among the most basic forms of teaching practice, the effective lecture can still prove difficult to master. Composing and delivering lectures with student needs in mind, however, can help to increase student engagement and content retention. This online mini-workshop will offer ideas and considerations for creating lectures that help students achieve learning goals, with time for questions and discussion.  

Creating Rubrics

Using rubrics increases grading transparency, consistency, and efficiency while encouraging students to link assignments to learning objectives and become more critical assessors of their own work. However, many faculty feel that creating a rubric and using it effectively requires time and effort that they cannot spare. In this online mini-workshop, participants will learn some basic principles for quickly creating effective rubrics that will make assessing student work faster, more consistent, and more rewarding. Questions and discussion will be encouraged. 

Teaching Metacognitive Skills

Metacognition refers to how learners think about and monitor their own knowledge, a process which has been shown to improve students’ learning. Metacognitive skills involve assessing the demands of a task, evaluating one’s own knowledge and skills, planning an approach, monitoring one’s progress, and adjusting strategies as needed to complete the task. Participants will learn how to blend metacognitive skill instruction with content instruction by using strategies such as instructor modeling of reflection, student self-reflection, visual organizers, formative assessments, and more. 

Best Practices for Slide Show Presentations

Slide show presentations such as ones prepared in PowerPoint are ubiquitous but not always supportive of learning. In this session, participants will discover evidence-supported slide show presentation techniques that will encourage learning and promote engagement. To make the most of this session, participants should have proficiency with PowerPoint, Keynote or similar slide show authoring tools.

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is associated with higher academic achievement and student engagement, in both face-to-face and online learning environments, and has been found to have a positive impact on a wide variety of students. In this session, participants will learn the basics of designing collaborative learning tasks, evaluating collaborative learning, and dealing with common problems associated with collaborative learning. Additionally, specific collaborative learning techniques appropriate for discussions, problem-solving, and writing will be discussed and modeled. Strategies for both online and face-to-face settings will be addressed.  

Designing Assignments

Creating assignments that align with and allow for the accurate assessment of learning objectives requires careful planning. Such planning can help improve student understanding of your expectations, student achievement of your learning objectives, and can also set the stage for a smoother assessment process. This webinar will review methods for designing or refining assignments to target specific objectives, for communicating critical assignment components to students, and for scaffolding assignments to help students achieve intended learning outcomes.

Creating a Syllabus

A syllabus is often the first impression that students form of a course, and it serves both faculty and student as a guide to and contract for the semester. A well designed and personalized syllabus can help faculty set the proper tone while simultaneously helping them avoid having to repeatedly answer basic student questions about expectations, policies, and deadlines. By examining syllabi from various disciplines, this online mini-workshop will offer tips and considerations for effective syllabus design, show example syllabi, and include time for questions and discussion. 

Evidence-based instructional practices in STEM

“An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching” is an open, online course designed to provide future STEM faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with an introduction to effective teaching strategies and the research that supports them.  The goal of the eight-week course is to equip the next generation of STEM faculty to be effective teachers, thus improving the learning experience for the thousands of students they will teach.

“Advancing Learning Through Evidence-Based STEM Teaching” will provide graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) who are planning college and university faculty careers with an introduction to “teaching as research”—the deliberate, systematic, and reflective use of research methods to develop and implement teaching practices that advance the learning experiences and outcomes of both students and teachers. Participants will learn about effective teaching strategies and the research that supports them, and they will learn how to collect, analyze, and act upon their own evidence of student learning.  

Workshops:

Writing a Teaching Philosophy/Statement

A teaching philosophy is a self-reflective expression of a faculty member’s beliefs and experiences that have shaped his or her values and teaching and learning strategies. By contrast, a teaching statement makes the case that the writer has achieved excellence in his or her teaching. The statement explains how the writer’s teaching philosophy has been put into practice, providing specific evidence to demonstrate successful student learning. Both of these documents are often used as part of a job application, a promotion and tenure dossier, a teaching award nomination, and even course syllabi. In this two-hour workshop, participants will explore and begin to answer the fundamental questions that inform both a teaching philosophy and a teaching statement. Participants will begin to identify discipline-appropriate benchmarks for excellence in teaching as well as evidence that they have met these benchmarks in their own teaching. Participants will leave with a body of text that they can then develop into a full teaching philosophy or statement.

Documenting Your Teaching

This session introduces approaches to documenting one’s teaching. Participants will examine different approaches to capture evidence of teaching and learning, and to make the case for teaching achievements. Participants will consider how to shape their evolution as teachers through the use of student course evaluations, peer reviews of teaching, and other means of measuring student learning.