Our events for 2022-23 are listed below. Feel free to scroll through or navigate directly to a series or program that interests you:
- New Approaches to Grading
- Building a Reflective Teaching Practice
- Active Learning in STEM (workshop series and Faculty Learning Community)
- Academic Innovations Group: Artificial Intelligence and Student Learning
- Quality Enhancement Plan: Critical Thinking
- Graduate Reading Group: Inclusive Teaching
Series: New Approaches to Grading
The Future of Grading? A Virtual Conversation
Thursday, January 19 from 12:00-1:30
Public Zoom Event
Featuring: Susan D. Blum (University of Notre Dame), Joshua Eyler (University of Mississippi), and Courtney Sobers (Rutgers University)
Moderated by Derek Bruff and Emily Donahoe (University of Mississippi)
Join CETL staff and speakers Susan D. Blum, Joshua Eyler, and Courtney Sobers for a virtual, public conversation about grades and (un)grading in higher education: what are our challenges, how are we meeting them, and where do we go from here?
RSVP: Click here to register for The Future of Grading and receive the Zoom link.
Faculty Panel: Alternative Grading Approaches
Wednesday, February 15 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Zoom Event (for UM instructors only–link will be sent to those who register)
Featuring: Colleen Thorndike and Jenny Bucksbarg–Writing & Rhetoric, JT Thomas–Sociology, Eden Tanner–Chemistry & Biochemistry, Darren Grem and Jesse Cromwell–History and Southern Studies, and Sue Ann Skipworth–Political Science
Join us to hear from colleagues across the university who have implemented new models for grading in their courses.
Please click here to RSVP.
Workshop: Getting Started with Alternative Grading Approaches
Wednesday, March 22 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitators: Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support, and Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development and Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Interested in different approaches to grading? Maybe even thinking about trying an alternative grading model in your own course? Join us for a workshop in which we’ll explore your grading approaches as they relate to your teaching values and your philosophy of education. We will also introduce a variety of different grading models and some strategies for implementation.
Please click here to RSVP.
Series: Building a Reflective Teaching Practice
Join us for four workshop-style sessions in which we’ll provide the space, time, tools, and coffee required to engage in reflection on your teaching. Participants will complete a series of reflective activities and may, if they choose, use these to build a teaching portfolio. We ask that those who register commit to attending all (or most) of the four sessions. Please register by Monday, January 23.
Please click here to RSVP for this workshop series.
Session 1: Exploring Your Teaching
Date and Time: Wednesday, February 8 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Location: Lamar 323
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support
In part 1 of this series on Building a Reflective Teaching Practice, we’ll prepare for a semester of teaching reflection and provide structured opportunities to examine your assumptions, values, goals, approaches, experiences, and identities in the classroom.
Session 2: Interpreting Student Evaluations
Date: Wednesday, February 22 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Location: Lamar 323
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support
In part 2 of this series on Building a Reflective Teaching Practice, we’ll discuss approaches to interpreting student evaluations and engage in structured reflection on them.
Session 3: Interpreting Peer Evaluations
Date: Wednesday, March 8 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Location: Lamar 323
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support
In part 3 of this series on Building a Reflective Teaching Practice, we’ll discuss approaches to interpreting peer evaluations and engage in structured reflection on them.
Session 4: Bringing It All Together
Date: Wednesday, March 22 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Location: Lamar 323
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support
In part 4 of this series on Building a Reflective Teaching Practice, we’ll discuss the creation of teaching portfolios and provide opportunities to synthesize the reflections you’ve completed over the course of the semester.
Series: Active Learning in STEM
Is Student Success in Human Anatomy and Physiology Impossible, or Is It the Result of Old-School, Hard Work?
January 25 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Carol Britson, Instructional Professor of Biology
Join Dr. Carol Britson from the Department of Biology as she presents the impacts of course design best-practices, student preparation, and the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance in one of the most life-changing courses students may take in college.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Activities We Use to Engage Students in a SCALE-UP Classroom
February 3 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Banquet Room
Facilitator: Dr. Bin Xiao, Instructional Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Dr. Bin Xiao and his colleagues from the Department of Physics and Astronomy have been teaching an introductory-level physics course in an active-learning classroom that is very similar to the ones we will have in the new Jim and Thomas Duff Center for Science and Technology Innovation. We will introduce the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-Down Pedagogies that we use. We will share the activities that were used before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to engage students, including the games like “Jeopardy!”, “Escape Room”, and “Pictionary” we facilitated in the classroom.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
POGIL: An Active Demonstration of an Active Learning Technique for STEM Classrooms
February 7 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Jason Ritchie, Associate Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Come and watch (or participate) in a live demonstration of how to use POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) techniques in the classroom. We’ll have real live undergraduate students working on a real POGIL exercise to demonstrate how to interact with the students. We’ll discuss the goals of POGIL and the structure of the materials, in addition to how to manage the classroom, and assign student roles in the groups. Much of what we discuss will apply to many different Active Learning techniques, especially inquiry based techniques.
Jason Ritchie teaches undergraduate chemistry courses and frequently uses POGIL exercises in his teaching. He has been using POGIL for at least 10 years, and has authored several of his own POGIL materials.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Teaching with Classroom Response Systems to Motivate and Engage Students
February 24 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Derek Bruff, Visiting Associate Director of Instructional Support
Classroom response systems, whether they use dedicated “clickers” or leverage students’ mobile devices, enable instructors to rapidly collect and analyze student responses to multiple-choice and sometimes free-response questions. Although these systems can be used to ask students the kinds of questions you might put on a test, other kinds of questions can often promote deeper learning. In this workshop, we’ll explore ways to use classroom response systems to help students engage in active learning in the classroom and to provide information on student learning you can use to be a more agile teacher.
This is a BYOD workshop—bring your own device. Audience participation with mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) will be encouraged.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Faculty Learning Community
Active Learning in Large Enrollment STEM Courses
Facilitator: Dr. Derek Bruff, Visiting Associate Director of Instructional Support
How can we make the most of the relatively limited time we have with our students during class? Educational research is clear: engaging students in active learning in the classroom leads to improved learning outcomes over “continuous exposition by the teacher.” But how can you invite and support students in active learning when you have 50 or 100 or 200 students in the classroom?
This faculty learning community will meet regularly during the spring semester to explore this question by reading and discussing research on active learning in STEM courses and by sharing their own experiences and teaching practices. The community will be facilitated by CETL visiting associate director Derek Bruff, author of the books Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments and Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching.
Most meetings for this learning community will be 60 minutes long and on Zoom for convenience. If you’re interested in participating, please contact Derek Bruff for more information.
Series: Artificial Intelligence and Student Learning
ChatGPT is raging: Recent Developments in AI, and How They May Impact Your Teaching
Wednesday 1 Feb 2023 12:00 Noon – 01:00 PM
Johnson Commons Ballroom
In the past 18 months, artificial intelligence writing assistant applications have grown significantly in their power and reach. We are all familiar with technologies in our chat, email, and word processing applications that offer to complete our sentences. But recent projects like Open AI’s ChatGPT goes much further, readily answering comments or questions with long responses. These new writing assistants have potentially dramatic implications for testing, short and long form writing assignments, and plagiarism. In this session we will demonstrate these technologies and begin to develop strategies to prepare for student use of AI writing assistants in your classes.
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Marc Watkins, Lecturer of Writing, Department of Writing and Rhetoric
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Your Colleagues are Already Teaching with AI, and Want to Share Some Advice
A panel discussion with DWR faculty who have taught with GPT-3.
Tuesday 7 Mar 2023 12:00 Noon – 01:00 PM
Student Union Room 326
Although ChatGPT is raising anxieties among faculty worldwide, some of your colleagues have already been teaching with AI-powered writing generators. Common issues they have addressed include plagiarism, accuracy and inaccuracy in AI content, citation systems, intellectual property, and a new emerging definition for digital literacy. Come and find out how they approach using AI in the classroom and what they learned from their experiences in Fall 2022.
Andrew Davis, Instructional Design & Training Specialist
Angela Green, Writing Enriched Curriculum Senior Lecturer
Guy Krueger, Lecturer in Writing & Rhetoric
Stephen Monroe, Assistant Professor and Chair
Chad Russell, Lecturer and Assessment Coordinator
Facilitator: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Teaching in the Artificial Intelligence Age of ChatGPT
Date: Thursday, March 23 , 2023
Time: 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Johnson Commons East Banquet Room
Series: QEP and Critical Thinking
Examining the Inner Ecosystem of Critical Thinking: The Role of Emotions in a Critical Skill
Wednesday, March 1 from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitators: Paul Hanstedt (Washington and Lee University), Mays Imad (Connecticut College), and Susannah McGowan (Georgetown University).
We all want our students to engage in critical thinking, the deliberative analysis of information and ideas designed to lead to productive global citizenship. But, as we ask students to challenge their own thinking, to take deliberative risks, to pay careful attention to their intentions as they are developing new ideas, what occurs internally—in their minds and in their emotions? And just as important: how can we coach our students through these processes to make them as productive as possible? After all, internal investigation and risk-taking are not easy for anyone at any age; surely, we have a responsibility to support our students as they engage in this most necessary of tasks?
This workshop is designed with two purposes in mind: first, to engage attendees in the development of strategies for supporting the inner lives of our students as they participate in critical thinking tasks. We will explore all aspects of the inner ecosystem of our students, attending to the role of feelings, emotions, and dispositions (Reber, 2016) that contribute to critical and convergent thinking. Second, we will lead a conversation about how we can bring these ideas into our classrooms, into our departmental discussions, and with colleagues to consider developing powerful strategies for coaching students through the challenges of critical engagement.
Please click here to RSVP.
Graduate Reading Group
Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom, by Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy
Join us in Spring 2023 for discussions of the new book Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy. We’ll provide the book and the lunch; you come with thoughts and questions.
Time and Place
Spring 2023 meeting dates:
- Friday, February 17, Lamar 323
- Friday, March 3, Student Union 325
- Friday, March 24, Student Union 325
- Friday, April 7, Student Union 325
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
To Register
Please register for the Graduate Reading Group at this link by Friday, January 27.
Fall 2022 Workshop Series
Series: Active Learning in STEM
Active Learning: How Do We Define It and What Does It Look Like in the Classroom?
October 19 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Inn at Ole Miss Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development and Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
We use the phrase “active learning” a lot in our discussions of teaching in higher education. But what do we really mean by it? We will use the research on active learning to arrive at a shared understanding of the term and then discuss the evidence-based practices that fall under the umbrella of active learning.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Getting Started with Active Learning in STEM
November 11 from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Johnson Commons East Banquet Room
Facilitators: Dr. Brenda Prager, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Adam Smith, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Series: QEP and Critical Thinking
How Might We Use Technology to Enhance the Teaching of Critical Thinking
October 5 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development and Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Please click here to RSVP for this event
Series: What Does It Mean to Teach Now? Teaching in and Beyond the Pandemic
Building a Reflective Teaching Practice
November 9 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support
Teaching during the pandemic has brought faculty to ask questions about our purposes and our vocations. Many of us find that the things that drew us to teaching, and we once found fulfilling, are no longer part of our work lives. The practice of reflection, or review, is an essential part of a successful career in any field in order to manage change and connect us to meaning in our work. This workshop will explore the literature of reflective practice in many disciplines and suggest how such a practice can be undertaken with even the most compressed schedules. (For those who express interest, CETL intends to sponsor a reflection group in the spring of 2023, but attendance of this introductory session does not indicate participation in the practice group in the spring.)
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Pandemic Teaching Today: Developing a Trauma-Informed Pedagogy
October 26 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support,
A significant number of college students and instructors have experienced trauma in their lives, even without the traumas created and exacerbated by the pandemic. This workshop will consider the potential effects of trauma on our students and introduce basic strategies to mitigate the impact of trauma in teaching and learning. We’ll focus in particular on how to create safety and student choice as well as how to foster collaboration, trustworthiness, social consciousness, and student empowerment in the classroom.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
The Great Disengagement? Building Engaged Classroom Communities That Center Student Learning
September 28 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Student Union Ballroom
Facilitators: Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support, and Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development and Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Much has been said in the higher ed press and beyond about student disengagement in the age of COVID, but many of these conversations cast blame solely onto the students themselves without acknowledging all of the systemic issues raised by the pandemic. In this workshop, we will instead focus on our learning environments and discuss the ways in which community building can be a tool for enhancing engagement in the classroom.
Please click here to RSVP for this events.
Inclusive Teaching Includes You Too: Teacher-Value in a Student-Centered World
September 21 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Lindsay Masland, Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Faculty Professional Development at Appalachian State University.
In our quest to be student-centered, we can end up making choices that overwhelm us with their unsustainability. In this session, we’ll discuss how student-centered choices, while evidence-based, require much more time, effort, and intentionality than more traditional teaching approaches. This increased effort will be examined using an intersectional lens that considers the various identities we hold as faculty members that complicate our ability to sustain inclusive pedagogy. We’ll conclude our time together by discussing teaching strategies we’ve found to be successful in maintaining our own boundaries, while still providing a student-centered learning environment. By anchoring our teaching choices to our deepest values (including values concerning our own self-preservation), we can learn to teach in ways that empower not only our students but ourselves.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Series: What’s New in Research on Teaching and Learning?
Are Lectures Effective? What the Research Can and Cannot Tell Us
September 7 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development and Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
The debate about whether or not to lecture in the classroom is a perennial one in higher education. But what do we actually mean when we talk about lectures, and where does lecturing fit into the conversation about evidence-based teaching strategies? Join us to find out what the research says about lecturing and to discuss different perspectives on the practice.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Series: Artificial Intelligence and Student Learning
Developments in AI and Data Science, and Their Impact on Higher Ed
October 28 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitator: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric
Most every field of intellectual inquiry is today engaging Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, and asking how we can prepare our graduates to work alongside AI in their careers. On our campus, and in our region, curiosity about AI and its impact on higher education are at an all time high. In this session we will look briefly at how we arrived at this moment in AI history, highlight local and regional developments in AI, and examine plans for undergraduate education. We will also identify professional development and research funding opportunities.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Is Turing Taking Your Tests? Recent Developments in AI, and How They May Impact Your Teaching
Event Presentation Slides
August 29 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Johnson Commons East Ballroom
Facilitators: Dr. Robert Cummings, Executive Director of AIG and Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric, and Marc Watkins, Lecturer of Writing, Department of Writing and Rhetoric
In the past 18 months, artificial intelligence writing assistant applications have grown significantly in their power and reach. We are all familiar with technologies in our chat, email, and word processing applications that offer to complete our sentences. But recent projects like Open AI’s GPT-3 and Meta’s OPT175B go much further, readily answering questions with complete sentences at the level of short paragraphs. These new writing assistants have potentially dramatic implications for testing, short and long form writing assignments, and plagiarism. In this session we will demonstrate these technologies and begin to develop strategies to prepare for student use of AI writing assistants in your classes.
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Fundamentals of Teaching: A Learning Community for TAs and Graduate Instructors
In person Group Meeting Dates (9:30 am-10:45 am in Johnson Commons East Banquet Room):
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Thursday, October 6, 2022
For more information about the Learning Community and to RSVP, please click here.
Faculty Reading Group
This fall we will be hosting a faculty reading group, where we will meet to discuss Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy’s new book Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom.
All faculty are invited to register for this program. CETL will purchase the books for all attendees, and we will have them available to pick up in advance of our first meeting (see below). For planning purposes, we ask that you only register for the group if you can commit to attending all three of the sessions.
In-person Group Meeting Dates (12:00-1:00 in the Banquet Room of Johnson Commons East):
Friday, September 23, 2022
Friday, October 21, 2022
Friday, November 4, 2022
Please click here to RSVP for this event.
Graduate Student Reading Group
In person Group Meeting Dates (12:00-1:00 in Lamar 323):
Monday, September 19, 2022
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
For more information about the Reading Group and to RSVP, please click here.