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Center for Teaching

GradSTEP: Graduate Student Teaching Event for Professional Development

GradSTEP was held Saturday, January 25th. See the resources section of this page to view material from this year’s presentations.

GradSTEP is co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Council

Held in January each year, inviting all Vanderbilt
graduate & professional students, and post-doctoral fellows, GradSTEP is a free, daylong conference, offering workshops and discussions centered on teaching, learning, and professional development issues, across the disciplines.
GradSTEP 2014 will focus on Students as Producers: Developing dynamic learning in a virtual and real-world setting and will be held:
Saturday, January 25th,
9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. in Light Hall.
The plenary session will feature Dr. Cynthia Cyrus (Musicology) and Dr. Joe Bandy (Sociology). They, and their students, will examine two examples in which Vanderbilt faculty enable students to produce works for authentic audiences.

REGISTER FOR GRADSTEP. Additional slots now open for each workshop!

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Schedule of Events

9:00

Check-in

9:30

Opening Remarks

9:45

Plenary: Students as producers: Developing dynamic learning in a virtual and real-world setting
Dr. Cynthia Cyrus (Musicology)
Dr. Joe Bandy (Sociology)

11:00

Session 1 Workshops (See choices below)

12:00

Lunch (provided for registrants only)
E-mail Tracy Tveit for special dietary requests

1:00

Session 2 Workshops (See choices below)

2:15

Session 3 Workshops (See choices below)

3:30

GradSTEP ends

GradSTEP 2014 Workshop Offerings

To register, review the following workshop options and enter your choices here.

Session One

Service Learning
Joe Bandy, CFT Assistant Director
Service learning is a pedagogy that combines the learning goals of your courses and the ideals of community service in class projects that can enhance both student development and the common good.  This session will provide opportunities for participants to explore service learning in their own teaching by reviewing the research on the promise and problems of service learning, and by discussing best practices that make service learning more efficient and effective.  

Creating Connections: Using an Interdisciplinary Approach in the Classroom
Bernadette Doykos, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow
Interdisciplinary instruction challenges students to employ diverse analytical approaches to understanding complex issues. The approach can be integrated in classrooms across the academy, creating opportunities for students to draw connections across disciplines and departments. In this session, we will examine how interdisciplinary instruction differs to other curricular approaches, and participants will be challenged to envision how they may integrate these approaches in their approach to teaching. Finally, participants will work together to create a framework for interdisciplinary instruction in their own classrooms.
Using Technology to Support Students as Producers of Knowledge
Derek Bruff, CFT Director
How can we use technology to support and enhance student learning in the courses we teach?  One way is to help students move from merely “consuming” knowledge to producing their own.  Students can use digital tools to engage either individually or collaboratively in various kinds of scholarly and creative work—and to share the products of that work with each other and beyond the course itself.  Participants will consider examples of course activities in which technology is used to help students become “producers” of knowledge, and they will generate ideas for incorporating such activities in their own teaching.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Andrew Greer, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow
This session introduces graduate students to investigations of learning as a form of scholarly research. Participants will workshop various types of data, or evidence of student learning, from higher education classrooms to consider potential SoTL projects.

 

Session Two

Integrating Research and Design Projects into Courses
Cynthia Brame,  CFT Assistant Director
Joel Barnett,  Associate Professor of the Practice, Mechanical Engineering
This workshop will examine a research project and a design project that have been integrated into credit-bearing courses. Professor Joel Barnett will talk about “turning the textbook inside out” to create small design projects, and Dr. Cynthia Brame will discuss her experience adapting small chunks of a research project for a class. These examples will be used to illustrate key lessons for integration of research and design projects into an undergraduate curriculum. Workshop participants will discuss benefits and challenges of integrating research and design into classes as it applies to their future courses.

Professional Development for Humanities Social Science Education & Religion
Ruth Schemmer, Assistant Dean, Graduate School
Graduate students are competent, hard-working, intelligent people – but many feel inadequate when seeking a career. Explore what skills are needed in the world of work, how to find out what they are, and how to prove you have them!

Active Student Learning at the Introductory Level
Nayana Bose, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow
We lecture, they listen. They study, we test. This session will workshop howto engage students to generate active student participation, receive regular feedback using quick and effective methods, and get students to apply the material to deepen their understanding of the subject.
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Team-based Learning
Oscar Ayala, Graduate Teaching Fellow
Team-based learning is one way to implement the flipped classroom. Students prepare before class by reading or watching instructor-prepared videos and complete individual readiness assessment tests.  The interesting part occurs in class: students repeat the assessment test as groups, who argue, teach each other, and ultimately reach a greater understanding of the material. These groups then apply that knowledge by completing projects that are real-world illustrations of the material. This interactive session will allow participants to learn this technique from the perspective of both the instructor and the student.

Session Three

Why Wiki
Jessica Riviere, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow
In this workshop we will explore the basics of using Wiki technology for students to complete online collaborative projects. What is a wiki? Where can you find them? When is a wiki appropriate? How have wikis been used effectively?
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Avoiding Crickets: Creating Environments to Support Difficult Discussions
Bernadette Doykos and Andrew Greer, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellows
As instructors, we often introduce difficult topics as an essential part of our curriculum, which requires extra planning and preparation. This session addresses the conditions that foster comfort and respect required for students to engage productively with complex topics, such as race, class, gender, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality. This session introduces participants to an array of tools to help facilitate difficult discussions and to think about how to introduce such topics into the higher-ed classroom.

Professional Development for STEM
Ruth Schemmer, Assistant Dean, Graduate School
Graduate students are competent, hard-working, intelligent people – but many feel inadequate when seeking a career. Explore what skills are needed in the world of work, how to find out what they are, and how to prove you have them!

Interactive Lecturing in Large Classrooms
Karen Childress and Mary Keithly, CFT Graduate Teaching Affiliates
This workshop will highlight ideas about how to bring a large classroom to life by going beyond the lecturing format. After discussing some ideas and tips pertaining to the topic, participants will be given the opportunity to plan a sample activity, which would apply to a large class that they would like to teach in the future.  Feedback from peers will provide ideas for improvement and expansion of the prepared activity.

Resources from past GradSTEP Events

After the event you can find resources for each workshop (including handouts and powerpoint slides) that will be available to download.

Students as Producers Plenary with Cynthia Cyrus and Joe Bandy

Public Facing Scholarship Plenary

– Using Wikis

Service Learning

Interactive Lecturing in Large Classes

Team-based Learning

– Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 

Research and Design Projects in Classes

Professional Development for Humanities and Social Sciences

Professional Development for STEM

Active Learning in Intro Classes
Using Technology to Support Students as Producers of Knowledge
– Managing Difficult Discussions

– Interdisciplinarity in the Classroom

GradSTEP 2013
Adding Spatial Dimensions to Teaching
View the Prezi
Beyond the Ivory Tower – Alternative and Non-Academic Career Choices
PowerPoint
Bibliography
Beyond Templates: Effective PowerPoint Design
PowerPoint
Finding Teaching Moments in the Field: Learner-centered Field Research Programs
View the Prezi
Flipping the Classroom
Powerpoint
Grading Efficiently: Finding the Time to Grade Fairly
Powerpoint
Making Discussions Safe
Handout – Scenarios
Handout –  Putting the Participation Puzzle Together
Social Pedagogies: Motivating Students through Social Media and Authentic Audiences
View the Prezi
Teaching with Case Studies
PowerPoint
Handout
Transitioning to Professorship: Teaching Statements and Portfolios
Handout – Teaching Statements
Handout – Possible Components
View the Prezi
Listed here you will find resources for each workshop (including handouts and powerpoint slides) that are available to download.
GradSTEP 2012
Session One:
Download resources from Course & Syllabus Design, led by Dan Morrison
Powerpoint and Handout
Download resources from Tools & Tips for Grading, led by Leanna Fuller
Powerpoint and Handout
Download resources from Teaching Portfolios, led by Leanna Fuller
Handout
Download resources from Powerpoint Makeover, led by Rhett McDaniel
Powerpoint
Download resources from “Life GPA” Teaching Beyond the Grade, led by Megan McMurtry
Powerpoint and Handout
Download resources from Leading Effective Discussions, led by Bill Hardin
Powerpoint, Handout –  6 Essential Skills, Handout – Productive Discussions, and Handout – Discussion Planning
Session Two:
Download resources from Teaching Portfolios: From the Classroom to the Job Market, led by Leanna Fuller
Powerpoint and Handout
Download resources from Private Universes and Mental Models: The Science of Teaching Science, led by Alex Krejci
Book excerpt and Handout
Download resources from Interactive Lecturing, led by Megan McMurtry
Powerpoint and Handout
Download resources from College Writing: Teaching Students How to Write
Handout – Samples, Handout – Refining Thesis Statements, and Handout – Academic Voice

 

Resources

Listed here you will find resources for each workshop (including handouts and powerpoint slides) that are available to download.
GradSTEP 2011
Download resources from Teaching in a Laboratory Setting
Teaching in a Lab Setting
View Presentation from Show and Tell: Using Visual Thinking in the Classroom
Show and Tell: Using Visual Thinking in the Classroom on Prezi
Download resources from Creating Interdisciplinary & Collaborative Classrooms
Creating Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Classrooms
Download resources from Filling in the Gaps in Grad School: Creating a Teaching Persona
Creating A Teaching Persona
Educational Settings
Teaching Strategies
Download resources from Teaching Science to ‘Non-Science’ Students
Teach Science to non-science students
Planning to Motivate
Theory Motivating Students
Download resources from Course & Syllabus Design
Resource Packet
Syllabus Construction
CATs
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Download resources from Privilege & Power in the Classroom
Privilege and Power in the Classroom
Who am I
On the Invisibility of Privilege
Case Studies

Download resources from Alternative Assessment
Alternative Assessment