9:00 – 10:30

Presentation Renovation: Choosing The Right Tools

We have all experienced the pain of a bad PowerPoint presentation. The good news is that your presentations don’t have to be boring. In this session, you will learn to critically reflect on your slide presentations, leverage design techniques that better facilitate student learning, and consider ways to incorporate these methods in ways that best fit your content and teaching style.

Date: Monday, August 19th
Time: 9:00-10:30am Session includes breakfast
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Rhett McDaniel, CFT Educational Technologist

 

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11:00 – 12:30

Lesson Planning

Figuring out how to spend anywhere from 50 to 180 minutes each class period can be daunting. In this workshop, participants will hear about different approaches to make planning a class period more manageable, all focused on ensuring each class is aligned with the learning outcomes and assessments of the course. In addition, time will be spent sharing effective ways to structure a class period, including how to open and close class sessions and activities.

Date: Monday, August 19th
Time: 11:00am-12:30pm Session includes lunch
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director

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1:00-2:00

Teaching Inclusively to Diverse Groups

In our increasingly diverse classrooms, it is important to support the development of every student and to structure equal opportunities for learning for all who enroll. Unfortunately, our teaching practices may fall short in their attempts to do this, particularly for underrepresented or more marginal student groups who may face difficulties finding belonging.  Based on existing research and the experiences of Vanderbilt faculty, this workshop will discuss common challenges to inclusive teaching and strategies for creating more dynamic, participatory, and diverse learning environments.  Particular attention will be given to discussion leading and leveraging student differences for more engaged and productive learning.

Date: Monday, August 19th
Time: 1:00pm-2:00pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Joe Bandy, CFT Assistant Director

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2:30 – 3:30

What’s in Your Syllabus?

The syllabus is one of the first ways we communicate with our students, conveying what the course will be about, how it will be run, and why it’s important. It can also be an important planning document for faculty, helping them describe plans and expectations. How can we make the syllabus welcoming, informative, and helpful for ourselves and our students? In this interactive session, we will discuss some important elements to consider in constructing a syllabus, from statements on inclusivity to grading policies, as well as approaches for getting students to actually read the syllabus.

Date: Monday, August 19th
Time: 2:30-3:30pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Conference Room
Facilitator: Cynthia Brame, CFT Associate Director

 

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2:30 – 4:00

Intro to Brightspace Course Management System

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn about Vanderbilt’s new course management system, Brightspace. Bring your own laptop computer so you can explore and build content in our test course! By the end of the session, users will be able to:

• Confidently navigate the different areas of a Brightspace course
• Post, edit, and copy content for students using a variety of tools
• Communicate with students about important Brightspace tools

Date: Monday, August 19th
Time: 2:30-4:00pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Stacey Johnson, CFT Assistant Director

If this workshop is full, please see our Events or Services tab,  for other Brightspace workshops & Drop-In hours we are holding throughout the month of August.

 

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9:00 – 10:30

Leading Classroom Discussions

Leading discussions is both an art and a science, since it requires us as teachers to apply a variety of roles simultaneously, and to manage complex social interactions in a spontaneous and unscripted way. This workshop will clarify some of the most common challenges of discussion leading and explore many of the strategies necessary to make discussions more engaging and productive.

Date: Tuesday, August, 20th
Time: 9:00am-10:30am Session includes breakfast
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Joe Bandy, CFT Assistant Director

 

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11:00 – 12:30

Small Changes, Big Results

Inspired by James Lang’s new book titled Small Teaching: Every Day Lessons from the Science of Learning (2016), this workshop will explore micro-level classroom activities and interventions that leverage what we know about how students learn. Ranging from what to do in the first or last 5 minutes of class to how to motivate students, both seasoned and new instructors will come away with a series of tools and ideas that can be immediately implemented into their everyday teaching.

Date: Tuesday, August, 20th
Time: 11:00am-12:30pm Session includes lunch
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Cynthia Brame, CFT Associate Director

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1:00 – 2:00

Active Learning with Top Hat

Top Hat is a “bring your own device” (BYOD) classroom response system that makes use of students’ personal mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) as response devices. BYOD systems offer a number of logistical and pedagogical advantages over traditional, “clicker”-based systems. Top Hat is the first classroom response system to be adopted campus-wide and is now available for free to all faculty, students, and staff. In this session, participants will become familiar with the basic functions and features of the product that allow instructors to rapidly collect and analyze student responses to questions posed during class.

Date: Tuesday, August, 20th
Time: 1:00pm-2:00pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Rhett McDaniel, CFT Educational Technologist

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2:30 – 3:30

Students as Producers: Creative Assignments for Deep Learning

In the courses we teach, we have the opportunity to engage our students not only as consumers of information, but producers of knowledge. Usually this means moving beyond the five-page paper to less traditional assignments and projects. In this introduction to the “Students as Producers” approach to course design, we’ll consider assignments that encourage students to tackle open-ended problems, to operate with a high degree of autonomy, and to share their work with wider audiences. We’ll also discuss teaching and assessment practices that support students as they engage in these kinds of assignments.

Date: Tuesday, August 20th
Time: 2:30pm-3:30pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Classroom
Facilitator: Derek Bruff, CFT Director

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2:30 – 3:30

Motivating Students

Research consistently shows that students who are more motivated in their classes experience greater academic outcomes in their courses (e.g., higher final grades, persistence, perceived learning, etc.). Students enter our classrooms with various levels of motivation, however the pedagogical choices instructors make and the ways in which they interact with their students can have a profound influence on student motivation. In this workshop, participants will learn a variety of simple yet effective strategies they can employ in their classrooms to improve student motivation.

Date: Tuesday, August 20th
Time: 2:30pm-3:30pm Session includes refreshments
Location: Center for Teaching Flex Space
Facilitator: Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director

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