Workshops
Fall 2024
Lunch and Learn Workshop Series
September 18, 2024
“Five Entry Points to Writing for Publication with Your Students”
In this workshop, faculty will learn a range of "entry" points to starting, sustaining, and advancing research and writing projects with students. Tactics for navigating this type of publication will focus on division of labor, ethical boundaries, writing strategies that foster student ownership, and practical starting points for first time - or re-envisioned - faculty and student research and writing partnerships.
Guest Facilitator: Christine Tulley is the founder and director of the MA in Rhetoric and Writing at The University of Findlay, former undergraduate writing program director and writing center director. She currently directs all faculty writing support on campus, including development of student and faculty writing projects. Her current research focuses on scholarly writing habits of writing studies faculty, academic time management, and faculty writing support showcased in How Writing Faculty Write: Strategies for Process, Product, and Productivity (2018) and the forthcoming Rhet Comp Moms: What 100 Time Use Diaries Can Teach Us about Parenting, Productivity, and Professionalism(Fall 2025). As a contributor to Inside Higher Education, her advice columns focus on academic productivity strategies, including how to juggle multiple writing projects and craft cohesive tenure and promotion applications. She is the President of Defend, Publish & Lead, an academic writing coaching organization.
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September 25, 2024
“The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL)”
The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) is a field of inquiry aimed at analyzing how students learn. In this workshop, participants will receive guidance on writing SoTL research questions and structuring their study design. Participants will have the opportunity to draft a SoTL research question of their own and receive feedback from peers on how to approach the study design.
Facilitator: Jackie Campbell, Director of the Quantitative Reasoning Center
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October 16, 2024
“Low- and High-Tech Active Learning Strategies”
It is well known that engaging students in active learning leads to better learning outcomes than lecturing alone. In this workshop, we will review low-tech and high-tech active learning strategies and their applications in a variety of classroom settings. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on how to implement active learning in their own classrooms.
Facilitators: Jackie Campbell, Director of the Quantitative Reasoning Center & James D’Annibale, Director of Academic Technology
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October 30, 2024
“From Stuck to Successful: Overcoming Pinch Points with Your Students”
In this interactive session, we'll explore the concept of "pinch points" — those critical moments when students often struggle — and how you can leverage Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to alleviate them. We'll learn practical strategies for identifying and addressing these challenges in the classroom, within the LMS, and through external resources. Join us to discover how small changes can lead to big improvements in student success!
Facilitator: Jenny Michaels, Academic Technologist and Instructional Designer
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November 13, 2024
“AI as a Teaching Partner”
Join us to learn practical ways to use AI in teaching and course planning. Learn how AI can assist with discussion prompts, assignment clarity, and active learning tailored to your students; AI can be a valuable partner when a human collaborator isn't available. We'll include a hands-on example of a simulation activity you could use with your students.
Facilitators: James D’Annibale, Director of Academic Technology; Jenny Michaels, Academic Technologist and Instructional Designer; Lucy McInerney, Assistant Director of the Writing Program
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November 20, 2024
“Navigating Sensitive Classroom Content”
Today’s classrooms inevitably will deal with difficult topics, from political conflict and sexual assault to legacies of racism and colonialism. How do we deal with these topics when they arise, scheduled or unscheduled, in ways that both ensure dignitary safety and allow for intellectual risk-taking? How do we handle potential conflict among students over issues that may be highly charged and deeply personal? How do we approach teaching texts with offensive language, emotional implications, and/or themes of violence, abuse, or hatred? How do we respond to real or perceived concerns of "cancel culture" when discussing potentially inflammatory topics? This session talks about the benefits and limitations of various strategies for managing difficult content, including creating robust community guidelines, providing content warnings, and offensive language management policies.
Facilitators: Katie Schweighofer, Director, Women's & Gender Resource Center & John Katunich, Director of the Writing Program
Fall 2023
Generative AI Lunch and Learn Workshop Series
Link to RSVP: https://forms.office.com/r/e2Q8jv0SX8
Saving Time and Effort with AI
In this workshop we will first take a step back and understand what the current AI tools are, what they’re good at, and where they fall short. We will then discuss the various reasons to use each available product (ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, etc.). The bulk of our time together will be looking at concrete examples of how these tools can save you time and effort in your administrative duties and in your planning for instruction. Two examples include using AI to create complicated excel formulas or using AI to create unique scenarios for your students to work through.
Facilitators: Andrew Connell, Director of User Services; James D’Annibale, Director of Academic Technology
Thursday, September 14
12:00-1:00
Althouse 110
Using Generative AI for Good: Collaborating with the Machine
In this workshop, we will begin to explore ways we can incorporate generative AI into our teaching, particularly of writing. Good writers are able to read closely their own writing and that of others, formulate feedback, assess the quality of that feedback, and then act on it. These are all skills that take years to develop. We will look at ways that GAI, specifically ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, offer feedback on their writing, gifting students with occasions to formulate questions about their own writing and think critically about the feedback they receive. In reviewing AI feedback on their writing, students can ponder choices – both grammatical and rhetorical.
Facilitator: Noreen Lape, Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Scholarship
Thursday, October 19
12:00-1:00
Althouse 110
Making the Case for “Human-based” Pedagogies
In this workshop we will explore the rationale for maintaining a “human-based” pedagogy in our classes, identify assignment types and practices that preclude the use of AI in a class, and articulate reasons we can share with students to continue to engage in creation and expression without the assistance of AI tools. While we will look at some short-term measures that can “AI-proof” a class in this workshop, such as developing assignments that ask for analysis beyond the capacity of a tool like ChatGPT, we will also discuss ways to get students intrinsically invested in the value of developing their own human facilities of thinking, writing, or creating.
Facilitator: John Katunich, Director of the Writing Program
Thursday, November 16
12:00-1:00
Althouse 110
Faculty Conversation about GAI
Our last session will be a roundtable conversation in which we reflect on our experiences with GAI this semester, identify problems, troubleshoot solutions, and articulate areas for further development and consideration as a group.
Facilitator: Andrew Connell, James D’Annibale, John Katunich, and Noreen Lape
Tuesday, December 12
12:00-1:00
Althouse 110
Syllabus & Course Design Collaboratory
The Collaboratory offers professors a collaborative and productive environment to finalize your syllabus and assignments before the semester begins. We will meet in the Waidner-Spahr Library where you will have space to work on your course design. In addition, you will be able to sign up for consultations with various campus experts. They will be available to consult on such topics as the research process and information literacy; digital and multimedia projects; best practices for students with disabilities; designing and teaching writing; syllabi and learning goals; different pedagogies (i.e. collaborative, active learning, etc.); and diversity and inclusion in the classroom, among others. You can choose as many consultations as you wish to attend, work on your course materials between consultations, share ideas with fellow faculty, and enjoy lunch together.
Tuesday, January 16
8:30-4:30
Waidner-Spahr Library