The art of gathering. The next few weeks are about making connections and inspiring students to engage with the material, with you, and with one another. How you plan the first days of class and the ways in which you intentionally facilitate community-building in the classroom (physical or virtual) can make a real difference for you and your students. Four resources to help:
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The struggle is real. Mistakes are essential to the learning process. Helping students learn how to fail in safe, productive ways is another area worthy of your attention. How does it feel when you make a mistake? How easy is it to pay attention and contribute to a discussion when you are worried about saying the wrong thing? Emotion plays an important role in learning and a fair amount of research exists around the importance of emotional self-regulation, empathy for peers in effective collaborative learning, and the impact of frustration over a vexing problem or differing views (just one example). I recognize that it may seem a heavy ask to pay attention to emotions and to consider the structure of challenging assignments/tasks. Luckily, help is out there. The Teaching with Heart project recently came to my attention, as did a participating faculty’s syllabus statement that reads: I learn with my head, I teach with my heart. I truly believe that the heart belongs in the classroom and offer that whether you call it heart or caring, it is essential to a productive learning environment. Four related resources:
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Understanding our digital landscape. What has changed in the past few months in AI? Plenty. For example, OpenAI has introduced numerous new ChatGPT features including web searching and interface upgrades. Ethan Mollick, whose latest book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI is a worthy read, posted a helpful update on his blog, One Useful Thing. For a window into how Michigan school districts and K-12 educators are engaging with AI, check out Michigan Virtual’s AI lab. At a Michigan Virtual AI conference last month, I found the extent to which AI-enabled products are already pervasive in this space rather startling (an example from olden times (March 2024)).
In terms of guidance as to how to proceed in your work with students, what we shared in August still holds (short story: make your expectations around AI explicit for students; don’t rely on GenAI detectors). There will be more to come soon, along with opportunities to engage with others across campus on the topic. In the meantime, if you are looking to learn more about AI via an online offering, I have come across several free or low-cost options:
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Winter 2025 Learning Communities |
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Looking for a fun, restorative way to engage with timely higher education topics and connect with colleagues across campus?
Join a Learning Community (LC)! Open to faculty and staff, LCs foster connection, community, and collaboration through semester-long conversations on shared interests. Participants often find the experience energizing, supportive, and inspiring.
Explore the full list of open LCs on our Current Learning Communities webpage. Apply today through our online grants system.
Have a topic you are passionate about and/or are interested in exploring further? Propose a Learning Community for this coming semester or even the Spring/Summer semester by submitting an online Letter of Intent. Learn more by visiting our website.
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Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership —How can you, as a woman leader, utilize these seven practices? What will it look and sound like?
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BMS Book Club—How can we facilitate student and faculty interactions around and with scientific material?
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BMS Distracted LC—How can faculty help students stay focused and engaged with content both in and out of the classroom?
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CLAS Faculty Inclusive Teaching LC—How can CLAS faculty foster a greater sense of belonging and success for all students in the classroom?
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Creating a Community of Critical Practice in Mentoring—How do the complex and discriminatory systems in higher education affect students' experiences, and how can facutly address these issues through mentoring?
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CURE 101: Getting Started with Research in the Classroom—How can we take an existing course and add a research activity to promote an interest in student research?
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Dialogue: Conversations for the Classroom and Beyond—How might authentic dialogue practices foster open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, constructive disagreement, and sustained curiosity in group learning environments?
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Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals—Do you feel there is never enough time to get things done, with the standards of productivity and efficiency impossible to achieve?
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Humanities for All—What do we, as Humanities faculty, value the most, and how can we most effectively work together to make our dreams a reality?
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Incorporating Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Into Teaching and Working With Students—How might student wellbeing be enhanced through trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices?
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Internships: Approaches, Strategies, and Best Practices—How can we help students get the most out of their internship?
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Managing Gen-Z Anxiety in Technical Education—How shall engineering educators address the apparent and rising rates of moderate and severe anxiety observed in Gen-Z students in our pedagogical practices?
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Undergraduate Research Mentoring 101—How important is an effective mentor and how do you mentor undergraduate research students effectively?
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Zines! A Revolution in Learning, Access, and Information—How and why should zines be used in a college-level, interdisciplinary classroom?
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Faculty Mentoring Groups Are Accepting New Members! |
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Were you hoping to joining a Faculty Mentoring Community last Fall but just ran out of time? Keep an eye on our Mentoring Communities Webpage over the next couple weeks as we finalize the Winter 2025 meeting schedules—groups start meeting at the end of January!
Faculty Mentoring Communities will be meeting through the Winter 2025 semester and are open to adding new members. These mentoring communities offer structured meeting opportunities to gather with colleagues and explore the multiple sources of guidance and connection available at GVSU for professional growth and development. Sessions center around topics that are top-of-mind for participants—the content of each meeting is flexible and responsive to group members.
There are mentoring communities designed for faculty in their first year of teaching (meeting every other week) and communities that focus on faculty who are well beyond their first year of teaching (meeting once a month). Visit our Mentoring Communities webpage to see a list of mentoring groups as well as their meeting dates/times. Email us (pewftlc@gvsu.edu) to be added to an existing Mentoring Community today!
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Strong Start Teaching Institute Continuing Series |
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An extension of our annual Strong Start Teaching Institute, this continuing Winter series is meant to carry on conversations around small teaching practices for faculty to support our first and second-year students. These in-person workshops will be offered at both the Allendale and downtown campuses by the Pew FTLC Assistant Director, Dr. Maggie Goss. While these workshops stem from the Strong Start Teaching Institute (focused on engaging students in first- and second-year undergraduate courses), faculty teaching all levels of undergraduate students will benefit from these discussions, and participants need not have attended Strong Start.
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Register for Workshop #1 – Reading Competencies (NEW!) Here
Tuesday, January 28th 10:00-11:30am (3068 Zumberge Hall, Allendale)
OR
Thursday, January 30th 10:00-11:30am (411 Eberhard Center, Pew Campus)
Reading is a commonly assigned activity to introduce students to new or existing ideas, scaffold the learning process, and practice analytic skills. Ideally, students enter our classes with the ability to make meaning of texts, summarize arguments, and form unique responses. In reality, more and more students struggle to meet reading competency expectations. While GVSU has support systems in place for students to improve their reading skills, this workshop focuses on approaches to reading comprehension across disciplines. We know learning strategies are more impactful in the context of a course (while the course is happening), therefore participants will leave with strategies for clarifying expectations for students in class and ways to integrate the teaching of disciplinary reading skills across the semester.
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Register for Workshop #2 – Boundary Setting with Students (NEW!) Here
Tuesday, February 25th 10:00-11:30am (3068 Zumberge Hall, Allendale)
OR
Thursday, February 27th 10:00-11:30am (411 Eberhard Hall, Pew Campus)
Imagine this: you return to your office on Monday to an inbox full of student emails sent at all hours of the night, each demanding your attention on an urgent matter. You then head to teach where you’re confronted with more requests – the slides from last week’s class, an extension on the proposal draft, and an opportunity to retake the first exam. You want to be available and accommodating to students but are wondering if you’ve stretched yourself too thin. In this workshop, participants will learn how to balance structure and flexibility. Specifically, how to establish boundaries by setting equitable expectations with students. Given the mid-semester timing of the workshop, we will also address how to recover and reset boundaries.
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Register for Workshop #3 – Rejuvenating Your Syllabus (with live student feedback!) Here
Tuesday, March 25th 10:00-11:30am (3068 Zumberge Hall, Allendale)
OR
Thursday, March 27th 10:00-11:30am (411 Eberhard Hall, Pew Campus)
As a required instrument for documenting key policies and procedures, a course syllabus is essential in creating a strong framework to help instructors summarize course information, outline the course curriculum, and communicate expectations for students. However, this content often focuses on the instructor’s own agenda, rather than student engagement. In this workshop participants will revise their syllabus, with the help of GVSU undergraduate students, to better promote inclusivity and a sense of belonging for their students. Specifically, participants will learn strategies for promoting feelings of student belonging and receive feedback from students, as well as provide peer-to-peer feedback on their written syllabi.
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1 Campus Drive
068 Zumberge Hall
Allendale, MI 49401
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