We hope that you enjoyed the brief but appreciated Fall Break! We are halfway through Teaching Month and have been enjoying connecting with you through a variety of events. This edition of our newsletter is curated to provide practical ideas and resources to help you close Teaching Month strong. Read on for:

Events throughout Teaching Month are sparking new ideas to help you and your students re-engage this semester. 

Switch up student presentations with rotating roundtable discussions. The GW Department of Romance, German, and Slavic Studies Teaching Innovations Committee modeled a motivating and energizing way to structure brief classroom presentations. Participants chose a table of interest, engaged with presenters for 8 minutes, and then quickly rotated to a new table to repeat the process for several rounds. 

Make student feedback a part of your normal class routine. In her presentation on AI as a Teaching Tool, Laura D’Antonio, Assistant Professor of International Business, brought a student from her class to share her experience using the tool and how it supported her learning. If you’re not sure of how a new tool or teaching strategy is landing with students, ask them!

Enhance learning through social annotation with Hypothes.is, now available in GW’s Blackboard. This tool lets students collaboratively annotate course materials, encouraging deeper understanding and community building through shared insights and discussion. Research shows that social annotation supports active learning and engagement. Check out some resources from Hypothes.is or reach out to itl@gwu.edu to get started. Start with one reading and see how it goes!

Are you designing, redesigning, or improving a course in response to the current teaching and learning context? Consider applying to CDI: Semester, a new model of the Course Design Institute, which will run from January to March 2026. CDI: Semester is structured to spread out participants’ learning and provide a format more accessible to faculty who aren’t able to commit to the week-long institute held every May. 

Just as in the original CDI, which has run for 11 years and engaged over 400 GW faculty, participants in CDI: Semester will walk away with:

CTE encourages critical, ethical, and responsible use of AI, including intentional non-adoption. Here are some events and resources to help you think through how you are responding to emerging AI technologies in your teaching.

EVENT: “How do students use AI (@ GW)?” University Seminar: AI & Writing

Friday, October 24, 11:00 a.m.–12:45 p.m. RSVP

Join us to discuss research on how students’ use of AI may vary by academic stage and academic task. Then, hear from a panel of GW students reflecting on their own use of AI and their observations about AI use at GW.

ARTICLE: Structuring effective learning with GenAI: Lessons from group work

Associate Dean Karen Singer-Freeman's most recent publication explores how we can apply principles of effective collaborative learning to the development of AI-supported learning tasks.

VIDEO: 5 College Students. 5 Views on Generative AI.

In this video, five college students, including one GW undergraduate, share their views on using generative AI.

BOOKS: Teaching in the Age of AI Virtual Bookshelf

Explore an eBook from our virtual bookshelf, available through GW Libraries and Academic Innovation.

Credit: All icons are from Iconfield at The Noun Project, a site you can use for free icons and images. 

Our workshops provide all GW educators with new teaching insights and opportunities to explore and discuss current teaching challenges. Here are three highlights for Teaching Month, with more offerings listed below. 

Intro to Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs): Friday, October 17, 1:00–2:30 p.m.

Interested in creating authentic research and problem-based opportunities in your undergraduate classes? This workshop introduces Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) for faculty from any discipline.

Mitigating AI Misuse by Flipping Your Classroom: Wednesday, October 22, 12:00 noon–1:00 p.m.

Join us to explore how the flipped classroom model can help mitigate current teaching challenges, such as generative AI misuse or low engagement in class.

Getting Students to Do the Reading: Monday, October 27, 12:00 noon–1:00 p.m.

Do you feel like students aren’t reading or processing the material you’ve asked them to prepare? This workshop will explore some reasons why students don’t read and what you can do in response.

The CTE was so happy to see many of you at Teaching Day! We had a great time learning about ways to support constructive dialogue and build civic engagement in our students. Check out what GW Today had to say about the event.

President Granberg making opening remarks

Faculty enjoying dialogue exercises

Patty Dinneen differentiating dialogue, discussion, and debate

David Rain discussing how to make effective classroom agreements

Alexander van der Horst enjoying the workshop

Alex Dent sharing how to practice and strengthen listening skills