March 2020
Course Design Institutes at the CFT
The CFT invites Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students to apply to its 2020 Course Design Institutes. During the three-day institutes, participants will design (or redesign) courses that engage students. 
Faculty Course Design Institute on the Theme of "Teaching Inclusively"

The faculty Course Design Institute will be held May 4-6, 2020. The faculty institute is open to all Vanderbilt faculty members, and participants will receive $500 in research funds to be used to enhance their teaching. Participants will redesign courses with careful attention to ways they can help all students thrive through greater belonging and engagement.

“Teaching Inclusively” is shorthand for a range of approaches to teaching that support trust and productive dialogue, including:
  • Discussions that involve a diverse range of voices and viewpoints
  • Course content that motivates and challenges all students
  • Strategies for helping students work across differences in group projects
  • Assignments that are meaningful and encourage deep learning for all students
  • Accessibility for students of all abilities
These are just some of the outcomes of an inclusive approach to course design and facilitation. Students in inclusive courses find greater belonging and equity, and with it a trust in faculty and their peers that leads to greater collaborative engagement, critical thought, and voice.
Grad Student Course Design Institute on the Theme of "Students as Producers"

During the institute in early June, participants will design (or redesign) courses that engage students not only as consumers of information, but producers of knowledge.
The graduate student Course Design Institute will be held June 1-3, 2020. This institute is open to both graduate students and postdocs. If you’re leaving Vanderbilt to take a faculty position next year, the CDI is a great way to launch your new faculty career.
Short videos created to explain computer algorithms. A radio drama exploring the future of gene editing. Proposals for museum acquisitions of African-American art. A water conversation education program aimed at children. A virtual reality simulation of protein-protein interactions. A candle-making device developed through human-centered design for a local nonprofit.
These are just some of the products of student learning created in courses at Vanderbilt using the “Students as Producers” approach to course design. Students in these courses were encouraged to tackle open-ended problems, to operate with a high degree of autonomy, and to share their work with wider audiences.

Graduate Student/Postdoc Workshop:
Teaching 101


Have you been thrust into an instructional role for which you feel unprepared? Are you a multi-semester teacher who wants a refresher on some of the basics? Regardless of your teaching experience, this workshop will provide practical, concrete guidance on the mechanics of teaching and classroom presence, with an eye towards small tweaks and adjustments that can have large impacts on classroom dynamics, student learning, and instructor confidence. By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
  • organize and structure class sessions to maximize student understanding.
  • describe and implement techniques to speak more confidently and present more effectively for student engagement.
  • design and put into practice classroom activities that increase authentic participation and meaningful conversations.

Date
: Monday, March 23rd

Time: 12:30-2:00 pm
Location: CFT Classroom
Facilitator: Chelsea Yarborough, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow
Open to Vanderbilt Graduate Students & Postdocs
REGISTER

Apply to be a Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow!
We are now accepting applications for the 2020-21 Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows program. The  program is designed to help you:
  • Build understanding of principles of learning to inform your teaching
  • Stock your teaching toolkit with new skills and approaches
  • Develop a framework for course design
  • Build teaching community
Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows receive $2000 in research funds to be used to enhance their teaching. Tenure-track and non-tenure track, full-time faculty who will be in their second through sixth year in 2020-2021 are eligible to apply.
Application Deadline: Thursday, April 3
For more details on the program or to apply, visit the JFTF webpage.   
Junior Faculty Spotlight:
Audrey Bowden
Each month, the CFT Newsletter highlights the work of our Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows. This month, Audrey Bowden, Biomedical Engineering, talks about her teaching philosophy and interests.
Having recently moved to Vanderbilt, I feel like a re-entrant to teaching, despite the fact that I have been teaching at the college level for eight years. Therefore, participating in the Junior Faculty Teaching Program was a refreshing opportunity to build a community of supportive colleagues with similar goals and concerns around teaching.
The three highlights of my experience in the program were the consulting sessions, the small group seminar and the teaching visits. Even though the consulting sessions are available to all faculty at Vanderbilt, I likely would not have thought to use them had there not been strong encouragement through the JFTF program. Not surprisingly, I found the sessions extremely useful to address some of the specific teaching challenges I faced, and these experiences have greatly encouraged me to consider utilizing these services even after I have completed the program.
The small group seminar experience was a wonderful chance to share and refine my own thoughts about teaching and learning alongside others who were going through the same process with classes of differing foci. The theme that impacted me the most during our time was that of the benefits and importance of scaffolding information and preparing rubrics / checklists to clarify to ourselves – and our students – how learning would be evaluated. Our discussions around this single concept revealed how scaffolding reflected our own thinking as advanced scholars on the subject at hand, and were a practical way to share the process of approaching the types of complex problems that we encounter in our own scholarship. Similarly, rubrics and checklists provided concrete ways to break down larger, more complex assignments into bite-sized pieces that could be easily accomplished and assessed. They, therefore, serve a practical purpose of simplifying and demystifying achievement of the learning goals; we also discussed different ways to leave flexibility in rubrics to allow for unanticipated variations in performance both within a given rubric category and across the rubric as a whole. This latter concept of enabling nimbleness in one’s teaching – even after the class has begun – is something that I came to the program wanting to better understand so that I could respond to the unexpected challenges that often arise during the semester.
Finally, the teaching visits were a practical way to observe good practices in action, and I have since tried to incorporate several ideas and examples from these visits into my own teaching style. Being on the receiving end of a teaching visit was also quite valuable to get feedback from the perspective of classroom observers. Although I was nervous about the visit, the visitors were all very kind and thoughtful in their feedback; moreover, the opportunity to reflect on my own teaching practice was helpful and important to better solidify my thoughts and goals for the classroom.
Teaching with Blogs on Brightspace
Brightspace is an excellent platform for students to share ideas and collaborate. If you’re interested in student blogging using Brightspace, try the Discussions tool for setting up blogging spaces. Check out our newest training resources on discussion boards and blogs.
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