Summer Book Club
The CVM Teaching Academy continues the "Teaching Tool Kit Series." Here we will explore topics that will build your educational "tool kit" and provide opportunities for you to take away ideas and projects you can apply during the next academic year.
The "Teaching Tool Kit" format:
- Mini workshops open to faculty, residents, and graduate students from the CVM and across WSU.
- Our model: these workshops are intended to be active learning sessions. Each topic/idea will be introduced and then the participants will then engage, interact, and (at least sometimes) begin to create a product
- Practically, we hope that participants will come away from each session with 1 or 2 take-home lessons they might apply to their own teaching.
- Not time consuming!!!
A past participant:
The Summer Toolbox Series held last summer by the CVM Teaching Academy was an invaluable experience for me as a new teacher. The sessions introduced core concepts and fundamentals in teaching which provided me with building blocks I used to structure, guide and enrich my course. It also gave me some confidence prior to the start of a big semester! I sort of thought of it as a mini-course in teaching and was impressed by the Academy's desire to present topics from an evidence-based perspective. The persons leading the sessions were exceptional, and attendees were from several different WSU departments and of different experience levels, which made interactive sessions fun, educational and expanded my views of what is possible in the classroom. I highly recommend it!
2019 Summer Schedule:
All sessions will be in ADBF 2018 (unless otherwise posted)
Click on the titles to RSVP for the specific Teaching Tool kit session!
Title: Let’s talk about teaching – EXAMS
Description: Come share your ideas and experiences. Some of the questions we will consider:
- What is an appropriate exam mean?
- Is it appropriate to adjust student scores to hit a targeted mean? If so, when and how?
- Should we share exam statistics – with our students; with each other?
- Should graded exams always be returned to students – why or why not? **
- What is the purpose of an exam?
** Depending on time and turnout, we will probably want to schedule a second session devoted to this potentially controversial subject – especially as there has been talk of establishing a policy for the DVM program.
Title: Building an Environment of Success
Description: Explore a variety of methods to engage, interact with, and assess a diverse set of learners.
Topics covered include:
- Expression: Providing varying opportunities to show mastery
- Engagement: Motivating your learners in multiple ways
- Representation: Presenting information in different formats
- Achievement: Making learning outcomes attainable to all learners
PowerPoint,
Padlet Examples (picture) and Padlet Shared Examples (Picture)
Title: Writing S.M.A.R.T. Learning Objective
Description: Learning objectives help students focus on what is most important as they try to sort through a mass of new content and they
are also an effective tool for the instructor, keeping content delivery on track and serving as guidelines for the alignment of instruction and assessment. During the session, participants will be introduced to various types of learning objectives
and will practice developing learning objectives for their own instruction.
Title: Assembling your teaching portfolio for promotion and tenure
Description: This session is targeted to faculty who are approaching or contemplating promotion, as well as post-promotion
faculty who advise promotion applicants and review packets.
The goal of this session is to help faculty with significant teaching responsibilities create persuasive, evidence-based documents that support promotion and/or tenure.
Among the tools we will utilize:
- A worksheet/inventory with prompts to ensure your packet is complete.
- Examples demonstrating ways to convey effectiveness and impact.
- The Regional Teaching Academy’s (RTA) Applicant Toolbox web site.
- The RTA’s Educators Portfolio templates.
This is intended to be a working session and likely the first of a series. Bring your CV or be prepared to help mentor a pre-promotion colleague, so that participants might leave with materials they can use!
If you’re a graduate student, resident, or post-doc, you can also use the documents we will create as part of your job applications.
Handouts:Title: Hitting Pause: Practical Ways to Incorporate Lecture Breaks to Reinforce Learning
Description: The objective of this presentation is to: demonstrate practical ways to effectively incorporate
“pauses” (reflective learning experiences) into teaching and to highlight the powerful benefits of faculty-based learning circles.
Title: Barriers to Academic Performance: Cognitive Distortions Explained
Description: Some may say achievement is of upmost importance in veterinary school. Mastering the content
can be an essential component to becoming a competent veterinary professional. Some may argue learning is the key and mastery is on a continuum. Whatever your philosophy or teaching pedagogy, there can be challenges, even barriers, to learning
and performance. This workshop will address the most common cognitive distortions that impact a person’s peak performance by sharing the research and highlighting some examples in the academic arena. Effective strategies on how to overcome
these challenges will also be discussed.
Title: Using survey technology in the classroom – some new tools for your tool box
Description: Ever wonder how surveys are designed or what makes a good survey question?
Perhaps more importantly, how can you use this technology in a classroom setting rather than just as an evaluating tool? During this workshop learn the basics behind the university’s free online survey tool (Qualtircs). We will also
discuss some examples of how you can apply this tool in some novel ways in your classroom.
Material
Title: Syllabus design: Terms and conditions or learning partnership?
Description: In this Teaching Toolkit, you will be introduced to a novel approach to syllabus design that uses visual elements
and warm language to help establish positive student relationships. Research will be presented that supports the notion of these syllabi as a way to use your syllabus as a relationship-building tool. You will also be introduced to one tool
you could use to make these changes – you do not need to be a tech whiz! Faculty will leave with at least one syllabus change that better promotes relationships with students.
Please bring a physical or digital copy of a syllabus to get the most out of this workshop.
Material:
- PowerPoint Presentation
- Article Referenced: Nusbaum, A. (2019, February 7). Kindness at first sight?: The role of syllabi in impression formation. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5b3sa