GradSTEP 2007:
Teachers as Learners: Navigating the Novice to Expert Continuum

Saturday, January 27, 2007
8:30am - 2:30pm
Buttrick Hall

Held in January each year, GradSTEP provides several workshops and discussions on teaching, learning, and professional development issues across the disciplines. This year's event features panel discussions among junior, senior, and emeritus Vanderbilt faculty members about what they have learned over the course of their teaching careers that would have been helpful to know when they first began teaching.

All Vanderbilt graduate and professional students, as well as post-doctoral fellows, are invited to attend. Lunch will be provided!

Registration & Light Breakfast - 8:30am to 9:00am

Buttrick Hall Atrium

Session I - 9:00am to 10:15am

Teaching & Activism
Facilitators: Allison Pingree, Director, CFT, and Lyndi Hewitt, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Panelists: Brooke Ackerly, Assistant Professor of Political Science; Doug Perkins, Associate Professor of Human and Organizational Development, and director of the Center for Community Studies; Heather Talley, Ph.D. Student in Sociology

The academy is hailed by many as a place for detached reflection and objective analysis—a place where instructors should foster and evaluate their students’ learning in as unbiased and dispassionate a way as possible. But developments in feminist and critical pedagogy, as well as in experiential learning, service-learning, and collaborative learning, have begun to paint a more complex picture about the relationships between teaching, learning and transformation.   

This session will explore these issues further, with a panel of faculty and graduate students sharing their perspectives on questions such as the following:

• What are your goals as a teacher—i.e., what kinds of transformation (if any) do you seek to incite in your students’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, and/or behavior? 

• How do you define activism?  How does it relate to these kinds of transformations? 

• To what degree, and in what forms and venues, should university teaching aim to create change in students, and in local, national or global communities and cultures?  Why?

• Can teaching itself be a form of activism?  What about teaching about activism?  Teaching through activism? Or teaching instead of activism?

Engaging & Gauging Student Learning
Facilitator: Changchun Liu, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

In teaching practice, engaging and gauging student learning are two critical aspects to achieve efficient learning. Engaging students in learning depends on connecting with them both personally and intellectually, requiring faculty/TAs to attend to both. One goal of this session is to help the participants increase student engagement and enhance student learning by refining the use of active and collaborative learning strategies and tools. Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening. In this interactive session, we'll explore both the "why" and the "how" of conducting CATs in the classroom.

Leading Effective Review Sessions: Encouraging Learning for the Test and Beyond
Facilitator: Jeff Johnston, Assistant Director, CFT

Panelists:Brendan Bream, Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences; Janey Smith, Graduate Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Monica Franklin, Graduate Student, Psychology (College of Arts and Science)

Many teaching assistants, particularly in quantitative disciplines, find themselves asked to lead help and review sessions. These sessions can be an excellent way to not only help students prepare to do well on an exam, but also to learn the material for the long-term. In addition to providing information on planning and conducting effective help and review sessions, this workshop will feature a panel of faculty and graduate students ready to share their experiences. We intend this workshop to be interactive, so bring along your problems and ideas.

Presenting with Confidence: Quick Ways to Energize Your Teaching
Facilitator: Heather Rippetoe, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Based on information presented in workshops by Nancy Houfek, Head of Voice & Speech of Harvard's American Repertory Theatre, students will practice purposeful speaking and movement to strengthen teaching presence in the classroom.

Session II: "If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Teaching Wisdom from Vanderbilt Professors" - 10:30am to 12:00pm

Session II features panel discussions among junior, senior, and emeritus Vanderbilt faculty members about what they have learned over the course of their teaching careers that would have been helpful to know when they first began teaching. Three discussions will be held, one for participants in the sciences and engineering, one for those in humanities, and one for those in the social sciences. Each panel discussion will include a question and answer session as well as an optional follow-up discussion over lunch.

Sciences & Engineering Panel

• Steve Goodbred, Assistant Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences
• Vicki Greene, Assistant Professor of Physics
• Richard Larsen, Emeritus Professor, Mathematics

Humanities Panel

• Lynn Clarke, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies
• Mark Wollaeger, Associate Professor, English
• Dale Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Religion

Social Sciences Panel

• Richard Pitt, Assistant Professor, Sociology
• Thomas Palmeri, Associate Professor, Psychology (College of Arts & Science)
• Erwin Hargrove, Professor Emeritus, Political Science

Lunch - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Lunch will be provided! Feel free to join any of the following lunch roundtable discussions or eat on your own.

"If I Knew Then..." Roundtable Discussions

Join our Session II panelists for continued conversations on teaching and learning.

Teaching Certificate Roundtable Discussion

This informal, roundtable discussion will feature a few participants in the CFT's Teaching Certificate program who will share their experiences in the program.  Whether you are a current participant in the program interested in meeting others in the program or you are just interested in learning more about the program, join us for this lively discussion.

Session III - 1:00pm to 2:30pm

Learner-Centered Course Design
Facilitator: Laura Taylor, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Whether you are creating a course for the first time, or are interested in revising a course you are currently teaching, this workshop will help you understand how to focus on student learning as you plan a course. It will provide an overview of the basic elements of course design, with an emphasis on creating learning goals for your students. We will also consider how to choose teaching strategies and learning activities that will move students toward meeting those goals, and what type of assessments will demonstrate that the goals are being met.

Teaching Portfolios
Facilitator: Derek Bruff, Assistant Director, CFT

A teaching portfolio is one way of representing yourself as a teacher when applying for academic jobs. What is the place of the portfolio in the academic job market today and how can you use one to highlight the strengths of your application? What exactly should you put in a teaching portfolio and how should you go about constructing one? In this workshop, participants will learn about possible components teaching portfolios, including teaching statements, as well as effective ways of organizing these portfolios. Participants will discuss the merits of several sample portfolios and have a chance to ask questions about their own portfolios—whether they are on the job market now or expect to be in the future.

Talking about Teaching in the Academic Job Interview
Facilitator: Patricia Armstrong, Assistant Director, CFT

While graduate students and post-docs receive ample opportunity and encouragement to present their research in forums such as departmental colloquia or national conferences, they rarely talk about teaching and pedagogy in such public settings. As a result, many graduate students and post-docs lack the preparation for speaking about their teaching in compelling terms when it counts the most: the job interview. This workshop will give participants the chance to begin--or refine—that preparation and provide tools and resources for continuing that preparation up to the campus visit.

For information on past events, please see our gradSTEP Archive.

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