Balancing the rigors of teaching with research, writing, and publishing requirements makes it difficult for faculty to focus on updating and redesigning their courses. Often, staying current with educational trends and developing and implementing pedagogical innovations become permanent items on already lengthy task lists. Now, the time has come to move that task to the top of our lists; COVID-19 – at least for the time being – has changed how, when, and where we teach.
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is pleased to announce the formation of the Teaching and Learning Cooperative (TLC)*, a faculty-guided group focused on building knowledge and skills about pedagogy and teaching. TLC is designed to provide faculty an opportunity for focused, structured, supervised, and collaborative opportunities to consider how they teach. With respect to COVID-19, state, and federal restrictions, our inaugural TLC will focus on redesigning face-to-face courses for online (or hybrid courses with remote participation) delivery. Each participant who completes TLC should expect to emerge with a completed syllabus and course design that incorporates evidence-based practices to promote deep and meaningful learning that is ready for implementation.
Participants must clear their schedules, make a commitment to attend at least 3/4 of the virtual work sessions, and submit a work plan in advance of the first meeting. The group will be interdisciplinary and participants will have differing levels of skill and experience with online and hybrid teaching and learning. Participants are expected to share their progress before and during scheduled sessions and be prepared to offer feedback, suggestions, and recommendations to support others in the group.
In the space of four meetings (plus outside reading and thinking), TLC group members will engage in a total of 8 intensive hours of professional development surrounding the pedagogy of the design and delivery of an online or hybrid course. Meetings will follow the general outline below:
- In this introductory session, participants will select a conceptual framework to shape the development of their online or hybrid course and examine the course outcomes to guide course development.
- In our second session, participants will decide how to organize their course in their online course shell, how they will manage content delivery, and how they will promote student engagement.
- In our next to last session, participants will create assignments and assessments that align with your course outcomes and adapt to the online and hybrid course formats.
- In this final session, participants will generate ideas and plans for teaching and learning activities that will provide their students with the necessary knowledge and practice to achieve success on the assignments and assessments.
All meetings will convene virtually in Microsoft Teams.
There are no Teaching and Learning Cooperatives scheduled at this time. Please check back for updates!
*TLC is being launched based on the successful completion of FAWN-S (a faculty-guided writing group focused on scholarship and research) for two groups of faculty in Spring 2020.