The deadline to apply for the Teaching Academy pre-conference workshops is rapidly approaching: Apply by 1/9/23!
The deadline to apply for the Teaching Academy pre-conference workshops is rapidly approaching: Apply by 1/9/23!
UAA is pleased to offer an expanded selection of professional development opportunities at the 2023 Nashville conference including two Teaching Academy pre-conference workshops. Details are provided below and on the UAA Conference website.
TEACHING FIRST GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS
DATE: April 26, 2023
TIME: 9:30am-3:30pm CST
WHO CAN ATTEND: Selected applicants only; must be registered for the conference
COST: No additional cost; attendees must apply & be accepted to attend the session.
Workshop Coordinator: Dr. José W. Meléndez, University of Oregon, Eugene
Facilitators:
Learning Objectives
The power and value of hidden curriculum
Given how most classrooms are made up of a milieu of socio-economic backgrounds of students, challenges and opportunities will arise. As such, instructors need to be adept at identifying these as opportunities for difficult but potentially transformative learning experiences. Thus, this workshop will aim to both identify, problematize, and re-imagine our teaching practices and learning expectations with the goal to equip participating instructors with research based concepts, techniques, and practices to take with them to support 1st generation students in their classrooms. 1st generation students are undergraduates who come from homes where neither parent attended college. As such, 1st generation students face various barriers (academically, socially, and psychologically) to ensuring they successfully graduate.
As such, this workshop will be an opportunity for instructors to pick up skills and new knowledge to support the learning trajectory of 1st generation students, while also to be able to articulate the rationale behind their teaching. There is an integral relation between pedagogy/teaching and how students learn. When we teach, we are constantly reacting to how learners are responding to content and its presentation. Teachers trained and conditioned to use traditional modes of pedagogy must consider new realities of a changing classroom with students coming from cultures and backgrounds with ways of being and knowing that may not align with existing norms and values in the academy.
This means instructors are constantly negotiating between their intended instruction and the actual process that unfolds with students. This process can be especially complex with first generation college students who are an increasingly large percentage of colleges’ student body, and also represent a larger proportion of other underrepresented identities. This diversity enlivens classrooms but also challenges many of the assumed norms and expectations instructors have for and about students. This requires instructors to reassess their expectations, while articulating norms and expectations up front and often, and reassess what else is taken for granted that may make a difference for 1st generation students to succeed in their classrooms and college at large.
This professional development workshop will involve an initial overview of the educational and learning research regarding 1st generation students, followed by taking participants through sample techniques used for supporting this student population. This will include how Covid-19 impacted 1st generations students and remaining repercussions for pedagogy. Participants are asked to bring in sample syllabi to both share and to workshop. Small group break out sessions will provide opportunities for faculty to apply the concepts and materials from the workshop to their own syllabi. The workshop will end with instructors taking a needs assessment that identifies the resources they have at their university for working with 1st generation students and other venues for gaps identified.
UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
DATE: April 26, 2023
TIME: 9:30am-3:30pm CST
WHO CAN ATTEND: Selected applicants only; must be registered for the conference
COST: No additional cost; attendees must apply & be accepted to attend the session.
Workshop Coordinator: Dr. José W. Meléndez, University of Oregon, Eugene
Facilitators:
Learning Objectives
The increasing focus on teaching effectiveness has placed greater expectations on professors to not only be creative about how they teach, but also to be able to articulate the rationale behind their teaching. There is an integral relation between pedagogy/teaching and how students learn. When we teach, we are constantly reacting to how learners are responding to content and how it is presented. This means instructors are constantly negotiating between their intended instruction and the actual process that unfolds with students. Thus, it is essential to ensure that little is left to chance in the classroom. As such, the more professors think ahead about how they design their learning interactions, the more likely these specific learning interactions will take place.
This workshop will focus on helping instructors connect teaching practices to theory. Grounding our teaching practices in theory can help us further understand what is working and what needs adjusting. One such planning framework that connects practice to theory is Understanding by Design (UbD). UbD is a “backwards” design process that helps instructors hone in on what they want their students to learn and then create a road map to achieve those goals. The term “backwards” is used because it focuses on what we want our students to learn by the end of the semester and works backwards to map put how to do so. Although highly regarded in education and learning sciences fields, this framework is not widely known by faculty teaching in other fields in higher education. This half-day professional development workshop will introduce professors to the backwards design process to help them plan their courses more effectively, with a focus on learning objective as the driving force behind what instructors choose to do in their classrooms. Instructors will also be introduced to related instructional foci such as: Deconstructing and reconstructing a student-centric class syllabus, strategies to establish a constructive learning environment, and approaches to connecting classroom content to practice. Lastly, professors will review the role of rubrics both as guidelines for themselves and their students to evaluate student work and the course.
Participants are asked to bring in sample syllabi to both share and to workshop. This professional development workshop will involve an initial overview of the educational and learning theories and concepts, followed by sharing and reviewing of sample syllabi for key components and opportunities for improvement. Small group break out sessions will provide opportunities for faculty to apply the concepts and materials from the workshop to their own syllabi. The workshop will end with a model activity professors can use in their courses for reviewing the hidden curriculum inherent in all teaching that can help students more effectively evaluate courses.
Please see the Professional Development Opportunities page on the conference website for additional details, including dates, times, & application guidelines.
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UAA workshops all require pre-application with a January deadline! You cannot simply show up in April and expect to join these events. Luckily other special sessions, roundtables and colloquy sessions are open to all without application. But careful…roundtables over breakfast require a breakfast meal ticket! |
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