We’re occasionally asked if we offer spring versions of our day-long Associate Instructor Orientation or Classroom Climate Workshop. While we don’t replicate these programs at the start of the spring semester, we are offering various workshops in early January that will introduce graduate student instructors to some foundational skills for teaching. If the following options… Read more »
CITL
Preparing for Teaching Demonstrations
‘Tis the season for job applications! If you’ve been assembling teaching portfolios and tailoring both teaching statements and diversity statements, we’d like you to look forward to the on-campus interview. After you’ve made the short list as a job candidate, get ready for your teaching demonstrations. These are part of a day-long interview process where… Read more »
Resources on Inclusive Teaching, Stereotype Threat, and Bias
Instructors often ask us questions about how to build more inclusive classrooms, and what we know about these topics from research in the field. We are fortunate to have a rich body of literature in this area, and here are a few resources that instructors might find enlightening. Introductions and Overviews Here are several good… Read more »
Classroom Climate and Building a Sense of Belonging
Over four years of study, Kevin Binning and co-researchers replaced student doubt about “Do I really belong here?” with the belief that adversity is universal and temporary. Their 30-minute exercise includes narrative writing, peer testimonials, and small group discussion that not only closes performance gaps between underrepresented and majority groups, and between genders, but also… Read more »
Why Can’t College Students Write?
As a college English teacher with over twenty years of experience, John Warner is often asked why recent graduates can’t write. Warner typically responds, “They’re doing exactly what we’ve trained them to do; that’s the problem” (2018, p. 2). As the subtitle to Warner’s Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities… Read more »
The ways in which hunger and homelessness may affect our classrooms
When we consider the ways in which our classrooms are diverse, many of us first think of what we consider to be “visible” identities. These often include identity factors such as race and gender, both of which may or may not be “visible” depending on a variety of contexts. Many people may not consider students… Read more »