Getting Off on the Right Foot: Strategies for a Welcoming and Inclusive Start to the Semester
Facilitated by Jessica Tinklenberg and Darryl Yong (CTL)
The first week of class is an excellent opportunity to set the right tone, motivate students, and build an inclusive, welcoming and supportive environment for learning. However, with all of the chaos of those first days it is also an opportunity we too often miss. In this two-hour workshop, we’ll all share our best ideas and approaches for creating a more welcoming, inclusive, and motivating classroom for your students and yourself.
Dates, Times, and Locations:
- August 21, Monday, 1:30-3:30pm @ Pomona Hahn 101
- August 23, Wednesday, 10:00am-noon @ Scripps Hampton Room
RSVP using this form: https://goo.gl/forms/32Ls5FjlQQcXmWwR2
Syllabus Drop-In Clinic
Times and Locations:
- 9am-noon on Tue, Aug 22 (location TBA)
- 1-4pm on Thu, Aug 24 (location TBA)
Working on a syllabus for an upcoming course? The Syllabus Drop-In Clinic is a supportive environment where you can learn some useful tools and ideas, get your questions answered, get feedback on your syllabus, and walk out with a more complete syllabus.
You can drop by the clinic at any point during the three-hour block and stay for as long as you’d like. At the top of each hour, we’ll give a brief presentation on an idea that will help you improve your syllabus. Then participants will get some uninterrupted time to work on their syllabi. There will also be a time for sharing and getting feedback with colleagues.
- Hour 1: Creating a more transparent syllabus
- Hour 2: Creating a more welcoming and inclusive syllabus
- Hour 3: Creating a more user-friendly syllabus
You’ll want to bring a laptop computer or several hard copies of your syllabus so that you can work on the syllabus during the session.
Guilt-Free Book Club: Small Teaching by James Lang
The CTL has selected Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James Lang for its “guilt-free book club” during the Fall 2017 Semester.
Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides concrete examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines.
The book club is guilt-free in that if you’ve signed up, you are encouraged to attend even if you haven’t done the reading for the week or missed prior meetings. Book club meetings will take place every two weeks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (* except on Wed, Oct 18 and Thu, Oct 19 due to Fall Break). You can attend on either day every two weeks, according to your schedule. Lunch will be served.
Dates and Times: Sep 5/6, Sep 19/20, Oct 3/4, Oct 18/19*, Oct 31/Nov 1, Nov 14/15, Nov 28/29 (all noon-1pm)
Small Teaching is available online through the Claremont Colleges Library.
Looking for past events? You’ll find a list of 2016-17 events here.