Bryn Mawr College

Graduate Students

Supported by the The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Teaching and Learning Institute offers a series of pedagogy workshops for graduate students. The series may be completed in its entirety for course credit, or individual workshops may be attended as stand-alone sessions. Seven two-hour workshops focused on a variety of pedagogical issues are scheduled for both the fall-2009 and the spring-2010 semesters. Offered alternate Thursdays from 9:00-11:00 a.m., these are interactive workshops, some of which require the completion of reading in advance and some of which include discussion of texts during the workshops themselves, but all of which focus on active, collaborative explorations of pedagogical issues. A full list of the workshop topics is below. These workshops count toward the completion of the Dean's Certificate in Pedagogy.

Contact the Coordinator of the TLI, Alison Cook-Sather (acooksat@brynmawr.edu), with any questions.

Comments from Participants

"I feel more prepared to handle some of the situations that occur as a teacher (e.g., running discussion groups more efficiently, grading materials in a fair manner). I feel that I am not just being 'thrown out there' into the world of teaching, but rather my skills in teaching are being fostered in meaningful and appropriate ways by those who are experts in the area."-Graduate Student

"I appreciate having an avenue to discuss and to think about pedagogy, since I anticipate this being an important part of my future career as a scholar. I strongly believe that teaching and learning are intertwined--that one who teaches is also learning at the same time, and that one who learns might also benefit from teaching or presenting the material to others. The Dean's Certificate has reinforced these ideas for me. I have been more mindful to think about new ways in which to foster my education based on discussions we have had (e.g., contributing to discussions in different ways based on the discussion workshop." -Graduate Student

The Pedagogy Workshop Series, 2009-2010

September 10: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF EDUCATION  For this workshop we read two chapters from Education Is Translation: A Metaphor for Change in Learning and Teaching. We use these chapters to ground a discussion of what we understand the process of education to be and how as teachers we can facilitate learning according to the definition(s) of education we generate.

September 24: LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING    This workshop will explore some of the basic understandings we have developed about how people learn, including: (1) Knowledge is constructed, not received; (2) Mental models change slowly; (3) Questions are crucial; and (4) Caring is crucial.

October 8: PREPARING TO TEACH   In this workshop we will explore four key questions from What the Best College Teachers Do: (1) What should my students be able to do intellectually, physically, or emotionally as a result of their learning?  (2) How can I best help and encourage them to develop those abilities and the habits of the heart and mind to use them? (3) How can my students and I best understand the nature, quality, and progress of their learning? and (4) How can I evaluate my efforts to foster that learning?

October 22: TEACHING STYLES   Teaching styles have much to do with assumptions and beliefs about what teaching is. Styles are not strategies anyone can simply adopt; rather, you need to create a style that is congruent with your commitments and personality. In this workshop we spend some time exploring different people’s notions of teaching, and then we discuss what kinds of teaching styles you might be comfortable developing.

November 5: THE CONDITIONS OF LEARNING/CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CLASSROOMS   What kind of classroom climate is open to learning in various ways and supportive of diverse learners? This workshop will explore the meanings of safety, risk, and trust in relationship to pedagogy and, drawing on a report from a project called “Toward More Culturally Responsive Classrooms,” help participants think about to create a classroom environment conducive to learning for all students.

November 19: STARTING WITH THE LEARNER/ KEEPING STUDENT INTEREST       This workshop focuses on designing prompts or exercises that invite students to make conscious and explicit their starting points in a conversation, activity, assignment, etc. and what kinds of courses and activities keep students engaged. We will draw on Learning from the Student’s Perspective: A Sourcebook for Effective Teaching, your own experiences, and input from Student Consultants who work through the TLI.

December 3: MENTORING   In this workshop we will discuss what we mean by “mentoring”; your own experiences with being mentored or mentoring; your particular hopes and needs regarding mentoring in this context; and strategies/opportunities for mentoring.

January 28: COURSE DESIGN   This workshop gives you the opportunity to explore individually and as a group three key questions in course design from Understanding by Design: (1) What are the learning goals of the course? (2) What will count as acceptable evidence of student learning? and (3) What activities, sequence, and resources are best suited to accomplish your goals? Please spend some time prior to the workshop addressing those three questions about a course you teach or plan to teach, and we will build on your responses during the workshop.

February 11: LECTURES   Lectures can be an effective way to convey a lot of information in a short time, but just because a teacher says something doesn’t mean a student learns it. In this workshop we will explore the purpose of lectures, your own positive and negative experiences with lectures, strategies for creating, delivering, and assessing lectures generated by both bi-co faculty and students across the divisions and disciplines, and your hopes for and concerns about yourself as a lecturer.

February 25: LEADING DISCUSSIONS   Critical theorist Paulo Freire argues that only through dialogue can there be real communication and only through communication can there be genuine education. In this workshop, we will explore the purpose of class discussions, your own positive and negative experiences with class discussions, strategies for facilitating good class discussion generated by both bi-co faculty and students across the divisions and disciplines, and your concerns about yourself as a facilitator of class discussions.

March 11: INTEGRATING AND RESPONDING TO WRITING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES   Writing is essential to every discipline. In this workshop we will discuss the role of writing in your disciplines, forms of writing assignments you have used or seen used, and ideas about how writing could be used. We will also discuss and generate strategies for responding to writing.

March 25: LESSON PLANNING   In this workshop we will discuss your experiences as students to identify issues to consider in planning; analyze lesson plans and generate planning approaches to consider; and develop an actual draft of a lesson plan based on principles and practices discussed in the workshop.

April 8: GRADING: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH   Grading is embedded within the larger frame/context of how one conceptualizes (consciously or unconsciously) course content, student learning processes and participation, and assessment. A kind of formative assessment used throughout the semester to inform instruction as well as guide learners through the course, grading ultimately becomes a summative assessment that measures what you and students have achieved together by the end of the course. This workshop will help you think through grading for a course you teach or plan to teach.

April 22: DEVELOPING A PORTFOLIO AND STATEMENT OF YOUR TEACHING PHILOSOPHY   For this workshop, bring all your notes from workshops you have attended and other work you have done through these workshops. We will discuss ways to organize and build your portfolio, and we will focus specifically on writing a statement of philosophy. Please draft a statement before you attend with the goal of revising it during and subsequent to the workshop.