Seminars for Graduate Student Instructors & Postdocs (Fall 2009)
CRLT’s seminars provide a forum for graduate students and postdocs to explore topics in teaching with colleagues from across campus. Each term, CRLT offers seminars on a variety of topics. All seminars are interactive, solidly grounded in the research on teaching and learning, and designed to offer practical suggestions that can be incorporated into classrooms.
Click on seminar title for description and to register.
For Engineering programs at CRLT North click here.
CRLT is prepared to provide necessary physical accommodations for seminar participants with advance notice. Please call CRLT at 764-0505.
Best Practices and Innovative Approaches
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
- Leading Discussions in the Social Sciences
and Humanities
Monday, September 21, 3:00-5:00 p.m. - Teaching in, with, and about Museums:
Engaging Students in Materially Different Ways
Wednesday, Septemer 23, 12:00-2:00 p.m.
R1220 Ross Business School
- Fundamentals of Effective Lecturing
Thursday, October 22, 3:00.-5:00 p.m.
Great Lakes Rooms, 4th floor, Palmer Commons
- Instructional Technology for GSIs:
Using CTools, Creating Websites, and Using Presentation Technology
Thursday, November 5, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Preparing Future Faculty
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
- What's It Like to Work at a Community College?
Friday, September 25, 3:30-5:00 p.m. - What's It Like to Work Where There's a Teaching-Research
Balance?
Wednesday, October 7, 2:30-3:40 p.m.
Michigan League
- Preparing Future Faculty Conference:
Getting Ready for An Academic Career
Wednesday, October 7, 11:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Multicultural Teaching
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
- Six-SessionTraining for Multicultural Classroom
Facilitation
Tuesdays, October 6, 13, 27, November 3, 10, & 17, 3:00-6:00 p.m.
(must attend all)
Great Lakes Room North, 4th floor, Palmer Commons
- CRLT Players: (dis)Ability in the Classroom
Monday, October 26, 3:30-5:30 p.m
Research Talk
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
- From Ignorant Certainty to Intelligent Confusion:
Intellectual Development in College Students
Wednesday, November 11, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Best Practices and Innovative Approaches
Leading Discussions in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Monday, September 21, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
How can I heighten student participation in my sections? What are different ways I can plan a discussion and ask questions of students? How can I enhance students’ critical thinking skills? This seminar will provide participants with strategies for addressing these questions in social science and humanities classrooms. Seminar participants will learn and practice techniques for facilitating discussions, managing controversies, asking effective questions, and enhancing and evaluating student participation. This seminar will complement the Leading Discussions session offered at GSI Teaching Orientation.
Lauren Kachorek, Postdoctoral Teaching Consultant, CRLT
Kirsten Olds, Postdoctoral Research Associate, CRLT
Teaching in, with, and about Museums:
Engaging Students in Materially Different Ways
Wednesday, September 23, 12:00-2:00 p.m.
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
Modest lunch provided.
This luncheon session provides ideas, examples, and collaborative possibilities to enhance pedagogy in a range of disciplines. The session will include brief presentations from faculty and from museum educators. The ideas will be provocative and useful, whether one wants to create a module or course assignment, or whether one wants to design an entire course around museum collections and exhibits. In addition, participants will receive an overview of the events and lectures planned for the 2009-2010 LSA Museum Theme Year, along with information on University Museums including the lesser known. This workshop is presented by CRLT as part of the LSA Theme Year.
Carla Sinopoli, Anthropology and Curator and Director, Museum
of Anthropology
Lynn Anderson, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular,
Cellar and Developmental Biology
David Doris, Art History and Afroamerican and African Studies
Kristin Hass, Program in American Culture and Women’s
Studies
Christi Merrill, Comparative Literature and Asian Languages
and Cultures
Lisa Young, Anthropology
Fundamentals of Effective Lecturing
Thursday, October 22, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
R1220 Ross School of Business
PDF of PPT Slides
Please note that URLs in the PDF need to be copied and pasted into your browser window.
This seminar, designed for instructors who want to improve their basic lecture skills, focuses on three challenges inherent in lecturing: gaining attention, increasing comprehension, and maintaining engagement. Material is presented in an interactive lecturing format that allows for demonstration of selected techniques.
In preparation for the lecturing workshop, please bring slides or an outline for a lecture you would like to revise -- or a topic and a few main points for a future lecture or presentation. The workshop will be most helpful if you have content to work with.
Anne Harrington, Director, Ross School of Business Instructional Development Program
Instructional Technology for GSIs:
Using CTools,
Creating Websites, and Using Presentation Technology
Thursday, November 5, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Great Lakes Room, 4th floor, Palmer Commons
Assessing Student Learning Using CTools
led by Meg Bakewell,
GSI, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, LSA and IT-GTC,
CRLT
This session demonstrates features like Assignment, Gradebook, and Test Center. Participants will learn how these tools can be used to efficiently and effectively monitor students' progress and to provide timely feedback to students.
When Is It Better to Create New Websites than Use CTOOLS?
led by
Brett
Fling, GSI, School of Kinesiology and IT-GTC, CRLT
This session will address the pros (and cons) of integrating website construction into teaching. Particular attention will be paid to UM.SiteMaker, a web-based program originated at the University of Michigan that allows non-technical students to make highly customized websites and web-databases. A small amount of time will be set aside for professional development, i.e. the benefits of creating your own online CV.
PowerPoint and Pedagogy: Moving Beyond a Crutch
led by Archer Batcheller, GSI, School of Information and IT-GTC, CRLT
PowerPoint is often a default mode of instruction, without considering whether it's a good choice. This session examines how learning objectives for your class may (or may not) be served by the use of PowerPoint. We will discuss when PowerPoint use is appropriate and how to use it effectively to meet class goals. We will not be focusing on PowerPoint skills, but on pedagogically effective use.
Preparing Future Faculty
What's It Like to Work at a Community College?
Friday, September 25, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
About a third of full-time and two-thirds of part-time faculty teach at community colleges. What’s it like to teach at a two-year institution? This panel features full-time faculty and administrators who work or have worked at three community colleges. Panelists will discuss typical salaries, work portfolios and job search strategies. This session is co-sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School and CRLT.
Geraldine Jacobs, Professor, Department of Language, Literature and the
Arts, Jackson Community College
Roger Palay, Vice President for Instruction, Washtenaw Community College
Andre Cavalcante, Ph.D. Candidate, Communication Studies, University of Michigan
(and previously, a full-time instructor at Suffolk County Community College and
an adjunct at Nassau Community College, New York)
What's It Like to Work Where There's a Teaching-Research Balance?
Wednesday, October 7, 2:30-3:40 p.m.
Michigan Room, Michigan League
This panel spotlights faculty worklife at master's institutions, where work expectations include a relatively even mix of teaching and research. Faculty will discuss faculty worklife at their institutions, strategies for getting hired at a master's institution, and tenure expectations. This session is co-sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School and CRLT.
Samhita Rhodes, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Grand Valley State University
John Staudenmaier, s.j., Professor of History, The University of Detroit Mercy
Preparing Future Faculty Conference:
Getting Ready for An Academic
Career
Thursday, October 7, 11:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Ballroom, 2nd Floor, Michigan League
Co-sponsored by Rackham Graduate School and The Career Center
Planning a career in academe? This half-day conference is designed to help graduate students and postdoctoral scholars prepare for the transition to faculty jobs. The plenary and concurrent sessions will offer materials and strategies to learn about what it means to pursue an academic career and how to prepare for the job search process. Lunch will be provided. Enrollment is limited.
Click Here for more information and to register.
Multicultural Teaching
Six-Session Training for Multicultural Classroom Facilitation
Tuesdays, October 6, 13, 27, November 3, 10, and 17, 3:00-6:00
p.m. (must attend all)
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
This training series will provide GSIs with the opportunity to learn and use various models of group facilitation and dialogue for classroom settings. These three-hour sessions will introduce the skills and theory behind various methods of facilitation and examine the strengths and appropriate uses of each method in the classroom. Participants will receive a certificate of training after completing all six sessions. Dinner will be served at each session.
This seminar series is co-sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School and the program on InterGroup Relations (IGR).
Crisca Bierwert, Associate Director, Multicultural Coordinator,
CRLT
Taryn Petryk, Director of Co-Curricular Initiatives/Senior Program
Manager The Program on Intergroup Relations
Jeffrey Steiger, Artistic Director, CRLT Theatre Program
CRLT Players: (dis)Ability in the Classroom
Monday, October 26, 3:30-5:30 p.m.
Great Lakes North, 4th floor, Palmer Commons
In this sketch, the CRLT Players depict an instructor and students struggling with many issues, stereotypes, and dynamics surrounding visible and hidden disabilities in the classroom. Following the performance, the participants are invited to dialogue with the characters, who then repeat the sketch while incorporating audience suggestions.
Jeffrey Steiger, Artistic Director, CRLT Theatre Program
Research Talk
From Ignorant Certainty to Intelligent
Confusion:
Intellectual Development in College Students
Wednesday, November 11, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons
Faculty members and GSIs sometimes express their impatience at dealing with students who respond to complex topics in simple, unidimensional ways, or who don’t seem to grasp the role of evidence when asked to support a point of view. Students, too, get impatient with instructors who won’t give them “the right answer.” This presentation will provide a way of understanding these responses by looking at differences in underlying assumptions about knowledge and knowing, and how the recognition of intelligent confusion can be seen as a developmental step toward making well-reasoned reflective judgments.
Patricia M. King, Professor of Higher Education, Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education