The Center for Teaching and Learning continues this spring to lead a dialogue about enhancing instruction at the university with its National Speakers Series and UGA Award-Winning Faculty Series.
These programs touch on a nationwide conversation about university-level instruction, while also offering some practical advice about tools and strategies for teaching.
Eddie Watson, director of CTL, said the topics in the series are relevant to UGA in the long term.
Mary Taylor Huber, a consulting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will give the first lecture in this semester’s CTL National Speaker Series.
Huber will talk about the scholarship of teaching and learning within academic careers on Feb. 13 in Masters Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education from 9:30-11 a.m. That talk will be followed with a workshop led by Huber in the Miller Learning Center reading room from 2-4 p.m.
Watson said Huber’s lecture comes at a time when some faculty members at UGA are being hired for their specialization in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
“An SOTL tenure-track faculty member is someone who is teaching and then studying their teaching, how their students are learning and which teaching practices are the most effective,” he said.
On March 5, Jon Rubin, director of the Collaborative Online International Learning Center at the State University of New York, will deliver a lecture on how to integrate global elements into the curriculum at the Georgia Center from 3:30-5 p.m. The Office of International Education is co-sponsoring Rubin’s visit.
“His focus is very much on online strategies to internationalize the educational experience,” said Chase Hagood, coordinator of faculty development and recognition at CTL.
Rubin will talk about how SUNY universities have developed partnerships with international universities to allow classrooms to interact through online tools such as video conferencing. Rubin also will lead a workshop on the topic from 9-11 a.m. March 6.
On April 7, Robin Wright, associate dean of the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota, will deliver the lecture “SCALING-UP in Biology” from 10-11:30 a.m. at the biological sciences building.
The discussion, cosponsored by the biological sciences and cellular biology departments in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, will revolve around active learning classrooms for science courses. Two workshops on SCALE-UP classes will follow the lecture from 1:30-3:30 p.m. and 3:30-5 p.m. in the biological sciences building.
Watson said this talk about active learning environments is coming at an important time as plans are underway in the design of the Science Learning Center.
The Award-Winning Faculty Series, which features UGA faculty who recently have won teaching awards, will begin in February.
Jean Martin-Williams, a Meigs Professor in the Hodgson School of Music, will give a lecture titled “Enhancing Learning Through Group Projects: Applying Chamber Music Coaching Techniques to Any Classroom Setting.” The lecture by Martin-Williams, who also is the director of the CTL Lilly Teaching Fellows, will be held from 12:30-2:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 at the Georgia Museum of Art.
On March 18, John Knox, associate geography professor and a 2013 Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching recipient, will deliver a lecture titled “Active Learning With Large Classes: Strategies That Work Better With 100 Students Than 10 Students” from 1-3 p.m. in Park Hall.
On April 2, Shari Miller, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work and a 2013 Russell Teaching Award recipient, will discuss “Professional Socialization: Where Process and Content Converge in the Classroom” from 10 a.m. to noon in the Miller Learning Center reading room.
In addition, CTL staff will provide pedagogy workshops on using instructional technologies, exemplary classroom teaching practice and other topics.
All of the lectures and workshops are free.
