TEACHING CIRCLES
Teaching circles are designed to facilitate faculty dialogue related to an aspect of teaching and/or learning. What is required of participants is a commitment to meet on a regular basis - frequency and times to be set by the group - and a desire to learn and contribute to the group.
CURRENT FTLC TEACHING CIRCLES
SEASONED EDUCATORS BOOK GROUP
Join other tenured faculty to discuss a book related to teaching and learning, either from the FTLC Reads list or of their own choosing. Initial meetings have yet to be scheduled. Christine Rener, Pew FTLC Director will help coordinate initial meetings, but a Teaching Circle convener will need to be chosen. Text selection and meeting schedules will be discussed at this initial meeting. If you are interested in joining, please contact Christine Rener at renerc@gvsu.edu.
TEACHING CIRCLE GRANTS
Propose your own Teaching Circle. Grants are available to all faculty, full or part-time. The initial meeting of the Circle must be publicized campus-wide and be open to any faculty member interested in the issue. Budgets may include expenses for refreshments, duplication, resources, etc. A brief summary of the group's activities is due at the end of the final semester in which the group meets.
Maximum Award: $500
Deadlines: None. Apply anytime.
DOWNLOAD TEACHING CIRCLE APPLICATION
QUALITY MATTERS TEACHING CIRCLE GRANTS
For faculty engaged in online/hybrid course development, consider joining a Teaching Circle dedicated to working with the Quality Matters standards rubric. The recently adopted Quality Matters rubric comprises eight standards that help guide course development. Each semester, several Quality Matters Teaching Circles will be offered in partnership with Instructional Design for e-Learning (IDeL). Contact the Pew FTLC if interested.
Maximum Award: $500
Deadlines: None. Apply anytime.
CURRENT TEACHING CIRCLE GRANTS 2012-13
The College of Education, and the Mathematics Department, with guidance from members of the Instructional Design for e-Learning Department (IDeL), will be using Teaching Circles to create an opportunity for constructive feedback and ideas for improvement in the design of hybrid and online instruction using general standards provided by the Quality Matters rubric. Meetings will be held monthly during the lunch hour at COE and at various times September through April in Math.
Another Teaching Circle by the Occupational Therapy Department, also related to technology in teaching, will discuss best practices, as well as training on relevant apps and software, for integrating iPads and FlipCams into the classroom and fieldwork visits. Meetings will take place at CHS, at least one time per month as part of faculty meetings and/or stand-alone tech training meetings. They plan to bring in guest speakers from other areas, such as the College of Education.
Kirsten Strom will be leading an Animal Studies Proposal Group Teaching Circle to discuss the development of a proposed interdisciplinary minor in the emerging field of Animal Studies. The minor would include courses in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
Kate Remlinger, Kelly Ross, and Dawn Evans created a Teaching Circle to learn how to more effectively encourage Student Responsibility and Accountability so that students are well prepared for class discussions and activities. The group will learn and share pedagogical practices such as designing classroom activities and assignments that develop cognitive skills, make connections with previous knowledge (i.e. "scaffold"), and develop metacognitive practices while at the same time helping faculty manage assignment and grading loads. Much of the group's learning will come from the book and website, Just-in-time Teaching by Scott Simkins and Mark Maier and include Pew FTLC on-demand workshops. Meetings are scheduled in 141 LHH:
- Friday, January 25, 11:00-12:30: Introductions and Circle Plan--Materials and Methods
- Friday, February 15, 11:00-12:30: FTLC Workshop ETM 4: Helping Students Prepare for Class
- Friday, March 1, 11:00-12:30: Discussion of given readings from Part One of Just-in-Time Teaching
- Friday, March 22, 11:00-12:30: Discussion of given readings from Part Two of Just-in-Time Teaching
- Friday, April 5, 11:00-12:30: Drawing Conclusions and Planning Applications
Danielle Lake’s Teaching Circle is a special series focusing on “Quality Matters,” GVSU’s current adopted standards for online/hybrid teaching, which is also very helpful for traditional in-seat courses. Glenna Decker from IDeL will be the facilitator. Each session will focus on a standard: Course Introductions, Learning Objectives, Assessment and Measurements, Instructional Materials, Learner Interaction and Engagement, as well as Course Technology, Learner Support, and Accessibility. Various aspects of these standards from Quality Matters will be scrutinized and applied to faculty courses. Focus will be on collaborative idea sharing with constructive feedback.
Dr. David Zwart, History, will be leading a Teaching Circle to facilitate a discussion about historical thinking and how to better help our students master the ability. Participants will read and discuss Stephane Levesque, Thinking Historically: Educating Students for the Twenty-First Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). This book is an excellent synthesis of much of the literature on teaching and learning history. The reading and discussion will help facilitate sharing best practices and a reflective pedagogy of the members of the group and work toward a signature pedagogy of history, particularly in survey courses.
PRIOR TEACHING CIRCLE GRANTS
There are a wide variety of purpose, organization, and size to Teaching Circle Grants, as can be seen in these examples from our past grants. Looking them over may help you with ideas when thinking about your own grant.
Dr. Christine Yalda, School of Criminal Justice, Winter 2012
Christine Yalda from the School of Criminal Justice received a Teaching Circle Grant this winter to support reading and discussion of conceptual and empirical literature on team teaching. Faculty participants will examine team teaching as a pedagogical practice and consider the benefits and challenges of team teaching for both students and faculty. This examination will lay the groundwork for a planned team teaching project and accompanying project-related research.
Dr. Gwenden Dueker, Psychology Department, Winter 2012
Participants explored the challenges of balancing an academic career and family life while reading and discussing the book: Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life, Elrena Evans (Author, Editor), Caroline Grant (Editor). The group met for to discuss the challenges and the rewards specific to simultaneously mothering and teaching at the university level and used chapters from the book as fodder/beginning points for their conversations.
Dr. Sherry Johnson, African American Studies Program, Area Studies 2011 - 2012
The African Diaspora Conversation Series was a lunch hour lecture series hosted once a month by the African/African American Studies program in Area Studies. The goal is to create an engaging forum for faculty members, as well as students. All faculty members at GVSU will get a chance to showcase their scholarship in so far as it is connected to the African Diaspora. In such a forum, students will have an opportunity to join in scholarly discussions, too. They will have an opportunity to see and engage in aspects of academia in which their professors participate outside of the classroom.
Page last modified March 1, 2013
