Fall 2025 Offerings
Strategies for Mixing Up Your Teaching Approach to Foster Learning and Engagement
Facilitated by Christopher Peterson
All teachers can find themselves falling into teaching patterns that feel comfortable, but that do not encourage students to connect strongly with subject matter. This seminar will examine specific techniques to vary your classroom teaching approach to help make your classes more interesting, multi modal, and connected to your subject matter.
Academic Honesty in Asynchronous Classes
Facilitated by Kelly Ruppert
This workshop introduces strategies to maintain the academic integrity of asynchronous courses. At a time when cheating in online classes is at an all-time high, you will first explore ways in which students are using resources inappropriately and learn what you can do to combat their use. Second, you will learn how getting creative with course assignments can encourage learning while accurately assessing a student's level of understanding.
Assessment Strategies for the College Classroom
Facilitated by Christopher Peterson
Teachers must be prepared for many things in the classroom including writing lesson plans and lectures, managing materials, and assessing and grading the performance of the students in the class. While evaluation is ongoing throughout the semester, varied assessments that are valid and reliable form the foundation of our grading system at set points in time. This seminar will examine a variety of approaches to assess you students in various modalities allowing them to “show what they know” in ways you may not have considered before.
Promote and Foster Creativity and Critical Thinking in Your Classroom Through "Transfer Exercises"
Facilitated by Christopher Peterson
Encouraging students to participate and think creatively in the college classroom can be a challenge. This session will outline an activity that can be used in any content area to increase student participation, critical thinking, and creativity in a safe and encouraging classroom environment.
Creating Meaningful Discussions in Your Classroom
Facilitated by Christopher Peterson
It has been posited that discussion, as a classroom teaching technique, is the most difficult pedagogical teaching tool to administer well. Research has shown that teachers can mistake quizzing and classroom conversation for true "discussion." This seminar will examine discussion as a teaching tool, clarify what should not qualify as functional classroom discussion, and examine how the questions we use in our classroom can greatly affect how students think, react, and participate in our college classrooms.
Creating Clear and Useful Rubrics for Student Assessment in the College Classroom
Facilitated by Christopher Peterson
A rubric is a powerful tool for assessing student performance in your classroom. But it can also be used to focus and guide student progress toward mastery. Students who can clearly understand educational outcomes are more likely to work toward and achieve those outcomes with focus and clarity. This session will examine how to work backwards from your specific educational course objectives to create clear rubrics that describe what students will do to achieve a certain grade, and we will create several rubrics during the session that you can use in your classes.
