2017 - Challenging Gateway Courses

Co-funded by the Office of the Vice President for Instruction and the Center for Teaching and Learning, the 2017 cohort of the CTL Fellows for Innovative Teaching will focus on methodologies and practices for those teaching challenging gateway courses. The activities for this program will begin in March 2017 and conclude in December 2017.

Goals

The goals of the 2017 CTL Fellows for Innovative Teaching included the following:

To provide faculty who teach challenging gateway courses with development, support, and collaboration to institute revised and/or new, evidence-based pedagogical approaches;
To provide faculty with opportunities to share instructional practices with other dedicated, highly-motivated, and innovative teachers who have similar interests and who face similar teaching challenges;
To provide funding ($2,000) to support instructional innovation in challenging gateway courses. This funded is intended to strengthen courses and teaching methods;
To further integrate what research tells us about how people learn into key courses at the University; and
To reinforce an instructional environment that honors and recognizes dedicated teaching scholars and promotes a learning-community spirit on a large campus.

Program Overview

The 2017 CTL Fellows for Innovative Teaching program will include the following activities and events:

Spring semester 2017 activities will consist of a half-day kick-off event on Monday, March 6, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in 372 MLC. A cohort meeting will follow in April;
Four half-day intensive course design Maymester sessions (May 15 - 18, 8:30 a.m. to noon each day);
Fall semester activities will include monthly cohort meetings and peer observations of teaching; and
In December 2017, each participant will provide a brief presentation regarding their fall semester teaching experience.

Selection Process

Faculty teaching challenging gateway courses were selected to participate in this program. Selected faculty received a letter of invitation to participate:

Tessa Andrews, Genetics
Swati Bhandarkar, Accounting
Brian Drake, History
Amanda Farmer, Accounting
Kimberly Grantham, Marketing
Douglas Jackson, Chemistry
Kris McWhite, Economics
Vladimir Popik, Chemistry