Graduate Student Learning Communities

Orientation Peer Facilitator (Spring 2023)

Facilitator: Leslie Drane

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the Fall 2023 Associate Instructor Orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills (and get paid to do so)! Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories, making use of class time, and managing classroom authority and boundaries. CITL will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop. This learning community will end with you co-facilitating a workshop at the Fall 2023 Associate Instructor Orientation. This learning community is necessary for those hoping to fulfill the Specialist requirements for the Graduate Teaching Apprenticeship Program (GTAP).

Community Engaged Teaching and Learning

Facilitator: Michael Valliant

Community engaged teaching and learning, AKA service-learning, is a form of experiential learning that combines learning goals and community service in ways that produce multiple benefits for students, community, and instructors. In this GSLC grad students will learn about building curricular partnerships with community entities, using critical reflection for student learning, civic engagement, and community-engaged scholarship. A focus will be on incorporating manageable elements of community engaged pedagogy into classes you may currently be teaching.

Foundational Course Design for Graduate Instructors

Facilitators: Shannon Sipes and Jennifer Turrentine

This GSLC is a modification of the annual Foundational Course Design Institute held annually in the summer. Participants will be asked to choose one course in any modality to develop or revise utilizing the backward course design and universal design for learning frameworks. By the end of the GSLC, participants can expect to have determined learning outcomes for their students, outlined a major final assignment (or exam), and aligned assignments to help students meet the specified learning outcomes. All participants will leave with the foundations of a course syllabus in place. Preference will be given to graduate students developing an IUB course, but students who are interested in developing a course for proposal or job materials are encouraged to apply.

Transforming Your Research Into Teaching  Workshop Series – Summer 2023

Facilitators: Leslie Drane, Da’Ja’ Askew, and Maggie Gilchrist

This is a unique, hybrid 7-session workshop series designed to expose you to the basic elements of course design. Over the course of this workshop series, you will design a course syllabus and course unit based on your current area of research interest. You will be matched with peers across the country from different institutions who are developing courses in similar areas for peer review and inspiration. You will also have a learning community, either based out of your institution, or a multi-institution learning community to have weekly synchronous meetings for the discussion of your projects and what you’re learning. The course runs from June 12^th – July 28^th, has one-hour meeting per week, and requires around 1.5 – 2 hours of self-directed video and project development work per week.

This workshop series is open to MFAs, PhDs, and Post-docs from any academic discipline. At the end of the workshop series, you will present your course to the group. This workshop series is programming that is co-sponsored by the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) and the University Graduate School.

Decentering Whiteness in the Classroom

Facilitator: Aaminah Long (citldiv1@indiana.edu)

White cultural norms pervade all aspects of higher education. That said, in classroom contexts instructors often privilege pedagogy and experiences that treat what is white as “universal” and “normal”. Within this context, whiteness refers to the location of structural advantage and the centering and privileging of white constructs of value and knowledge systems. The goal of this GSLC is to explore how academics can normalize and cultivate a more equitable and just culture throughout the classroom. Specifically, we will center on the process of honoring and affirming the multiple perspectives and lived experiences of people from marginalized communities. From this GSLC, participants can expect to have gained an understanding of how whiteness underscores power and inequity in social relations and institutions, methods to apply the tenets of Critical whiteness studies (CWS) to teaching methods, and equitable approaches to course design (including syllabi).

Document Your Teaching: Developing a Teaching Portfolio

Facilitator: Maggie Gilchrist (citlgrad@iu.edu)  

This Graduate Student Learning Community meets six times over the course of the semester to develop a teaching portfolio—a comprehensive representation of your teaching for the academic job market. Each meeting will focus on a particular aspect of portfolio design: curation, reflection, evidence, and structure. Throughout the semester, graduate student participants will attend a combination of synchronous online workshops and group meetings, curate and craft the documents typical to this genre (a teaching statement, diversity statement, syllabi samples, (graded) assignments, qualitative and quantitative feedback), and share drafts of their work and provide feedback to their peers asynchronously via Canvas.

Intensive Writing for Student Learning and Engagement

Facilitator: John Paul Kanwit and Mary Helen Truglia

Are you interested in learning strategies for creating and teaching an Intensive Writing (IW) course? This GSLC will walk you through crafting effective writing assignments, building the writing process into an IW course, evaluating students’ writing fairly and efficiently, using rubrics effectively, commenting productively on student papers, using a variety of objects as writing prompts, managing the peer review process, and more. For those who are teaching a College of Arts and Sciences IW course, we will discuss those requirements and proposal strategies in some detail. However, this GSLC will be useful to graduate instructors teaching IW courses in any IUB school or department.

Participants will receive opportunities to practice talking about teaching and will leave the community having produced multiple pedagogy-related materials including a draft syllabus/schedule for an IW course of their design.

Scholar Activism and Community Engagement for Instructors

Facilitator: Jess Tang (jestang@iu.edu)

Scholar activism refers to the intersection of scholarship and social change, where academics use their expertise and academic platforms to address pressing social issues. Participants will explore the theoretical foundations, historical perspectives, and practical applications of scholar activism across various disciplines. Through collaborative discussions, readings, and experiential learning, participants will develop a deeper understanding of their role as scholar activists and gain the tools and resources to effectively engage in transformative action within their classrooms and academic communities.

Orientation Peer Facilitator (Spring 2022)

Facilitator: Leslie Drane

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the Fall 2022 Associate Instructor Orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories, making use of class time, and managing classroom authority and boundaries. CITL will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop. This learning community will end with you co-facilitating a workshop at the Fall 2022 Associate Instructor Orientation. This learning community is necessary for those hoping to fulfill the Specialist requirements for the Graduate Teaching Apprenticeship Program (GTAP).

Intersections of Identity and Instruction (Spring 2022)

Facilitators: Da’Ja’ Askew and Joan Middendorf

Diverse, historically underrepresented and/or underserved graduate students face particular difficulties as associate instructors (e.g., discrimination, marginalization, isolation, questioning classroom authority, etc.). These challenges can impede AIs’ productive identity formation as both teachers and scholars in higher education. The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. In this GSLC grad students will learn about their own identities and the perception of them and how to apply anti-racist pedagogies. This community will provide a brave space for challenging systematic bias and racism in higher education.

Improving Student Belonging in Classes and Majors (Spring 2022)

Facilitator: Greg Siering

Historically underrepresented and marginalized students may face unique difficulties (isolation, marginalization, discrimination, etc.) that cause them to change majors early in their college careers, decide to transfer to another university, or discontinue their education. This learning community will bring together instructors who want to explore how to help students to develop a sense of belonging in a class, major, and/or discipline. This learning community will meet six times in the Spring 2022 semester—Fridays 10:00-11:30 on Zoom. The group will discuss foundational readings, current efforts at IU and other universities designed to improve sense of belonging, and our experiences as both instructors and students.

Transforming Your Research Into Teaching Workshop Series (Summer 2021)

Facilitators: Leslie Drane, Madeleine Gonin, and Rajagopal Sankaranarayanan

This is a 7-session workshop series designed to expose you to the basic elements of course design. Over the course of this workshop series, you will  design a course syllabus and course unit based on your current area of research interest. This workshop series is open to MFAs, PhDs, and Post-docs from any academic discipline. At the end of the workshop series, you will present your course to the group.

Orientation Peer Facilitator (Spring 2021)

Facilitators: Leslie Drane

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the Fall 2021 Associate Instructor Orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). CITL will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop. We are planning to offer Fall 2021 Associate Instructor Orientation online and we can help you become confident in leading presentations over Zoom.

Reflecting on Your Inclusive Teaching Practice

CITL Facilitator: Greg Siering

Inclusive teaching practices help us ensure that all students have equitable opportunities to learn, and that they feel valued and supported in their learning. These practices can vary in focus, as well as the knowledge and time required to implement them. This learning community will utilize a series of reflective teaching checklists devised by the University of Michigan as a framework for exploring our teaching and identifying ways we can make our classes more inclusive. The research-based principles we will explore include Critical Engagement of Difference, Academic Belonging, Transparency, Structured Interactions, and Flexibility. The ultimate goals of this work are 1) to identify some easily implementable changes we can make to our teaching; and 2) to set longer-term goals for learning and instructional development.

Improving Course Accessibility for All Students through Universal Design for Learning

Facilitators: Madeleine Gonin and John Paul Kanwit

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is “a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn” (http://udlguidelines.cast.org). The UDL framework helps instructors make their course material accessible to all learners by providing multiple means of engagement, representation, and ways for students to demonstrate what they have learned. This learning community will provide an introduction to UDL and then move to more specific discussions of course accessibility, assumptions about ability/disability, and neurodiversity. Re cognizing the particular challenges that instructors will face this semester and beyond, we will also consider the application of UDL to online courses. Finally, we will ask participants to discuss how UDL could be used in various disciplinary settings.

Intersections of Identity and Instruction

CITL Facilitator: Charmian Lam, Megan Betz, and Leslie Drane

Diverse, historically underrepresented and/or underserved graduate students face particular difficulties as associate instructors (e.g., discrimination, marginalization, isolation, problems with classroom authority, etc.). These challenges can impede AIs’ productive identity formation as both teachers and scholars in higher education. The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. This community will provide a safe space for engaging instructors in strategies for holistic and equitable education

Community Engaged Learning

CITL Facilitator: Michael Valliant

Community engaged teaching and learning, AKA service-learning, combines learning goals and community service in ways that produce multiple benefits for students, community, and instructors. Students can demonstrate improved application of knowledge, greater interpersonal development, and improved social responsibility and citizenship skills. Instructors can discover new avenues for research and publication via new relationships between faculty while the community benefits from student participation as valuable human resources needed to achieve community goals and potentially building capacity for positive social change. This learning community will bring together instructors who want to explore how to use community engaged pedagogies in their classrooms. Through the fall 2020 semester, members will discuss foundational readings to understand the key elements of community engaged learning.

Transforming Your Research Into Teaching

Facilitators: Charmian Lam, Madeleine Gonin, and Leslie Drane

This 7-session workshop series will expose you to the basic elements of course design. Over the course of this workshop series, you will create a course proposal based on your current area of research. The workshop series is open to graduate students and post-doctoral scholars from any academic discipline.
At the end of the series, you will have designed a full course syllabus and you will present your course to the group.

Improving Student Belonging in Classes and Majors

Facilitators: Leslie Drane and Madeleine Gonin

Historically underrepresented and marginalized students may face unique difficulties (isolation, marginalization, discrimination, etc.) that cause them to change majors early in their college careers, decide to transfer to another institute for higher education, or discontinue their education. This learning community will bring together instructors who want to explore how to help students to develop a sense of belonging in a class, major, and/or discipline. This learning community will meet in Fall 2019, with the possibility of extending the GSLC into Spring 2020. The fall semester will include foundational readings. If members wish to continue into the spring semester, they will conduct a research project on the topic of sense of belonging in their class, major, and/or discipline. The results will be documented and shared to extend the impact of these transformations.

Introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

Facilitators: Shannon Sipes and Leslie Drane

For many instructors, the classroom can be a source of interesting questions about students’ learning. For example: what is the impact of a specific active learning technique on my students’ understanding of course material? How do my students prepare for exams, and how does that correlate with their performance? Does my students’ prior coursework or academic background correlate with their performance in my class? In seeking answers to these kinds of questions, instructors can use the research methods of their own discipline to examine their teaching and their students’ learning. This is the premise underlying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), a program that helps instructors take a scholarly approach to their teaching and share the results of their inquiry with their colleagues. In this GSLC, participants will engage in SOTL by formulating a research question, applying their disciplinary expertise to identify methods to investigate the question, and gathering evidence to address it.

Orientation Peer Facilitator

Facilitators: Leslie Drane and Madeleine Gonin

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the Associate Instructor Orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). CITL will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in the Classroom

CITL Facilitator: Shed Siliman

Diverse, historically underrepresented and/or underserved graduate students face particular difficulties as associate instructors (e.g., discrimination, marginalization, isolation, problems with classroom authority, etc.). These challenges can impede AIs’ productive identity formation as both teachers and scholars in higher education. The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. This community will provide a safe space for engaging instructors in strategies for holistic and equitable education.

Orientation Peer Facilitator

CITL Facilitators: Katie Kearns, Leslie Drane, Shed Siliman

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the AI orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). We will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop.

Talking About Teaching

CITL Facilitator: Leslie Drane

This graduate student learning community will promote the engagement and professional development of graduate students as they prepare to talk about their teaching in a variety of settings and to multiple audiences. Through workshops, readings, and the creation of pedagogy-related materials, members will learn about strategies on how to share what they have learned about teaching with others. Topics will include: backward course design, writing course syllabi, creating diversity statements, organizing a teaching portfolio, and approaching an academic interview. Participants will receive opportunities to practice talking about teaching and will leave the community having produced multiple pedagogy-related materials.

Classroom Inquiry

CITL Facilitator: Katie Kearns

Graduate student participants will engage in evidence-based and reflective teaching practice. Grounded in discussions of literature about learning and pedagogy, participants will develop, implement, and assess an innovative approach that addresses a learning challenge for their students. Graduate students will also gain experience communicating professionally about their teaching. This community of inquiry and encouragement will foster an evolution in teaching techniques and a greater attentiveness to scholarly teaching.

Evidence-Based Teaching in Science, Technology, Informatics, and Math (STIM)

CITL Facilitator: Francesca White

How do people learn? What are the most effective approaches to teaching scientific reasoning skills? How do we create spaces that ensure lasting learning in STIM disciplines? How do we ensure access and inclusivity in our teaching approaches? How do we know students are learning in our classes? Graduate students in STIM and SBE disciplines (e.g., astronomy, biology, chemistry, computing, informatics, math, medical sciences, and physics, as well as social, behavioral, and economic sciences) are invited to join a community to find answers to these questions through local and national discussions of evidence-based methods in teaching.

Intersections of Instruction & Identity

CITL Facilitator: Rachel Boveja

Are you interested in learning strategies for teaching with diversity? Do you identify as a member of a marginalized group? The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community (I3 GSLC), a partnership of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning and the University Graduate School, seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. This community provides a welcoming space for unpacking diverse identities, teaching, and education.

Orientation Peer Facilitator

CITL Facilitators: Katie Kearns, Leslie Drane, Rachel Boveja

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the AI orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). We will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop.

Talking About Teaching

CITL Facilitator: Leslie Drane

This graduate student learning community will promote the engagement and professional development of graduate students as they prepare to talk about their teaching in a variety of settings and to multiple audiences. Through workshops, readings, and the creation of pedagogy-related materials, members will learn about strategies on how to share what they have learned about teaching with others. Topics will include: backward course design, writing course syllabi, creating diversity statements, organizing a teaching portfolio, and approaching an academic interview. Participants will receive opportunities to practice talking about teaching and will leave the community having produced multiple pedagogy-related materials.

Classroom Inquiry

CITL Facilitator: Katie Kearns

Graduate student participants will engage in evidence-based and reflective teaching practice. Grounded in discussions of literature about learning and pedagogy, participants will develop, implement, and assess an innovative approach that addresses a learning challenge for their students. Graduate students will also gain experience communicating professionally about their teaching. This community of inquiry and encouragement will foster an evolution in teaching techniques and a greater attentiveness to scholarly teaching.

Intersections of Instruction & Identity

CITL Facilitator: Yari Cruz

Are you interested in learning strategies for teaching with diversity? Do you identify as a member of a marginalized group? The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community (I3 GSLC), a partnership of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning and the University Graduate School, seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. This community provides a welcoming space for unpacking diverse identities, teaching, and education.

Orientation Peer Facilitator

CITL Facilitators: Katie Kearns, Leslie Drane, Yari Cruz

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the AI orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). We will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop.

Talking About Teaching

CITL Facilitator: Leslie Drane

This graduate student learning community will promote the engagement and professional development of graduate students as they prepare to talk about their teaching in a variety of settings and to multiple audiences. Through workshops, readings, and the creation of pedagogy-related materials, members will learn about strategies on how to share what they have learned about teaching with others. Topics will include: backward course design, writing course syllabi, creating diversity statements, organizing a teaching portfolio, and approaching an academic interview. Participants will receive opportunities to practice talking about teaching and will leave the community having produced multiple pedagogy-related materials.

Evidence-Based Teaching in Science, Technology, Informatics, and Math (STIM)

CITL Facilitator: Katie Kearns

How do people learn? What are the most effective approaches to teaching scientific reasoning skills? How do we create spaces that ensure lasting learning in STIM disciplines? How do we ensure access and inclusivity in our teaching approaches? How do we know students are learning in our classes? Graduate students in STIM and SBE disciplines (e.g., astronomy, biology, chemistry, computing, informatics, math, medical sciences, and physics, as well as social, behavioral, and economic sciences) are invited to join a community to find answers to these questions through local and national discussions of evidence-based methods in teaching.

Intersections of Instruction & Identity

CITL Facilitator: Jordan Lynton and Katie Kearns

Are you interested in learning strategies for teaching with diversity? Do you identify as a member of a marginalized group? The Intersections of Identity and Instruction Graduate Student Learning Community (I3 GSLC), a partnership of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning and the University Graduate School, seeks to promote the engagement and professional development of diverse graduate students as associate instructors. This community provides a welcoming space for unpacking diverse identities, teaching, and education.

Orientation Peer Facilitator

CITL Facilitators: Katie Kearns

Learn to be a CITL workshop facilitator for the AI orientation while gaining new pedagogical knowledge and skills. Participants will design and lead AI-specific workshops on topics such as: teaching and learning theories; making use of class time; managing classroom authority and boundaries; and classroom climate (e.g., teaching controversial topics; engaging in group work; strategies for equitable classroom participation). We will provide ongoing training, mentoring, and resources on developing and facilitating a workshop.