The CTLI offered two Instructor Jumpstart workshop sessions for MSU’s New Faculty and Academic Staff Orientation in patnership with the Office for Faculty and Academic Staff Development. These hybrid workshops were led by Ellie Louson and Teaching Center director Jeremy Van Hof. Jumpstart is a two-part introduction to high-level topics related to quality, inclusive teaching at Michigan State University and was part of our Semester Start-Up programming for MSU educators. We covered topics such as:
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- Setting the Tone from the Start
- Syllabus Considerations
- Engaging Students in the Classroom
- Faculty Rights and Responsibilities
- Collaborating w/ GTAs and ULAs
- Inclusive Teaching and Pedagogy
- Building a (personal) Teaching & Learning Network
- MSU’s Early Warning System for Students (EASE)
- Available Campus Resources
The takeaways from these sessions were:
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- There are actions you can take to intentionally build a learning environment & culture in your class.
- Think about your syllabus as a learning tool and an agreement within your classroom community.
- Actively engaging learners with simple practices can improve course outcomes and help support the tone you’ve set.
- MSU educators enjoy both rights and responsibilities in their teaching, research, and outreach/creative activities
- Think of your work with GTAs/ULAs as a partnership, be aware of power dynamics, and use the Graduate School for GTA guidance and the CTLI for ULA guidance.
- There are benefits to students and instructors when courses are designed inclusively, and educators have specific responsibilities to create accessible courses and resources for students.
- We recommend that educators new to MSU connect with colleagues and build their personal teaching & learning network
- EASE reports are an early-warning system to help colleges identify absent or disengaged students for potential interventions and support early in the semester.
- MSU has lots of resources available to help support you and your students.
You can access the single slide deck for both sessions of Jumpstart here [requires a MSU login]. The slides include links to many MSU resources for course instructors. We also heard from participants that the CTLI’s new Classroom Scenarios Sample Responses could be valuable in the classroom to help respond to and/or de-escalate distracting or disruptive classroom situations.
Feel free to reach out to Ellie Louson or Jeremy Van Hof if you have any questions about New Instructor Jumpstart or the topics described above.
Photo by Stephanie Klepacki on Unsplash