Teaching and Learning Conversations

(TLCs)

Deadline for Spring 2025 proposals: January 10

Do you have an interesting teaching strategy that you’d like to share? Something you’ve tried in the classroom that has increased student engagement, improved learning, or fostered inclusion? Consider discussing your strategy over lunch at a Teaching and Learning Conversation (TLC)! 

Purpose of TLCs:

• Provide Eastern faculty an opportunity to explore new pedagogical ideas and consider how they might adapt those ideas in their own teaching.
• Build community among teaching faculty through peer discussion of specific teaching strategies.
• Showcase innovative teaching at Eastern.

Each TLC session will provide faculty with the opportunity to hear a brief presentation on a specific teaching strategy that has been successfully implemented by one or more of their peers at Eastern. Participants will then have time to reflect and engage in small group discussions about how the strategy might be adapted and utilized in their own discipline.

Suggested Format:

1. Brief presentation on a specific strategy for 10 to 15 minutes, including:
   • Brief explanation of or reference to the research behind the strategy (if available)
   • How you carried out the strategy in your teaching
   • Results or lessons learned
   • A handout is welcome, particularly for strategies that may be new concepts for some faculty.
   • Note: If you are collaborating with a colleague from another department, the presentation may take slightly longer to allow time to share different perspectives and experiences.

2. Time for individual reflection on the strategy and how it might be adapted to other disciplines.
3. Small group discussions on the strategy (e.g., ideas for implementing the strategy, anticipated challenges, etc.)
4. Large group report-back on ideas discussed and remaining questions.

The CTLA can provide support to each presenter to identify additional resources on the strategy for participants, which will be made available online after the session. The CTLA can also assist with the creation of discussion questions if needed.

Proposal to Lead Session:

Interested in leading a session? Please fill out the proposal form by January 10. To complete the form, you will need to know:

• A draft title for the topic you’ll be discussing
• A 2-sentence description of the strategy/idea
• Whether you plan to collaborate with a colleague (collaboration with a colleague from another department is especially encouraged)
• If you plan to deviate from the suggested format
• Your schedule so you can identify days that generally that work for you

Please note: We may not be able to accommodate all faculty interested in leading a TLC this academic year. If more proposals are submitted than can be accommodated, decisions will be made based on ensuring a range of different kinds of topics by faculty from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, as well as institutional needs. It is anticipated that four TLCs will be scheduled this spring.

Logistics:

TLCs will be held for one hour at lunchtime in the President's Dining Room at Hurley, with lunch provided by the CTLA. (An alternative schedule/location may be considered to meet different needs.) Tables will be set up in rounds to facilitate small group discussion. 

Questions? Contact Julia DeLapp at delappj@easternct.edu or 860/465-0687.

TLCs will be held in the President's Dining Room, which is the first room on the left when you enter Hurley Hall.

If possible, please try to arrive 5 to 10 minutes before the start time to allow time to get lunch.

Your lunch will be covered by the CTLA. (Write your name on the sign-in sheet at the cash register to have your lunch charged to the CTLA.)  

We have requested that tables be set up in rounds to facilitate small group discussion.

AI-Based Assignments and Activities: Wednesday, January 24, 12 - 1 pm
Sarah Baires (Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, and Social Work), Wayne Buck (Business Administration), and T. Caitlin Vasquez-O’Brien (Psychological Science)

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools provide exciting opportunities to engage students in new ways—while helping students learn to ethically navigate technology that they will likely encounter in their future careers. In this session, three faculty will each share an AI-based assignment or class activity they designed and describe the student outcomes. 

See AI web resources

Strategies for Discussing Controversial Topics: Thursday, February 8, 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Jennifer Leszczyński (Psychological Science)

Two of the major skills students need to learn as part of our new liberal arts curriculum are critical thinking and communication. In this session, Jennifer Leszczyński will discuss the strategies she uses when teaching two courses (Psychology of Gender and Controversies in Child Psychology) to help students develop skills to critically examine information, communicate to others their beliefs about controversial topics, and listen and respond to other points of view.  

See web resources related to challenging conversations

Collaborative Grading: Wednesday, February 14, 12 – 1 pm
Barbara Liu (English)

Collaborative grading as discussed in this workshop is an approach where the instructor and the student come to a joint determination of the student's grade. Barbara Liu will share why she has adopted this approach, how she incorporates it into her classes, and the benefits she sees it having for both students and instructor.

See web resources on alternative grading

Project-Based Learning (PBL): Wednesday, March 20, 12 – 1 pm
Anthony Girasoli (Psychological Science)

With Project-Based Learning (PBL), students work in small groups to address a real-world, open-ended question and apply skills learned in class to develop and complete a project. PBL is student-centered, with the instructor guiding students through a constructive learning process while promoting in-class community. In this session, Anthony Girasoli will describe how he has incorporated PBL in his classes to enhance student learning.

See web resources on project-based learning

Engaging Students in a Real-World Problem for a Class Project: Thursday, April 4, 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Bryan Oakley (Environmental Earth Science)

Assigning students to work on real-world problems often results in higher levels of engagement, because students find the work to be personally meaningful and/or applicable to their lives or future careers. In this session, Bryan Oakley will describe an iterative project from his Coastal Geologic Hazards class where students work with stakeholders from a local community and identify solutions for a pressing problem related to climate change. The project provides students with meaningful pre-professional experiences while helping community partners think about local challenges through new lenses.

See web resources on problem-based learning

Personal Archives for Learning (ePortfolios): Insights for Curriculum Development and Assessment: Wednesday, April 17, 12 - 1 pm
David Stoloff (Education)

Personal archives for learning (PALs) enhance student-managed learning and self-assessment and illustrate the value-added nature of the Eastern experience. In this session, examples of PALs will display ways the ELAC learning outcomes may be documented for individual and curriculum assessment.

See web resources on ePortfolios

Using OER-Enabled Pedagogy to Engage Students in Meaningful and Lasting Content Creation 
Wednesday, September 25, 12 - 1 pm
Nicolas Simon (Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, and Social Work)

This session introduces Open Pedagogy, an innovative teaching approach where students and educators collaboratively create educational materials that are openly licensed with a Creative Commons License. This approach not only enhances the accessibility of resources but also plays a crucial role in developing students' creative thinking, critical thinking, and communication skills—core competencies essential to a Liberal Arts education. The session will feature concrete examples that demonstrate the practical application and transformative potential of Open Pedagogy in academic settings.

See OER and open pedagogy web resources

Making a Lesson Stick: Why Some Lessons Work and Others Don't
Tuesday, October 15, 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Howard Luxenberg (English)

We learn best - most effortlessly and with the greatest likelihood of retention - when we are able to connect the new thing we are being taught with something we already know. By way of example, in this session you will learn the ten elements of the Hero’s Quest by connecting them to a story (book or movie) you already know. But more importantly, I will ask each of you to find content from your own discipline that can be connected to something you can be reasonably sure your students already know. The workshop format reinforces an important corollary to this approach - the student has to be actively engaged in making these connections.

Increasing Student Engagement and Understanding Through Perusall
Tuesday, November 5, 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Miriam Chirico (English) and Lyndsey Lanagan-Leitzel (Psychological Science)

Perusall is a social learning platform currently integrated with Blackboard that allows students to collectively annotate readings and videos. Incorporating the tool into course assignments may be one way to increase students’ motivation to complete course readings, improve their connections with their peers, and lead to deeper understanding of content. Perusall can assist when faculty find that students are not consistently completing course readings or are not able to demonstrate deep engagement with and understanding of what they’ve read—or when Blackboard discussion boards aren’t eliciting the type of interactive and meaningful conversations that lead to transformative learning. This session will give examples of how to incorporate Perusall into coursework to benefit student learning and engagement.

See resources on using Perusall as a collaborative reading tool

Strategies for Building Classroom Community to Enhance Student Learning
Monday, November 18, 1 – 2 pm
Tanya Moorehead (Education)

When students feel a sense of belonging and community in the classroom, they are more able to actively participate in class, take risks, and engage in deep learning with their peers. As professors, we can intentionally design experiences that help build positive classroom communities where students can engage and learn. This session will explore how a sense of community in the classroom affects learning and will provide strategies for building classroom community.

See resources on building classroom community