Contemporary Teaching Series
The 2025 Pedagogy Series will include at least two sessions of professional development every week of Winter Term.
The main focus will be Generative AI – what to know and what to do to manage it carefully, productively, and pro-actively in our professional work, both teaching and scholarship. There will also be sessions early in the month related specifically to research and academic publishing. There is something for everyone in this Winter Term programming. Please register for the events of interest to you, and please send questions to ctlr@middlebury.edu.
Sessions in this series will take place over lunch in the middle of the week in Davis Family Library (including the CTLR Lounge (LIB 225), Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220), and LIB 105).
2025 Contemporary Teaching Series
For a full list of events for registration see the CTLR Events calendar.
Week 1 - January 8 & 9, 2025
CTLR (Lib 225)
Navigating the Publishing Landscape
George Thompson is bringing his Publisher-in-Residence series back to Middlebury at the start of Winter Term. Join George for a 75-minute lunch session where he will provide the latest intel and insights about the state of the publishing world. There will also be an opportunity to speak in a 1:1 advising session with George on Wed, Jan 8, about your own publishing hopes, plans, and questions. Please use this spreadsheet to sign up for an appointment with George. (Note: A signup link for 1:1 sessions will be available shortly.)
CTLR (Lib 225)
Bringing a Community-Connected Focus to Scholarly Research: A Faculty Panel Discussion
Have you ever wanted to channel your scholarly curiosities and connections to the community into your professional work? Members of this faculty panel will share their examples of—and experiences with—community-engaged research and scholarship. If you are just beginning, are interested in starting, or have been involved with this work for years, please come engage with your colleagues about the unique opportunities and challenges of this approach. The panel will address best practices for working with community collaborators, publishing community-connected research, and obtaining needed support (funding or otherwise). Staff members from the Center for Community Engagement and the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs will be on hand to discuss available resource support and meaningful community engagement in federal grant projects.
Week 2 - January 14 & 16, 2025
LIB 105 and Zoom
Understanding AI: Making Informed Decisions in a Changing Landscape
You may love, hate, or feel ambivalent about generative AI tools, and those feelings have likely shaped your engagement with generative AI in your work and your classes. But, as these tools’ capabilities grow in scale and scope, and as they potentially impact our world and our lives, it is necessary to move beyond our initial reactions to considered and thorough evaluation. In this session, we’ll cut through the hype and fear surrounding AI to examine why generative AI tools merit serious attention in higher education. Join colleagues from across disciplines as we explore the broader implications of AI for content creation, learning, and the future of education.
Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220)
AI Foundations: Exploring Today’s Tools and Capabilities
No experience is necessary for this hands-on session, which will give you guided experience with a number of popular AI tools. We will cover basic prompting strategies while using and comparing: Copilot, Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, and Notebook LM.
LIB 105 and Zoom
How to Talk with Your Students About AI
Thinking about how to talk to your students about generative AI? Explore strategies for guiding meaningful discussions about AI in the classroom and in learning, including frameworks for establishing clear policies and guidelines about appropriate AI use. You’ll leave with practical resources and approaches for engaging students in productive dialogue about AI’s capabilities, limitations, and ethical considerations in your courses.
Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220)
Workshopping Language to Use with Your Students
In this hands-on workshop, develop concrete language for discussing AI in your courses—from crafting clear policy statements to composing prompts and resources for discussion. We’ll use examples, role playing, and even AI tools to help generate and refine talking points, classroom activities, and discussion frameworks that you can implement immediately in your teaching.
Week 3 - January 21 & 23-25, 2025
LIB 105 and Zoom
Assessments and AI
How do we assess student learning in the age of generative AI? What are the best ways to leverage generative AI for learning? And, can we design AI proof assessments of student learning? In this session, we discuss frameworks and strategies for reflecting on and rethinking our assessments.
Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220)
“I Think ChatGPT Wrote This…”
What can you or should you do if you suspect a student has used generative AI inappropriately in your class? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll review and practice approaches to talking with students about our concerns and to offer productive paths forward. We’ll also discuss the limitations of our typical patterns of detection, including AI detection software tools.
LIB 105 and Zoom
AI and the Work of Teaching
In this lunchtime session, we will discuss how generative AI tools can support the work of teaching. Participants will explore examples and use cases for supporting teaching and get guidance on how to make informed choices for your own course preparatory work.
Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220)
Generative AI as Tools for Teaching and Learning
In this hands-on session, we will try out several ways to use generative AI to support teaching and learning in your classes. Topics covered will include: specific tools for implementation you can start using right away, ways to streamline your course materials for efficient course preparation, how AI can improve student participation, and creative approaches enabled by AI for unique learning experiences.
Week 4 - January 28 & 30, 2025
LIB 105 and Zoom
AI and Writing: An Agency-Oriented Approach
In this session, we will discuss how to orient our approach to AI in writing classes in a commitment to student agency–i.e., to their ability to make informed decisions as readers and writers. We will hear from students and peer tutors about how AI has increased their agency as writers, as well as about their concerns about the inappropriate use of AI that might hinder student learning and agency in the long run.
Wilson Media Lab (LIB 220)
Integrating AI Opportunities Throughout the Writing Process
In this session, we will consider how AI tools and strategies can be used at various phases in the writing process, including brainstorming/planning, finding and evaluating sources, providing feedback, and revising drafts. We will consider how various tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Perplexity, Notebook LM) can be used for different purposes, to increase learning and agency for student writers. Participants will then have time to explore which tools they might integrate into the scaffolding process for a particular assignment. No prior experience necessary.
LIB 105 and Zoom
Using AI to Support Research and Scholarship
Join us for a panel discussion to hear your faculty colleagues share firsthand experiences integrating generative AI tools into their research and scholarly practices. As these technologies intersect with academic workflows, many scholars are curious about their potential benefits while harboring understandable questions about their appropriate and ethical use, and limitations.
Our panelists will discuss practical applications of generative AI in various phases of projects, from kick-starting a literature review, to generating artifacts to use in training research assistants, to reviewing new survey instruments, to quickly generating first drafts of code in R. Whether you’re AI-curious or AI-cautious, this conversation will provide valuable insights from colleagues who have thoughtfully incorporated these tools into their academic work.
Wilson Media lab (LIB 220)
Exploring AI Tools for Research and Scholarly Practice
Move from insight to implementation in this practical workshop led by faculty who are successfully integrating generative AI into their research workflows. Following their panel discussion, our faculty presenters will guide participants through hands-on demonstrations of specific AI applications in academic research. Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with various AI tools and leave with concrete strategies for incorporating AI tools into their scholarly practice.
2025 Organizing Committee
Amy Gibans McGlashan, CCI Director of Academic Outreach and Special Projects
Danielle Simon, Assistant Professor of Music
Sarah Lohnes-Watulak, DLINQ Director of Digital Pedagogy and Media
Amy Morsman, Interim Director of the CTLR and FYS Director, Professor of History
Zara Contractor, Assistant Professor of Economics
Daniel Silva, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Jill Strube, CTLR Center Coordinator
Hector Vila, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric
Past Contemporary Teaching Series
2024 - Learning Is the Goal
2023 - Learning Lessons from Ourselves and Each Other
2022 - Holistic, Embodied Approaches to Teaching and Learning
2021 - Teaching and Learning through a Pandemic
2020 - Mythbusting Pedagogy from Technology in the Classroom to Grading