Teaching and Writing Retreat

Welcome

Faculty Expectations for the Year Ahead

Before arriving on Monday, please read the articles listed on the detailed schedule.

"Why is Rigor hard for us to pull off in the classroom?” Understanding where students are coming from and helping them through barriers and challenges

Lunch and Break

Designing a Syllabus That Promotes Student Learning and Success

Syllabus Group Discussions

Faculty need to bring five copies of a syllabus to workshop.

Dinner

Breakfast

Welcome

Conflict Transformation in the Classroom

Conflict transformation (CT) involves the study and practice of moving from destructive conflict dynamics to more constructive ones. This 90 minute workshop begins with a half-hour plenary session that offers an introduction to conflict transformation, with a particular focus on how Middlebury classrooms provide spaces to cultivate CT knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

We will then break into small groups, led by an interdisciplinary group of faculty. Participants will choose a theme that they want to explore, including (1) reflective writing (Genie Giaimo), (2) tackling controversial topics (Sebnem Gumuscu), (3) fostering creativity (Lida Winfield), (4) interdisciplinary conflict analysis (Sarah Stroup). Participants are encouraged to think in advance about how one of these themes relate to a coming course, assignment, or topic, and feel free to bring a copy of the syllabus or assignment. We also invite you to join and look through the new CT Canvas site: https://middlebury.instructure.com/courses/12460.
 

Scaffolding the Academic Reading Process to Increase Student Engagement and Efficacy (Shawna Shapiro, WRPR)

In this workshop, we will review some of the reasons why our students struggle with academic reading. We will then discuss how to create the conditions by which students are likely to engage with our course texts in ways that promote their intellectual engagement and sense of efficacy. Strategies to be reviewed include:

-Linking reading to our goals for disciplinary (and/or interdisciplinary) learning
-Being transparent about our selection and sequence of readings
-Providing clear goals and processes for reading
-Teaching students to assess their own understanding and engagement
-Promoting engagement with texts during class and in assignments
 

Teaching Writing in These Times (Catharine Wright, WRPR)

In an era of ChatGPT and students who learned to write remotely during the pandemic, many faculty and staff are concerned about student writing. We find ourselves adapting to or resisting current realities and wondering about the effects. At the same time, many of us are examining what kinds of knowledge and forms of expression we were taught to value. What, then, is most important for our students to learn while/about writing, in our disciplines, classes, and/or particular assignments? In this session we will discuss our responsibility to provide access to academic writing norms; to critique and resist academic writing norms; and to meet our student writers where they’re at and where they might go. Participants will have a chance to reflect, share, and set individual goals in relation to their teaching of writing.

Working with Students on Collaborative Writing (Faculty Panel)

Hector Vila, Matt Lawrence, and Greg Pask will share brief stories about their experiences getting students to write collaboratively in class and in scholarly settings. They will address questions such as: why collaborative writing? how has it worked best for them? what have they learned from the process of getting students to do it? And what suggestions do they have for others contemplating student work of this type?

Syllabus Group Discussions

Lunch and Closing Remarks