The Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation’s (CTEI) Learn@Lunch series is an opportunity for University of Hartford faculty to lead and engage in discussions about teaching and learning.
About Learn@Lunch Series
For recordings of previous Learn@Lunch sessions go to CTEI Teaching Resources.
The sessions (typically 3-4 each semester) are designed to encourage faculty to share and explore new teaching methods and are intended to foster collegiality, community, and peer support around teaching. Each semester the topics vary and are selected based on feedback from faculty and with the guidance of the CTEI Faculty Advisory Committee.
Do you have an idea for a session? Visit Learn@Lunch and share your idea with us.
Semester Session
Spring 2024
Please register for any of the following sessions by clicking the Registration link. Registration will allow us to send you advanced readings and/or virtual meeting links.
Spring Sessions on Teaching & Learning
Closing the Loop: Sharing our SoTL with a Scholarly Audience (Funded by the Davis Educational Foundation)
Feb 21, 2024, | Virtual Session | 12:45–1:45pm
Facilitator: Hillary Steiner
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is both intensely personal, being grounded in our own teaching practices, and necessarily public as an important contribution to the improvement of higher education. In this virtual interactive workshop, we will consider our options for sharing SoTL with others, including conference presentations, disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals, and alternative outlets. We will also address our fears about rigor and significance by investigating alternatives to traditional citation measures. Participants will leave the session with personalized practical suggestions for sharing their SoTL with a scholarly audience.
Tapping AI to Increase Transparency, Relevance, and Feedback in Teaching: A focus on AI to support Universal Design for Learning, Providing Multiple Means of Engagement
Diversity Week | Virtual Session | TBA
Facilitator: Lisa Zawilinski
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles we can use to support ALL students in our courses. Providing frequent and explicit feedback, creating connections between our content and students’ lives, and revealing our hidden curriculum- these are proven elements of one UDL principle that we can include in our curricula to support learning. However, including these requires a great deal of instructor time and effort. Generative AI can reduce that effort and time. Participants will explore ways that AI tools can speed up the process of reducing barriers in curricula. Participants will also create either a draft rubric, some concrete examples, or use AI to increase clarity in an assignment.
Strategy-focused, Book Discussion with ENHP Inclusive Pedagogy Committee: What Inclusive instructors do, by Addy, Dube, Mitchell, and SoRelle
March 22, 2024 | Virtual Session | 12:45-1:45pm
Facilitators: ENHP Inclusive Pedagogy Committee & Lisa Zawilinski
Have you been searching for additional, inclusive teaching strategies to integrate into our teaching? Come join your ENHP Colleagues for an informal, strategy-specific discussion of “What Inclusive Instructors do: Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching" by Tracie Marcella Addy, Derek Dube, Khadijah Mitchell, and Mallory SoRelle. We will share and discuss specific practices from the book that we have used as well as some tips/reflection on how the implementation went. If you have the book, please bring it with you. We will likely refer to specific pages to make the information easy to find and bookmark for your future thinking.
Providing Multiple Means of Action & Expression to Support All Learners: A UDL Principle to Support Course Design
March 27, 2024 | Virtual Session | 12:45–1:45
Facilitator: Lisa Zawilinski
Universal Design for Learning doesn’t just benefit students with “disabilities”; it benefits ALL students! Further, the UDL design principles make clear for instructors where unanticipated barriers may exist in our curricula. Join us as we explore one of the three principles, providing multiple means of action & expression. During this session, we will focus on where barriers might exist when asking students to demonstrate their understanding and skills. Together, we will dive into this area to explore ways to provide options that support students while maintaining focus on our outcomes and high expectations.
Generative AI & DeepFakes: An informal discussion on implications for our students & teaching
April 17, 2024 | Virtual Session | 12:45–1:45pm
Facilitator: Adam Chiara
Join us for a rich, informal conversation on the implications of the generative AI, specifically deepfakes, for teaching and learning.
Creating Psychological Safety in Our Classrooms
April 19, 2024 | Virtual Session | 12:45–1:45pm
Facilitator: Deene Morris
Management guru Peter Drucker famously noted that culture eats strategy for breakfast – meaning the success of any team, organizational or classroom learning is dependent upon the culture. In its simplest definition, psychological safety is a culture of rewarded vulnerability where people feel 1) included, 2) safe to learn, 3) safe to contribute and 4) safe to challenge the status quo – all without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized or punished in some form. When teams, classrooms and social units progress through the four stages, they create deeply inclusive environments with accelerated learning, increased contribution, and energized problem solving and innovation. As faculty, we are the cultural architects of our classroom, whether onsite or online. We protect and patrol the boundaries of safety while holding a space of high-respect and high-permission – an environment of continuous and collaborative learning. Together we will explore:
- The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety
- Key EQ competencies to support each stage in the classroom
- Behavioral differences and needs in communication
- Your observations, insights, and best practice to share with your colleagues
Creating and Managing Teams: A Facilitated Discussion (Funded by the Davis Educational Foundation)
April 25, 2024 | In Person | 12:45–1:45pm
Facilitators: Minna Ng, Ph.D. and Margaret Tarampi, Ph.D.
Teamwork can prepare students for the collaborative nature of academic research and creative endeavors, build classroom community, and develop a lifelong skill that is essential in the sciences, humanities, and other academic pursuits. How teams are created and managed can influence its effectiveness in keeping students accountable, cultivating connections between students, and enhance classroom dynamics. We will discuss different ways of creating teams that consider class size, course level, and a structured approach to teaching (team-based learning). We will also discuss ways to manage communication, role clarity, and inclusivity.
Experiences with Collaborative and Team-Based Learning: A Facilitated Discussion
(Funded by the Davis Educational Foundation)
April 26, 2024 | In Person | 12:45–1:45pm
Facilitators: Minna Ng, PhD & Margaret Tarampi, Ph.D.
We will discuss practices that promote equity and inclusiveness in components typically found in collaborative and team-based learning courses. These include content delivery, individual and team/group formative and summative assessments, in-class activities, and self- and peer evaluations.
Cultural differences influence communication, power dynamics and decision-making. The cognitive and identity diversity across students in a group can catalyze creative problem-solving and enhance deep learning. The overall goal is to share our experiences and approaches for promoting equity through collaborative and team-based learning.