This year’s series focuses on “hot topics,” recurring questions, and common challenges that instructors have encountered this year. We’ve consulted with many instructors about how to implement Equity-focused Teaching strategies within the context of a teaching team; two workshops (one for faculty and one for GSIs) will be dedicated to this set of issues. “Teaching in Tumultuous Times” looks ahead to the potential impact of the upcoming election season on teaching and learning experiences. CRLT in Engineering will host a workshop on neurodiversity and neurodivergence. Additional workshops will focus on accessibility and critical reflection, equity-focused assessment, Generative AI, journal-keeping as a teaching tool, and facilitating discussions. The program will also include the launch of a summer book study group focused on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Workshops will take place either in-person (at CRLT in Palmer Commons or on North campus) or via Zoom.
These events are for University of Michigan affiliates only. Any U-M instructor is welcome to register, however, some sessions may be geared more towards specific audiences. Please see the session descriptions for more details. If you have questions about registration, please email equity-focusedteaching@umich.edu for assistance.
| Title | Dates | Short Description |
|---|---|---|
| Facilitating Discussions with an Equity Lens | Faculty, Graduate Students - |
A baseline/foundational workshop for facilitating typical discussions. It is not intended to address more complex or difficult classroom discussions such as hot moments. |
| Journal-Keeping in the Classroom: Creative Experiments in Equity-focused Teaching | Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs - |
Journal-keeping describes a wide range of personal writing, archiving, and expressive practices in which no one reads or has access to what is written except the keeper or writer. Combining rhetorical theory with practical experimentation and… |
| Introduction to Neurodivergence: Strategies for Engineering Instructors | Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs - |
“Neurodiversity” describes how people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. The term “neurodivergent” is often associated with individuals with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, or more generally, someone… |
| Accessibility and Critical Reflective Practice | Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs - |
From Disability Studies we learn that accessibility is not a finite “checklist” but an ongoing critical practice. In this interactive remote workshop, participants will learn conceptual tools for practicing critical reflection in order to deepen… |
| Teaching in Tumultuous Times | Faculty, Graduate Students - |
We continue to live in unprecedented times with heightened anxiety and stress in regards to the crisis in the Middle East, continued anti-black policies & systemic racism, anti-queer and trans policies, financial crises, the COVID-19 pandemic… |
| Responding to Artificial Intelligence to Support Equity | Faculty, Graduate Students - |
In this interactive synchronous session, instructors will be introduced to evidence-based teaching practices that should shape how they respond to the new Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools that have become widely available to… |
| An Introduction to Equity-focused Assessment | Faculty, Graduate Students - |
In this interactive synchronous workshop we will discuss how and why assessment is an important element of equity-minded work. In examining typical routines of assessment, we will discuss a range of issues from data collection to interpretation… |
| Critical Dialogue in Community: Navigating Moments of Friction, Tension, and Conflict as GSIs | Graduate Students - |
Moments of friction, tension, and conflict are part of the experience of working in instructional teams as a GSI. In this interactive synchronous workshop led by Graduate Student Instructional Consultants, GSIs will reflect on their role and… |
| Launching CRLT’s summer book study: Braiding Sweetgrass | Faculty - - - - |
Braiding Sweetgrass is a national bestseller which examines the relationship between indigenous knowledge and Western scientific knowledge. Author… |
| Equity-focused Strategies for Leading a Teaching Team | Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs - |
Successful teaching happens when all instructors on a team are adequately supported, invited to share their perspective and feedback, and treated as valued colleagues. In this interactive synchronous session, we will reflect upon our own… |
