Seminars For Excellence in Teaching
Since 2008, the Academy for Teaching and Learning has hosted a series of one-hour Seminars for Excellence in Teaching (SET) to help colleagues meet the historic expectations of excellence in teaching at Baylor. For new Teachers of Record (TOR), SET satisfy SACS requirements for professional development in teaching. For more experienced TOR, SET facilitate the sharing of ideas and insights about teaching and learning today and encourage participants to renew their commitments to inspirational teaching. SET are also a valuable resource in the preparation of graduate student Teachers of Record.
All members of the Baylor community are invited to attend SET in accord with our core commitments to seek learning and apply knowledge and to pursue excellence through continuous improvement.
Locations vary. Carefully note the venue of the SETs you register for.
Jump to:
- How to Leverage Our Brains to Maximize Learning
- Revisiting Innovation in Teaching
- Understanding and Supporting the Student Athlete: What Every Professor Needs to Know
- Teaching Every Student
- Teaching with Special Collections
- Interculturally Competent Teaching
- Using Memes in Teaching
- On-Demand Resources for Teaching Guidance
How to Leverage Our Brains to Maximize Learning
Ben Schwartz (Psychology and Neuroscience)
Thursday, February 2, 4:00-5 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Moody 104 - Active Learning Lab
Online: Due to the winter storm advisory, this link is available for anyone who needs it and for everyone if the advisory prompts an extension of campus closure into the scheduled time for this SET.
For this seminar we will look at mechanisms of learning and memory formation in the brain. We will follow that with a discussion on strategies we can employ in the classroom that leverage these mechanisms to promote learning.
Revisiting Innovation in Teaching
Lenore Wright (Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and Academy for Teaching and Learning)
Thursday, February 16, 10:30-11:30 am
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Jones Library 200 (Dennis Campbell Flexible Learning Space)
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
What does innovation mean in today’s teaching culture? The ATL co-facilitated a series of conversations about teaching innovation in 2021-22. Our aims were threefold: (1) define innovation in teaching, (2) identify barriers to a sustained culture of innovation in teaching, and (3) envision a framework for institutionalizing innovation in teaching. Group discussion was guided by Damon Centola’s book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen (2021). This SET will recap prior discussions and elicit new insights for understanding innovation in teaching. The seminar will also gauge participant interest in reinitiating dialogue about innovation in teaching. So grab a seat, weigh in on future innovation conversations, and suggest some of the “big things” of teaching today.
Understanding and Supporting the Student Athlete: What Every Professor Needs to Know
Lauren Kirby (Student Athlete Center for Excellence)
Krista Smith (Student Athlete Center for Excellence)
Tuesday, February 28, 12:30-1:30 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Bill Daniel Student Center - Beckham Room (202)
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
This session will focus on the student-athlete experience and how faculty and staff can best support their academic journey. Participants will hear a panel of current student-athletes talk about navigating their Baylor academic and athletic experiences. Faculty and staff will walk away with a deeper understanding of what supporting student-athletes can look like through examples of what has helped current student-athletes succeed in the classroom.
Teaching Every Student
Christopher Richmann (Academy for Teaching and Learning)
Thursday, March 16, 3:30-4:30 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Moody 104 - Active Learning Lab
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
The dominant protocols, practices, and environments of higher education were established in an era of a fairly homogeneous student body. Today’s students, however, are shaped by myriad backgrounds, experiences, and identities that interact with learning processes. This session will consider the ways our instruction may unintentionally exclude or bypass our students, offering evidence-based suggestions for how we can better teach every student through intentional course design, classroom environment, and interactions with students. In the process, we will interrogate shibboleths like accommodation and inclusion as well as pedagogical practices like lecture, discussion, and exams. Envisioning an evolving journey rather than checking off boxes, we will finally explore ways faculty can share ideas both simple and systemic and promote magnanimous teaching in departmental culture.
Teaching with Special Collections
Nathan Alleman (Educational Leadership)
Daniel Barish ( History)
Joanne Cummings (Political Science and Baylor Interdisciplinary Core)
Katherine Goodwin (History)
Alex McNair (Modern Languages and Cultures)
Aubrey Morris (English)
David Roach (History)
Kevin Tankersley (Journalism, Public Relations and New Media)
Jeong-Ju (Jay) Yoo (Human Sciences and Design)
Laurel Zeiss (Musicology)
Tuesday, March 21, 3:30-4:45 pm
Note: In-person only
In-person location: Moody 104 - Active Learning Lab
RegisterThe Baylor Libraries Teaching Fellows Program encourages the use of rare books, archives, and other special collections materials in Baylor graduate and undergraduate curricula. In this session, fellows will present interactive poster discussions on how the use of special collections materials enhances teaching and learning in their courses. Attendees will leave the session with ideas for incorporating special collections into their own courses and prepared to apply for a summer fellowship.
Interculturally Competent Teaching
Jared Alcántara (Truett Seminary)
Tuesday, April 11, 1:00-2:00 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Jones Library 200 (Dennis Campbell Flexible Learning Space)
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
This seminar equips participants to pursue best practices in interculturally competent teaching. Now more than ever, our classrooms need teachers who see difference as an opportunity rather than a threat, and who acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills that empower them to teach students of different backgrounds and identities. Some of the themes that will be explored in this seminar include how to develop greater cultural self-awareness, how to practice curiosity toward cultural others, how to design and deploy learning plans that normalize diversity as a gift, and how to recognize and reduce “stereotype threat” among minoritized students.
Using Memes in Teaching
Devan Jonklaas (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Monday, April 17, 12:00-1:00 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Jones Library 200 - Dennis Campbell Innovative Learning Space (lunch provided for in-person participants)
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
On-Demand Resources for Teaching Guidance
Graduate Students from EDL 6302: Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Wednesday, May 3, 3:00-4:00 pm
Hybrid Event
In-person location: Moody 104 - Active Learning Lab
Online: Zoom link provided with registration.
Teaching effectiveness is a lively area of research, with all the nuances and complexities of other disciplines. Faculty strive to be successful teachers but often lack the time or training to explore and interpret the scholarship that can positively impact their teaching. Students in the graduate seminar on teaching and learning in higher education have synthesized literature on core questions for college teaching and produced brief, non-technical, open access “teaching guides.” Participants will hear and discuss their work on a range of practical pedagogical issues.