CTAL Seminars
About CTAL Seminars
Each fall and spring semester, the Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning offers thematic seminars* on topics relevant to teaching, learning, and assessment at the University of Delaware. Our seminars are designed for educators at every stage of professional experience and are organized into categories based on target audience and topic, such as: Foundations of Teaching & Course Design, Methods & Classroom Practice, Equity & Inclusion, Assessment & Feedback, Program Educational Goals, and the Learning Sciences. Seminar topics vary from year-to-year with upcoming seminars announced each June for the following academic year.
Seminars are coordinated by CTAL and led by CTAL staff and/or other UD community members.
Note: Each seminar varies between 3-5 sessions per topic. When registering for a seminar, please note that you will be expected to attend all scheduled sessions. These seminars will be conducted in an in-person classroom setting.
Seminars in Fall 2024
Putting Learning Theories into Teaching Practice
Seminar Instructor: Rose Muravchick
Effective teaching practices are rooted in sound educational research and compelling theories of learning. It’s nice to feel like something is working in our courses, but it’s even better to be able to explain why something works, and develop a set of practices and materials that we can continue to rely on in future iterations. In this seminar, we’ll review a suite of teaching practices that are effective and adaptable for a variety of teaching situations. We’ll explore common questions like:
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- How can I encourage active participation for my students?
- How should I structure my lectures to support student learning?
- What can I do to get students to connect course content to their lives outside of the classroom?
- Should I give in-class quizzes?
- How can I get my students to improve their study habits around big exams?
In each session, we’ll explore a few key teaching practices and review their applications and adaptations, as well as note associated research studies or learning theories that inform their effectiveness. This seminar is appropriate for instructors at all levels of experience, but will be particularly useful for instructors who are new to teaching at the college level.
Dates: (Mondays) Sept. 23, Sept. 30, Oct. 14, & Oct. 21
Time: 8:40 AM – 10:00 AM
Location: TBD
Foundations of Course Design
Seminar Instructor: Matthew Trevett-Smith
Based on CTAL’s annual Course Design Institute, this highly interactive seminar is designed to guide participants through the iterative, dynamic, and scholarly process of learning-focused course design. The program will help you design a new course or reimagine a current course—whether it’s face to face, hybrid, or online. This seminar is taught across four (5) related in-person sessions. Each session will present evidence-based teaching principles, innovative assessment methodologies, and offer practical orientation to enhance pedagogical effectiveness in diverse disciplines. Participants will be expected to produce a course syllabus by the fifth session of this CTAL Seminar to be shared with peer-participants for feedback.
Dates: (Tuesdays & Thursdays) Oct. 8, Oct. 10, Oct. 15, Oct. 17, & Oct. 24
Time: 12:45 PM – 2:05 PM
Location: TBD
Seminars in Spring 2025
Teaching and Learning with AI: Taking Stock of What We’ve Learned
Seminar Instructor: Kevin Guidry
Over the past two years, we have learned a tremendous amount about how generative AI tools have begun to impact many teaching and learning practices. In this seminar, we will share what we have learned through institutional practices and individual experiences. Novices and experts are welcome to participate in this webinar to learn from and share with one another.
Dates: (Tuesdays) Feb. 18, Mar. 4, & Mar. 18
Time: 9:35 AM – 10:55 AM
Location: TBD
An Introduction to the Learning Sciences
Seminar Instructor: Matthew Trevett-Smith
Our teaching is only as good as the learning it produces. As experts in our respective fields, we already possess deep content knowledge, but that is only half of the story. What we try to pass on to students has to be interpreted and processed through their filters, often with unpredictable and surprising results. This seminar will explore the literature on learning over the past 60+ years, drawing out major threads, so that we might better understand how these principles can guide us in creating effective teaching strategies that accommodate diverse learning needs and promote student success.
Dates: (Wednesdays) Apr. 9, Apr. 16, Apr. 23, Apr. 30, & May 7
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:55 AM
Location: TBD
Past Seminars
Click any seminar title below for additional information.
Spring 2024: Teaching computational thinking to help students understand and use artificial intelligence tools
Seminar Instructor: Kevin Guidry
Computational thinking is a problem solving approach that is systematic and can be automated and used to solve many kinds of problems often (but not always) with the help of a computer. This includes concepts such as decomposition, data, algorithms, and abstraction that are used to process and analyze data and to create real and virtual artifacts. Computational thinking is also a General Education objective at the University of Delaware, the set of skills and knowledge in which all undergraduate students should attain an appropriate level of competence. This seminar series will help UD faculty understand how computational thinking can be taught in their courses, particularly in ways that can be connected to artificial intelligence tools and help students understand their effective uses.
Spring 2024: Foundations of course design
Seminar Instructor: Matthew Trevett-Smith
Based on CTAL’s annual Course Design Institute, this highly interactive seminar is designed to guide graduate students through the iterative, dynamic, and scholarly process of learning-focused course design. The program will help you design your first course or reimagine a current course—whether it’s face to face, hybrid, or online. This seminar is taught across four (4) related in-person sessions. Each session will present evidence-based teaching principles, innovative assessment methodologies, and offer practical orientation to enhance pedagogical effectiveness in diverse disciplines. Participants will be expected to produce a course syllabus by the fourth session of this CTAL Seminar to be shared with peer-participants for feedback.
Fall 2023: Teaching through discussion
Seminar Instructor: Rose Muravchick
Discussion can be an effective learning activity and tool for assessing student learning, but it is often challenging to generate and sustain over the length of a semester. In this seminar, we’ll consider how discussion can support your learning goals and how you can assess the impact of discussion both on student learning and on your own disciplinary thinking. We’ll explore both highly-structured discussion-based learning activities (e.g. panel discussions, debates…) as well as strategies for generating more informal discussion prompts. Finally, we’ll describe ways that you can assess discussion formally (e.g. through writing activities, using surveys…) and informally, through personal reflection. This seminar series will be conducted in an in-person classroom setting.
Fall 2023: Dis/engaged pedagogy: Understanding and increasing student engagement
Seminar Instructors: Andrew Jenks & Amy Ritter
This seminar series will help participants explore the sources of perceived student disengagement in light of recent patterns of student participation and engagement in the in-person classroom. Using a social-relational model to identify and reframe student disengagement, participants will work during and between sessions to reflect upon their current practices. Participants will also develop plans to make small, meaningful changes to their pedagogical practice intended to better engage students. Because participants are working to identify specific problems and solutions to student disengagement in the in-person learning environment, this seminar series will be conducted in an in-person classroom setting.