In this lunchtime series, faculty members distinguished for their teaching offer reflections on their own development and practice as teachers. All programs include lunch and meet from 12:15-1:30 in 328 Frist. Lunch will be provided.

As more colleges and universities are requesting that faculty demonstrate their commitment to teaching, search committees are requesting teaching statements from candidates for new positions. This workshop will introduce participants to the idea of the teaching statement, discuss the expectations of readers, and look at some examples. Activities in this session will enable participants to start drafting elements of their own statements by drawing on their teaching experiences and goals. Participants are recommended to attend the related teaching statement workshop on Oct. 14, in which participants will share and comment on their statements in progress.  
Thursday, September 24, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in 330 Frist

The Teaching Transcript Program focuses on enhancing teaching skills and provides documentation of your formal pedagogical training for the academic job search. In this meeting, participants will plan strategies for effectively reflecting on their teaching experiences and for applying lessons from their participation in the program to their current approaches to teaching. We will also discuss ways of drawing on the Teaching Transcript program to prepare statements of teaching philosophy and syllabi, which are increasingly requested with applications for new faculty positions. Lunch will be provided.
Thursday, October 1, 12:15-1:30 p.m. in 328 Frist

AI Orientation is over, your first semester of teaching is underway, and you’re ready to discuss the actual challenges and concerns that have arisen. Or maybe you wish to try out your new ideas with us. The McGraw Center offers lunch and a setting for conversation among new AIs and our directors on issues you would like address. Topics could include: establishing rapport and interaction with students; grading effectively; launching productive discussions about readings, problem sets and labs; addressing problems with attendance and laptops in class; and communicating about course goals and strategies with the course lecturer. Lunch will be served.
Wednesday, October 7, 12:15-1:30 p.m. in 328 Frist

Statements of teaching philosophy are increasingly important in academic job searches and are a valuable means of reflecting on and enhancing one’s own teaching strategies. We will examine some examples of statements with an eye on key elements that are valued by search committees. If you are drafting your first teaching statement or want to revise one for an academic job search, this workshop will provide you with an opportunity to share and critique drafts of your statement in progress with other participants and McGraw Center directors. This workshop will build on activities in our first teaching statement workshop on Sept. 24, so it is recommended that participants attend that one as well as bring current drafts of their statements, at whatever stage they may be.
Wednesday, October 14, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in 330 Frist

In this workshop, the McGraw Center directors moderate informal discussion of how we grade student work. How is grading both a measure and facilitator of student progress? How do we design and grade assignments that promote intellectually sophisticated or disciplinary thinking? How do we shift students’ focus from getting good grades to learning our fields? Lunch will be provided.
Thursday, October 22, 12:15-1:30 p.m. in 330 Frist

Are you planning to prepare a syllabus for your teaching portfolio or the job search? This workshop will examine course design and syllabus preparation from the perspective of student learning, using a variety of models from across the disciplines. Workshop activities will allow you to reflect on your goals for student learning and to create assignments that are effective in promoting that learning.
Thursday, November 12, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in 330 Frist

While graduate students and post-doctoral fellows receive ample opportunity to present their doctoral research in forums such as departmental colloquia or national conferences, they rarely talk about teaching and pedagogy in such public settings. As a result, they may lack the preparation for speaking about their teaching in compelling terms when it counts the most: the job interview. This workshop will give participants the chance to begin—or refine—that preparation and provide tools and resources for continuing that preparation up to the campus visit. Co-sponsored with the Office of Career Services.
Thursday, December 10, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in 330 Frist

Whether as documentaries or from mass media, films enrich methods of teaching that traditionally emphasize orality and written literacy and they can enliven student discussions. Yet if film and televisual media are typically used just to support and illustrate disciplinary ideas and facts, how can we elevate these media and engage with them as primary texts? How can we draw on their ways of knowing? How can we teach film analysis that is as rich as the close disciplinary “reading” we already do with our students?

This workshop will consider how the research on learning informs how we teach with audio-visual materials at the college level. We will introduce classroom strategies for critical analysis of film texts that consider how the material capacities of film establish and interpret social and cultural facts pertaining to a broad range of disciplines. Participants in the workshop will take part in a sample activity that they can take to their lectures, student assignments and group work that use digital video editing to “deconstruct” a film and connect disciplinary theory with film form practice. Light snacks will be served.
Thursday, January 21, 3:00-5:00 p.m. in 330 Frist

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Thursday, Dec. 10
3:30 - 5:00 pm
Frist 330

RSVP: smoskovi@princeton.edu