The Teaching Commons offers assistance to units, departments and faculties wishing to organize their own teaching and learning events and initiatives. The teaching Commons is able to help with a wide range of needs from tailor-made professional development workshops, panel discussions and applied pedagogical research projects. To request such support, please get in touch with your faculty contact, whose name and contact information is available here.

For instance, in recent months the Teaching Commons has developed a workshop for an LA&PS department wishing to enhance the learning experience of first-year students. This two-hour interactive workshop reviewed the principles of course design that are key in fostering greater student engagement in large classes, drawing examples from the discipline. It challenged audience members to consider how to balance the urge of covering everything with the need to facilitate learning. In a large 1000-level course in which students are expected to integrate the foundational knowledge of the discipline, could less content coverage lead to deeper understandings? Another goal of the workshop was to demystify preconceived ideas about student attention with evidence from the literature and rethink course design with this evidence in mind.

For a glimpse of this department-specific workshop, you can explore https://www.blendspace.com/lessons/E3eXHKD6dCTz4A/.