This Week for Graduate Students: Journal Club and Upcoming LTF Events!
CTLgrads Journal Club
Wondering what educational literature looks like? Join us for Journal Club! We meet for lively and informal discussion every other Wednesday afternoon. This semester we’re discussing short chapters from the recently published book Teaching Gradually: Practical Pedagogy for Graduate Students. Many of our discussions are being held with chapter authors, some of whom are currently at Columbia.
CTLgrads Journal Club sessions are open to Columbia graduate students and postdocs, who are welcome to join us for individual sessions or for the whole series. Participants can join in-person in Butler 204 or online.
Journal Club sessions count towards track completion in the Teaching Development Program.
Inclusive Teaching Series
CTL’s Inclusive Teaching series is underway this semester. Graduate students are welcome to register for any session that interests them. Participants are expected to have viewed the corresponding module in CTL’s MOOC Inclusive Teaching: Supporting All Students in the College Classroom ahead of the session. Get more information about this series here.
- Setting Explicit Expectations, Oct. 26, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, 212 Butler | Register
- Promoting Diversity and Inclusion through Course Content, Nov. 2, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, 212 Butler | Register
- Designing all Course Elements for Accessibility, Nov. 9, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, 212 Butler | Register
- Cultivating Critical Self-Reflection, Nov. 16, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, 212 Butler | Register
Inclusive Teaching sessions count towards track completion in the Teaching Development Program.
Upcoming Lead Teaching Fellow Events
The 45 2022-23 Lead Teaching Fellows are running workshops and discussions in departments all around Columbia. These are generally advertised locally. Below are a few upcoming events that are open to participants beyond the LTF’s home department.
LTF events count towards track completion in the Teaching Development Program.
Your Teaching Self
Who are you when you teach? Are you ‘you’, or someone else entirely? Join a group of graduate student instructors in a conversation about developing and sustaining teacher identity. We will talk about our ideas and experience in performing the role of a teacher in various circumstances. What image do we aim at creating and why? What are the potential pros and cons of teaching personas we are trying out? How comfortable are our students and who we are with them? The workshop will include reflection on the participants’ teacher selves, exercises in role-playing common scenarios, and a lively discussion of available practical self-presentation strategies that help signal the boundaries one wants to set in a classroom.
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Yulia Kim (Slavic). It is open to graduate students in all disciplines and departments
Date & Time: Thursday, October 27, 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Location: Butler 212
Registration: email yak2118@columbia.edu
Promoting Social Engagement in the Language (and Culture) Class
While Columbia has students with solid backgrounds and professional commitment, it is important to move beyond the academic and administrative manual. An exclusively content-oriented teaching in a competitive educational setting might lead us to undervalue social engagement opportunities across our educational process.
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Javiera Irribarren-Ortiz (LAIC). It is open to graduate students in language departments.
Date & Time: Friday, October 28, 11:40am – 12:55pm
Location: Casa Hispanica (612 W 116th St)
Registration: here
Beyond the Reading Response: Innovative Assignments for Religious Studies
This workshop will discuss creative and novel assignment structures meant to either supplement or supplant the humanities hobby horse—the reading response paper. Are there better ways to ensure students are reading and engaging with the material outside of class? Is the reading response even a productive way of measuring that? How can we set our students up to succeed in their independent thinking? What is reasonable to expect from students, and do they want a different kind of assignment?
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Connor Martini (Religion). It is open to all graduate students, regardless of discipline.
Date & Time: Tuesday, November 1, 11:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Department of Religion Seminar Room: Room 101 (80 Claremont)
Registration: bit.ly/beyondreading
Trauma Conscious Teaching: Preparing to Teach Difficult Topics in the Language Syllabus
While language syllabi and textbooks are making an effort to cover a more diverse set of topics, they often touch upon violent histories and potentially sensitive experiences such as colonialism, migration, race, and genocide. As instructors, we often come unprepared as to how to teach these in a language class setting, where students don’t have the full lingual capacity or confidence to express themselves. In this event we’ll explore the different topics of language instruction, with emphasis on the German intermediate textbook, and come up with pedagogical tools to facilitate productive and sensitive discussions.
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Didi Tal (Germanic Languages). It is open to all graduate student instructors who teach languages.
Date & Time: Thursday, November 3, 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Location: Deutsches Hall, 420 W 116th st.
Registration: Email Didi Tal at dt2587@columbia.edu
Navigating Politics in the Classroom
Elections tend to be a fraught time in many college classrooms, particularly perceived high-stakes elections. Errant remarks from instructors can prove especially alienating. Disagreements between students can rapidly escalate into situations that derail productive learning. Anxieties about electoral outcomes and their implications can interact in adverse ways with other social and academic anxieties students may hold, or can eat up mental and emotional bandwidth that might otherwise be directed towards their studies. In this workshop, participants will explore some of the ways that classroom teaching can be derailed by politics and some strategies for mitigating these risks.
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Musa al-Gharbi (Sociology). Graduate students from across disciplines are welcome to attend.
Date & Time: Friday, November 4, 2:30pm – 4:00pm
Location: 509 Knox Hall
Registration: Email Musa al-Gharbi at aa3933@columbia.edu
Improv(e) Your Classroom Communication
Come get to know your fellow STEM TAs, and discover how basic improv techniques can improve how well you communicate your ideas, both in and out of the classroom. In this 1.5-hour workshop, we’ll play with committing to your words, listening effectively, and learning to let go of “mistakes” when speaking publicly.
This event is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Eliza Jaeger (Biological Sciences). It is open to all graduate students in STEM disciplines.
Date & Time: Friday, November 4, 5:00pm-6:30pm
Location: Fairchild 800
Registration: Register here