This Week for Grad Students: Apply now for new seminar! Teaching for Climate Healing 🌎

Climate Wayfinding Seminar: Teaching for Climate Healing

In this six-week intensive seminar, participants look inward, look outward, and look forward to create a pedagogical practice that meets the needs of a changing world. This heart-centered learning community explores how to address the emotionality of the climate crisis, incorporate climate content and competencies across the curriculum, infuse ecological values throughout the classroom experience, and make a plan for next steps and implementation. Participants leave with a fuller understanding of their own climate engagement, a plan for supporting students in theirs, and a climate-informed teaching artifact for their teaching portfolios. The seminar runs March 26–April 30; applications to join are being accepted through February 17.

This program satisfies the seminar requirement on the Advanced Track of CTL’s Teaching Development Program for graduate students.

Essentials of Teaching and Learning Workshops

These foundational workshops offer new or developing graduate student instructors approaches to better facilitate student learning and improve teaching practices. Join us to deepen insight that you have started to develop at teaching orientations or in early teaching experiences.

In Spring 2025, the Essentials series are running in-person in 203 Butler Library. Three more Essential workshop are running this seminar: join us for one or all!

• Essentials 2: Designing Learning Objectives – Tuesday, February 4, 10:10-11:40am
• Essentials 3: Active Learning – Tuesday, February 11, 10:10-11:40am
• Essentials 4: Assessment & Feedback – Tuesday, February 18, 10:10-11:40am

Each session is accompanied by a 20-minute module in Canvas to be completed in advance. Access modules here.

Essentials workshops count towards completion of the Foundational Track of CTL’s Teaching Development Program (TDP) for graduate students. CTL offers the Essentials sequence every semester.

STEM in the Field: Teaching Beyond the Classroom

A 90-minute lunch panel for Columbia faculty and graduate students.

Are you interested in leveraging spaces outside the classroom to enhance the STEM learning experience for your students? Join us for an engaging panel discussion where STEM faculty will share innovative ways to extend learning beyond traditional classroom settings. Organized and moderated by Dustin Rubenstein, Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and a Provost’s Senior Faculty Teaching Scholar, the panel will illustrate how immersion experiences in the field can not only enhance student engagement, but also deepen students’ understanding and application of STEM concepts and skills. Participants will leave with key insights and practical strategies to effectively integrate field teaching into their own practice.

Note: Lunch will be provided for registered attendees.

Panelists

• Moderator: Dustin Rubenstein | Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology
• Sidney Hemming | Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Ivana Hughes | Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry
• Jenna Lawrence | Lecturer in the Discipline of Climate
• Matt Palmer | Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology

Date: Wednesday, February 5
Time: 12:00-1:30pm
Location: 212 Butler Library

Practice Teaching

Practice Teaching sessions (formerly known as “Microteaching”) can help you rehearse teaching approaches and get direct feedback and support, whether or not you are currently teaching. We invite current Columbia graduate students or postdocs to register individually, or with a small group of peers wishing to do a session together.

Date: Wednesday, February 12
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm
Location: 212 Butler Library

Practice Teaching sessions count towards completion of CTL’s Teaching Development Program for graduate students.

Showcase Your Teaching Development – TDP Advanced Track

The Teaching Development Program (TDP), offers doctoral and MFA students a means to document and articulate their teaching development at Columbia. Completion of a track in the TDP is certified by the CTL and noted on transcripts for doctoral students in Arts and Sciences, SEAS, Mailman, Nursing, Social Work, Business, Journalism, and GSAPP – and for MFA students in the and School of the Arts. Students currently on the Advanced Track of the TDP or who are looking to switch to the Advanced Track this semester are invited to join us for this event. In particular, we welcome to this session:

• Participants who recently switched to the TDP’s Advanced Track who are interested in discussing tips for making progress
• Participants who are looking to learn about or work toward the e-portfolio capstone assignment
• Participants on the Advanced Track who want to work with the CTL and peers to map out strategies for track completion

Date: Friday, February 14
Time: 1:00-2:00pm
Location: 212 Butler Library

Upcoming Lead Teaching Fellow Event

The 2024-25 Lead Teaching Fellows are running workshops and discussions in departments all around Columbia. These are generally advertised locally. Below is an upcoming event that is open to participants beyond the LTFs home department.

Read more about the LTF program here, connect to an LTF in your department via the LTF directory, and discover more upcoming LTFs events on the LTF calendar.

LTF events count towards track completion in the Teaching Development Program.

Running a Tight (Mentor)Ship

Mentorship is an often inevitable and invaluable experience as a graduate student and researcher. Mentorship is an art and a science as much as the research you are working together on, which is why it is so important learn how to be better mentors as well as better scientists.

In this workshop, we will go over and discuss works from scientific journals covering how to mentor others in the lab and build interpersonal relationships in the lab. We will cover common mentorship scenarios, recommendations for how to resolve interpersonal lab conflicts, and discuss ideas on how to best work with our mentorship styles.

This workshop is led by Lead Teaching Fellow Sophia Windemith (Biomedical Engineering). It is open to graduate students and staff who work in labs, and/or mentor students.

Date: Monday, February 10
Time: 10:00am
Location: BME multipurpose room, ET343
RSVP: here

Resource Spotlight: Learning Objectives Generator

Are you wrestling with coming up with clear learning objectives for your current or potential students? CTL’s Learning Objectives Generator is a self-paced 20 minute module that takes you through the steps of creating compelling and measurable learning objectives—on a course, unit, or individual assignment level.

The CTL is here to help!

Consultations
Graduate students can now request consultations to get support for their teaching and learning needs. The CTL provides consultations on a range of topics, including syllabus design, creating and refining a teaching statement, integrating instructional technologies into class activities, and presentation practices.
Learn more and request a consultation.

Office Hours
Live office hours for graduate students are running during the Spring 2025 semester on Fridays from 2:00-4:00 pm ET. Drop by 212 Butler or join our Zoom room to consult with us about maintaining an inclusive and supportive learning environment, any other aspect of teaching, CTL fellowships and other offerings, job market preparation, or making progress in the Teaching Development Program. To join office hours via Zoom, email CTLgrads@columbia.edu for the link.