We teach in difficult times. Using Parker Palmer’s *The Courage to Teach,* this series will engage Brown instructors in reflecting on why we teach, who we are as teachers, and how we can engage our students in sometimes challenging conversations in our classrooms. Participants are welcome to attend just one meeting of the series or all of them. Each meeting will be co-facilitated by Mary Wright (Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning and Professor [Research] in Sociology) and a guest facilitator. We will reflect on purpose-related themes raised in the book – why we teach and who we are as teachers – while “trying on” different discussion approaches. Discussion will take place Noon - 12:50 PM, with lunch served for takeaway or continued conversation.

On Friday, February 16, please join us for a discussion with Professor Andre Willis (Religious Studies). Please register.

On Tuesday, February 27, please join us for a discussion with Dean Rashid Zia (Engineering & Physics). Please register.

On Wednesday, March 20, please join us for a discussion with Dean Thomas (Tal) Lewis (Religious Studies). Please register.

On Friday, April 5, please join us for a discussion with Professor James (Jim) Valles (Physics) and Ruth Colwill (Cognitive and Psychological Sciences) at STEM Ed Fridays. Please register.

On Tuesday, April 9, please join us for a discussion co-facilitated with Laura Snyder (Education) and Brad Gibbs (Economics). Please register.

This year’s Sheridan Center Liaison meeting will be on the topic of graduate student advising. Liaisons will learn more from Dean of the Graduate School Thomas A. Lewis and discuss graduate student and faculty perspectives on advising. As is typical practice in the annual liaisons meeting, we will also seek feedback and suggestions for Sheridan Center programs. Sheridan Center faculty and graduate student liaisons are invited to attend, as well as anyone with interest in the topic or the work of the Center. Please register.

For those attending in person, lunch will be available immediately after the meeting for informal discussion in 720 or take-away.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education. Please register.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to create Peer Review Assignments using Brown’s newly supported platform, Peerceptiv.

For Spring 2024, Emily Kalejs Qazilbash (Education) and Kellie Forrester (Economics) will facilitate a Sheridan Center faculty learning community on what it means to engage in anti-racist teaching and how faculty can work with intergenerational teams (i.e., with faculty and students) to leverage student expertise and experience to design anti-racist courses. Kishimoto’s (2018) article, “Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom,” will serve as a jumping off point for the learning community.

In this hands-on, interactive workshop, Dr.Jenna Morton-Aiken (Sheridan Senior Associate Director for Writing and English Language Support) and Timberley Barber (Sheridan Associate Director, Learning Technologies) will review strategies for creating a motivating, inclusive, and accessible learning environment; provide an overview of Sheridan’s digital teaching resources; and demonstrate how to get support from the Center and other campus partners throughout the semester. This session is designed for faculty and postdocs who did not have the opportunity to attend the Launch New Faculty Teaching Orientation. In-person attendees are encouraged to bring a wifi-enabled device (phone or laptop) for interactive activities, and virtual attendees will be sent links during the session. Lunch will be provided to in-person attendees. Please register for this event.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education. Please register.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education. Please register.

In this roundtable, instructors will share their experiences of designing creative, non-traditional assessments in their courses. Examples include student created podcasts, digital toolkits, and videos. We will discuss how creative assignments impact student engagement, autonomy, and learning and how they can mitigate the desire to use AI in favor of doing authentic and meaningful coursework. Roundtable panelists include Claire Wardle (Public Health - Health Services, Policy, and Practice), Jessica Plavicki (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), and Megan Hall (Institute at Brown for Environment and Society). The roundtable will be moderated by Kristi Kaeppel (DLD, Sheridan Center). Please register.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education. Please register.

Join staff from Digital Learning and Design to discuss Brown-supported tools for automated grading and feedback. Tools include Gradescope, Top Hat, Canvas Quizzes/Speedgrader, and Harmonize. By the end of this workshop, instructors will be able to identify appropriate tools for their needs and implement automatically graded assignments. Please register.

There has been a steep decline in mental health among both graduate and undergraduate students in recent years. Calls to create more inclusive science programs for students with anxiety and depression have followed. However, little research has examined what aspects of science undergraduate and graduate programs alleviate and exacerbate student symptoms of anxiety and depression, and in turn how students’ mental health impacts their experiences in academic science. To address this gap, our lab has interviewed hundreds and surveyed thousands of undergraduate and graduate students with anxiety and depression about their experiences in science active learning classrooms, online courses, and research labs. We’ve identified key aspects of science learning environments, such as structure, social interactions, feedback, and progress that impact students’ mental health. These interview and survey studies also provide recommendations specific to undergraduates in classrooms and graduate students engaging in research and teaching to maximize students’ mental health in the context of academic science. Light refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP here.

Collaborative Research and Scholarly Experiences (COEX) curriculum designation at Brown is inspired by the course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) framework. CUREs describe courses where students engage in a real research project in the context of a course and are known for providing undergraduates with an array of benefits while simultaneously producing broadly relevant, novel data. Being intentional about what research questions are asked and the aspects of research students engage in are critical to achieving these outcomes. In this workshop, we will identify what aspects of research align with student-specific outcomes. We will also discuss how engaging in particular aspects of research may limit the research questions that can be asked and the broad relevance of the data collected. By contemplating these questions and the existing literature on CUREs, participants will identify critical components of the CUREs they plan to teach and outcomes they hope to assess. Please register.

Problem solving is an important skill in a college education; yet, it can be difficult to teach. This Sheridan Center roundtable features Professor Danny Warshay (Executive Director of The Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship) to discuss key strategies highlighted in his 2022 book, See, Solve, Scale. In this roundtable, Prof. Warshay describes tools that he has developed through his Brown course, “The Entrepreneurial Process,” as well as other ideas from his book, and then we allow time for discussion and Q&A. Pre-reading is not required. The roundtable will run from 11:00 - 11:50 AM; in-person participants are welcome to continue the conversation over lunch afterwards. This roundtable is open to all members of the Brown community; please register.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education.

In this session of STEM Ed Friday, Jo Hardin and Shahriar Shahriari (Pomona College) will discuss how the math & stats department at Pomona College slowly moved away from a deficit model (e.g., lack of preparation among students) to focusing on the experiences of all of the students in the department. We will discuss the successes and challenges of a few of our concrete cohort programs as well as the role of collaboration, community, and climate in expanding access to educational opportunities in the mathematical sciences. Please register.

Well-crafted rubrics are effective tools to make both teaching and admissions more inclusive. The design process helps us make evaluation criteria explicit and intentionally include the full breadth of relevant criteria. In addition, there are a variety of ways to structure rubrics and rate assignments or applications to reflect different teaching values and perspectives. The Graduate School and the Sheridan Center are sponsoring this a 2-part series on rubrics with the Part 2 building on Part 1 to help faculty apply principles of teaching rubrics to support holistic review of graduate program applications. A faculty panel will share concrete examples from Brown graduate admissions committees. Please register.

Are you interested in discussing STEM education at Brown? STEM Ed Friday is a vibrant learning community where STEM instructors and staff members share ideas, experiences, and challenges related to STEM education. Please register.

Well-crafted rubrics are effective tools to make both teaching and admissions more inclusive. The design process helps us make evaluation criteria explicit and intentionally include the full breadth of relevant criteria. In addition, there are a variety of ways to structure rubrics and rate assignments or applications to reflect different teaching values and perspectives. The Graduate School and the Sheridan Center are sponsoring this a 2-part series on rubrics with this session (Part 1) focused on rubric design principles and variations in teaching contexts. Part 2 of the series meets at the same time on Tuesday, October 10th and builds on Part 1 to help faculty apply this understanding of rubrics to support holistic review of graduate program applications. Both sessions will include faculty panels sharing concrete examples from Brown courses and graduate admissions committees. Please register.