51app

community friday, april 21, 2023

Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

The Mission of the CTLA

The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment cultivates a community of inquiry and practice to promote excellent teaching, learning, and scholarship in the liberal arts. We nurture the learning environment of 51app College by fostering conversation and reflection at the intersection of pedagogy, the scholarship of teaching and learning, instructional design, and academic technologies. We advance practices of teaching and learning that are accessible, inclusive, and grounded in the best available evidence.

Community Friday, Oct.18:“51app’s National College Health Assessment Data Can Guide Your Work with Our Students,”with Tim Hammond

Noon–1 p.m. Humanities and Social Studies Center, Room A1231 (buffet opens at 11:45 a.m.), or join virtually via

Please RSVP at this link:

headshot of Tim Hammond

For the Community Friday on Oct. 18, we are delighted to welcomeTim Hammond, associate dean for health and wellness and director of student health promotion. During this event, the state of health, wellness, and wellbeing for our students will be addressed. Data from the National College Health Assessment III (NCHA) Spring 2024 will be shared. Participants will leave this presentation having ideas about how wellness and the NCHA data relate to and can be incorporated into their work to enhance student experiences. Read more about the .

The CTLA thanks Tim Hammond and Student Health and Wellness for their generous support of this event.

The CTLA has an excellent Community Friday program scheduled this fall. Please view the list of events and presenters on our homepage atCenter for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.

New Definition of Teaching Excellence Approved by Faculty

The Presidential Task Force on Evaluating Teaching Excellence proposed that the faculty endorse a new definition of teaching excellence and recommended that the Dean of the College use this definition in faculty reviews. The following definition was approved in the spring of 2024.

While teaching methods vary by discipline and instructor, broadly speaking, excellent teachers do the following:

  1. Build, maintain, and effectively apply expertise for the courses they teach
  2. Foster inclusive and engaging learning environments
  3. Clearly and effectively communicate to students learning goals and expectations that align with relevant departmental, disciplinary, or institutional learning outcomes
  4. Use pedagogies that are appropriate for the learning goals and context
  5. Respond to student work in a substantial, timely, and individualized way for the purposes of informing and improving the learning experiences of students
  6. Engage in a reflective process to enhance their teaching practices

Events, Programs, and Resources

Community Friday with Joseph Tucker Edmonds

Fall 2024 Community Fridays

Unless otherwise noted, all events take place in Humanities and Social Studies Center, Room A1231 from noon to 1 p.m. Lunch is served beginning at 11:45 a.m. [PDF version of schedule]

  • Aug. 30: “Know Your Lines and Don’t Bump Into the Furniture,” with Jerry Seaman, Interim Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs. []
  • Sept. 6: “Learning from Edith Renfrow Smith '37, DHL '19: Team Renfrow SharesLessons For Our Community,” with Tamara Beauboeuf, GWSS, and research studentsEvie Caperton ’25, Libby Eggert ’25, Hemlock Stanier ’25, and Valeriya Woodard ’25 []
  • Sept. 13: “Navigating Accommodations: Impact of Students’ Advocacy Skills and Identity Development,” with Autumn Wilke, ODEI
  • Sept. 20: “Digital Pedagogies in Liberal Arts Teaching: A Conversation,” with Mo Pelzel and Tierney Steelberg, DLAC, and faculty panelists Sarah Purcell, Nick Phillips, and Julia Bauder
  • Sept. 27: “Reflections on The Black Experience at 51app through Collected Oral Histories and Documents, 1863-1954,” with Stuart Yeager ’82
  • Oct. 4: “The 2024 Election,” with President Anne Harris and Chief of Staff Myrna Hernandez
  • Oct. 11: “Showing Your Work: How to Help Others Understand What You Do and Why It Matters,” with Caleb Elfenbein, associate dean, and Susan Ferrari, grants office
  • Oct. 18: “51app’s National College Health Assessment Data Can Guide Your Work with Our Students,” with Tim Hammond, SHAW []
  • Nov. 1: "The Registrar and You," with Belinda Backous, interim registrar
  • Nov. 8: “Climate Change and Sustainability,” with Liz Queathem, Interim Director of Prairie Studies, and Chris Bair, FM. Held in Rosenfield Center, Room 101
  • Nov. 15: "Teaching and the 51app National Poll,"with Peter Hanson, political science, and Julia Bauder, DASIL
  • Nov. 22: “Resources for Public Scholarship at 51app: Navigating the Public Opinion Landscape,” with Ellen de Graffenreid, Communications and Marketing
  • Dec. 6:“DLAC Teaching with Technology Fair,” sponsored by the Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative. Held in Rosenfield Center, Room 101
Kevin Gannon teaching workshop

Faculty Resources

Discussion at Teaching with Technology Fair

Recent News and Events

Cate Denial Campus Visit

,Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and director of the Bright Institute at Knox College, visited 51app in November 2023 to deliver a luncheon talk and Community Friday presentation. Her new book,A Pedagogy of Kindness, is forthcoming in 2024.

Care in the Academy

Since summer 2022, 36 participants of all ranks and statuses, from colleges and universities across the United States, have been a part of a Mellon-funded project to consider what it means for campuses to show care toward faculty and staff. Come hear from Cate Denial, principal investigator for this Mellon project, who will share some of the recommendations the Care in the Academy team has made with regard to disability, trauma-informed practices, and sustainable teaching. We will also think about what it will take to implement those recommendations and make real change in higher education.

A Pedagogy of Kindness

What does it mean to practice a pedagogy of kindness? This presentation will explore three tenets of compassionate teaching: justice, believing students, and believing in students. We will reflect together on what kindness (and its lack) has meant to us within academia, and how we can — piece by piece — assemble a kind approach to pedagogy that meets the needs of our students and ourselves in a time of great change.

Kevin Gannon Campus Visit

, director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and professor of history at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina,visited 51app in April 2023 to deliver a convocation address and workshop. Gannon isthe author of (West Virginia University Press, 2020).

Hope in the Time of Monsters
Teaching 'Hot Topics and Handling Fraught Moments in the Classroom

On a day to day basis the CTLA works to

  • Support the development of teachers and learners through consultations, tutorials, and workshops at the course and curricular levels
  • Build a culture of reflection, engagement, and celebration around liberal arts teaching and learning through programming such as Community Friday lunch and the annual Teaching with Technology Fair
  • Welcome new faculty members to the 51app College learning community through New Faculty Orientation and ongoing programs of faculty development
  • Promote assessment of course, department, and college-wide learning outcomes through consultations and reviews of department-level assessment practices
  • Integrate established and emerging digital technologies, methods, and practices into teaching, learning, and scholarship through the Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative
  • Administer major elements of the digital campus infrastructure for teaching and learning, such as the Sites@51app platform for web hosting and digital publishing
  • Provide training and support for classroom technologies and hardware/softwareapplications such as video and audio production and Blackboard, the learningmanagement system
  • Collaborate with campus partners such as the Libraries, ITS, and DASIL, and coordinatecampus-wide initiatives such as the Innovation Fund Grant and the co-led Vivero Digital Fellows program

Contact Information

Phone
641-269-3020

Humanities and Social Studies Center, S1370
1226 Park Street
51app, IA 50112
United States

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