University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Spring 2012 Workshop Series

This spring, CIPD will offer workshops on specific strategies that can have a strong impact on your courses and increase your effectiveness as an instructor. Come meet and exchange ideas with other teachers, learn something new to try, and take away many examples. Bring your course ideas or an existing syllabus as a framework. New and seasoned instructors are encouraged to attend as the mix of disciplinary backgrounds and levels of experience brings hard questions and realistic challenges to the table for stimulating conversation. All participants will receive a booklet of examples collected from several disciplines and types of courses.

To register for one of the programs, click on the title of the program

For more information, contact Connie Schroeder at 229-5764 or connies@uwm.edu

Becoming Familiar with Learner-centered Course Design

For Adjuncts and part-time lecturers

Friday, January 20th, 9:00 am-12:30 pm, Union 344

Many highly skilled and knowledgeable adjunct and part-time lecturers join the UWM community after some time outside of the academic community. The students, curriculum, and higher education have changed. Where do you start in order to make the course really work? How can you redesign a course to make it lead to the learning you have in mind? What is learner-centered course design? How do you incorporate assessment, use a variety of pedagogical strategies, and keep students engaged, prepared and learning? Walk through a step by step process of learner-centered course design or redesign and learn how to make a course your own based on effective and proven strategies. Bring a course syllabus or your ideas for your course. Participants will receive a course design booklet with many examples of each component of a course.

Pre-Post Assessment: How Have My Students Changed?

Friday, February 10th, 1:00-3:00 pm, Union 344

Explore a number of examples of creative pre-and post assessments and begin designing several to embed in your course. Use the pre-assessment to better understand your students, counter your assumptions, and uncover their conceptual misconceptions. Discover how the post-assessment can help you and your students see how they have changed and make their deeper understanding more transparent. Participants will receive a booklet of pre-and post-assessment examples. Bring a course syllabus and begin integrating this powerful strategy in your course.

Team Projects: Learning in Small Groups Without the Usual Hassles!

Friday, March 9th, 1:00-3:00 pm, Union 344

Perhaps no other pedagogical strategy elicits more complaints than group/team work. Is there a way to prevent group conflict, projects that end up as piecemeal work rather than true synthesis, or work being done by a few members? Most small group assignments make effective collaboration difficult from the start by the way they are designed. Examine the seldom used five principles for well-designed group projects and begin constructing a semester long small group assignment. Participants will receive a booklet of small group strategies and examples. Bring a course syllabus and begin integrating this powerful strategy in your course.

First Day Strategies: Making Strides in Learning the First Day

Friday, April 13th, 1:00-3:00 pm, Union 344

The significant potential of the very first day of class is often overlooked. “What can be accomplished if they haven’t read anything yet?” instructors commonly lament. However, the first day of class can become an exciting first step into students’ prior knowledge and the Big Ideas of the course. Explore how to engage students the first day in forming questions about the subject they may have thought they weren’t interested in and to challenge passive learners from day one. Develop your own mixture of strategies that set expectations for preparation, asking questions, and working at higher levels of thinking in class. Participants will receive a booklet of first day strategies and examples. Bring a course syllabus and begin integrating this powerful strategy in your course.