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The September 2024 Newsletter is now available!
Message from the Director
Welcome to the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTLE) website! I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining the CTLE as its new Director as of August 1, 2024. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with SU’s outstanding faculty, professionals, staff and students, and very much looking forward to building connections with other centers, programs, departments and individuals on campus.
A bit about me: I hold a Ph.D. in history, am currently a professor in the SU School of Education, and I have over twenty years of college classroom experience. I’m the author of Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers and the forthcoming Snafu Edu: Teaching and Learning When Things Go Wrong in the College Classroom, to be published fall 2025 in the Oklahoma University Press series, Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed. I am also the editor of Picture a Professor: Interrupting Biases about Faculty and Increasing Student Learning.
As an educational developer, I support and promote faculty’s scholarly teaching and pedagogical reflection at every stage of their careers. As a collaborative campus leader, I prioritize building and sustaining strong communities; recognizing, documenting, and celebrating effective teaching practices; and increasing equitable teaching and learning environments for faculty, students, and staff.
To learn more about all the members of our small but mighty CTLE team, please visit https://teachingexcellence.syr.edu/contact/ and I hope you’ll also sign up for the CTLE mailing list. You’ll receive 1-2 emails per month about upcoming events, including my monthly newsletter. Sign up to join our mailing list , and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Got an idea for programming or questions about the CTLE? Get in touch, I’d be glad to hear from you.
Jessamyn Neuhaus
315-443-1089
janeuhau@syr.edu
Workshop: “Teaching in Tumultuous Times: The Value of ‘Scripts’”
Zoom and on-site/in-person sessions offered, facilitated by Jessamyn Neuhaus
Description: Anyone who works with students right now knows that the political and social crises and tensions of our current time are shaping our interactions in and outside the classroom. When difficulties or tensions arise in a discussion, interaction, assignment, or other type of class activity, it can be pedagogically effective and personally empowering to have a “go-bag” of prepared phrases and responses. I don’t mean “scripts” in the sense of long, memorized speeches but rather a handful of carefully chosen sentences/wording that you know will defuse tension and help everyone productively navigate potentially fraught situations while maintaining professionally appropriate connections and facilitating a positive teaching and learning environment. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll identify some of the predictable tense and challenging situations we encounter in our teaching lives, reflect on how our past responses (especially what we said) either helped or hindered our teaching efficacy at those moments, share our current best scripts for difficult conversations/interactions, and brainstorm and practice some new scripts.
- Monday, September 9, 12:30-1:30 p.m., Zoom
- Wednesday, September 11, 3:30-4:30 p.m., in-person, 550 Bird Library (CTLE)
Workshop: “Fun to Grade and ChatGPT-resistant: The Un-Essay Assignment”
Zoom and on-site/in-person sessions offered, facilitated by Jessamyn Neuhaus
Advocates of “un-essays” (student-generated research projects that can take almost any form, except a traditional written essay) argue that it enables students to demonstrate knowledge in unique, individualized ways, encouraging more active engagement with content, and expands academic inclusion by offering students an unlimited number of ways to successfully complete scholarly research. Importantly, in today’s era of generative AI, a well-designed un-essay assignment can effectively motivate students to utilize only their own individual and unique ideas. This workshop gives an overview of un-essay assignments, including visual examples of completed undergraduate un-essays, and a brainstorming session for how you can incorporate an un-essay assignment into your course planning.
- Wednesday, September 18, 8:30-9:30 a.m., Zoom
- Thursday, September 19, 4:00-5:00 p.m., in-person, 550 Bird Library (CTLE)
- Friday, September 20, 12:00-1:00 p.m., Zoom
Discussion: “Co-Creating Classroom Civility”
Facilitated by Jessamyn Neuhaus
How can college educators work together with students to create and maintain respectful and productive learning environments? Encouraging and ensuring civility between students, and between students and ourselves, can be challenging at times, and politically/socially divisive events and issues create additional pressures on classroom interactions. During this informal discussion, we’ll share our best strategies for deliberately co-creating classroom standards, values, and “rules of engagement” with students.
Tuesday, September 24
4:30-5:30 p.m.
Zoom