Departmental Customized Workshops

CRLT-Engin is available to facilitate in-person, hybrid, and remote teaching workshops and conversations during faculty meetings and department retreats during the academic year. Typical workshop topics shown below can be tailored to address specific department needs. For workshops specifically designed for graduate student instructors (GSI) and undergraduate instructional aides (IA), see the GSI/IA handout or any workshop listed below with an asterisk (*).

If departments are interested in topics not listed below, please connect with CRLT-Engin staff (crlt-engin@umich.edu) to explore possible options. These customized topics may need more lead time for delivery.

All workshops are typically 45-60 minutes, unless otherwise indicated.

Request Customized Workshop

Download the Faculty Handout

Download the GSI/IA Handout

General

CRLT-Engin Info Session (30 min)

In this session, CRLT-Engin will communicate the broad range of services available to faculty & teaching teams and answer questions about our work.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Creating Transparent Assignments to Support All Students

Clearly communicating with students about course norms, expectations, and evaluation criteria is an important element of inclusive teaching. In this interactive session, participants will explore the ways that a more transparent assignment design supports students’ learning.

Encouraging Growth Mindset to Support Student Learning*

Research shows that an instructor’s beliefs about their own and their students’ intelligence and ability impact the classroom environment. In this session, participants will learn strategies to encourage a growth mindset for students in their courses.

Engineering Inclusive and Equity-Focused Classroom Environments*

In this session, faculty will examine a variety of classroom scenarios and brainstorm strategies to improve classroom climate and respond to problematic dynamics. New scenarios related to remote teaching and/or elections are available for each new academic year.

Facilitating Difficult Discussions (60 min)

Successful navigation of difficult discussions is a vital skill that individuals and groups can develop. In this interactive session, participants will reflect on their own experiences of handling tense or high-stakes moments in teaching-learning settings and explore strategies for responding to ‘hot moments’, using a case study.

Inclusive and Equity-Focused Teaching Strategies

In this interactive session, participants will learn about various inclusive and equitable teaching strategies and discuss with colleagues how they can implement these strategies in remote, hybrid and in-person contexts.

Learner-Centered Syllabi

Learner-centered syllabi help to build greater student-instructor rapport considering the instructor more approachable, encouraging, open-minded, and enthusiastic for teaching and learning. In this session, participants will learn the key elements for creating this type of syllabi and reflect on considerations for the remote context.

Instructional Practices for Remote, Hybrid & In-Person Contexts

Moving forward in Engineering Teaching & Learning (new)

In the past two years, faculty and students have adapted to multiple learning modalities and endured increased workloads, all while experiencing numerous disruptions to their personal lives. We have learned that there are many options for delivering content, that well-being is important for learning, and that inequities still exist in educational systems. How might we leverage lessons learned from teaching during the pandemic to improve our teaching practice? During this session, departments can customize their session to focus on engagement strategies, course design and/or well-being.

Actively Engaging Students in Engineering Courses*

In this session, participants will learn about the research-based evidence for the effectiveness of active learning teaching methods. Participants will also discuss ways to implement these strategies across multiple modes of instruction.

Alternative Assessment/Grading

Why do we assess and assign grades to students? How can our assessments motivate learning? How can we assess and grade in more inclusive and equitable ways? In this session we will explore these questions and examine evidence-based practices that can make your assessment plan more robust, inclusive and equitable.

Are They Getting It?: Classroom Assessment in F2F, Hybrid and Remote Environments*

Classroom assessment techniques (CATs) are quick and useful ways to gather information on what, how much, and how well students learn. Instructors can use the data to create more effective learning environments. Participants in this session will identify ways to use CATs in their own course context.

Building A Sense of Community with Your Students

Since the pandemic, students sometimes report feelings of isolation and lack of motivation, and have more difficulty staying on schedule with their work. Intentionally building a sense of community in your courses can help relieve these feelings. In this session, participants will learn strategies for helping students feel that they are part of a community of learners, and share ideas on how to apply these strategies in their particular teaching context.

Designing Successful Engineering Teams

How can instructors set up teams to succeed? In this session, engineering faculty will discuss their experiences using teams, gain insights from their colleagues, and explore research-based strategies for designing effective teams.