TeachTalks & Workshops

How should we best integrate the real-world into our courses, and how would doing so benefit our students? This panel will focus on teaching the existential challenge of building a sustainable future, and consider how the social impact of course content can motivate students and foster a sense of belonging. Sustainability, a highly impactful topic that cuts across disciplines, is not only an essential activity in its own right, but also is a useful model for impact-driven pedagogy across the curriculum. Panelists will discuss strategies for integrating such issues into a variety of courses and domain areas, and show how doing so benefits the student experience.

Designing a curriculum, course site, or overall learning experience for your students takes time, thought and energy - so how can you be sure you're prioritizing the correct things? Hear from NYU’s Usability Lab, which has spoken to thousands of NYU students about their expectations and preferences, and from faculty who have adapted their classes after learning how to design student-centered learning experiences. We’ll discuss how to understand the types of learners in your classroom, key patterns the Lab has distilled from many studies conducted over the years, as well as why it’s important to take a student-first approach to learning experience design. Faculty will offer insight into the process, and best practices for implementing the lessons learned.

The pandemic has permanently changed higher education as we know it. Now is the time to reflect and iterate processes around student engagement–what has worked for our students, and what can we still learn from them? In this special session of TeachTalks, we’ll hear from a panel of students about how faculty can best support their learning. The student panelists will offer their own insights, those that they have learned from their peers, and respond to attendee questions. We’ll also investigate how students can be set up to best support one another academically, both during and after classroom activity.

A growing field, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) places not only the findings, but also the methodologies of educational research into the hands of practicing instructors—of any discipline. In this session, faculty participants in a six-month SoTL program at NYU Abu Dhabi will share what they’ve learned about research-based teaching, as well as the challenges around global education they’re using SoTL to explore.

In this experimental workshop, participants will explore a variety of contract grading models that promote fair, transparent and inclusive assessment. Through hands-on guided activities, participants will consider how the principles of contract grading can help them more carefully articulate specific course outcomes and motivate the student behaviors and disciplinary habits of mind they value. The workshop is designed to help faculty reduce the emotional labor associated with grading so they can better support students in achieving their personal and academic goals.

Looking at the latest research on language acquisition, this TeachTalk will explore our multilingual students’ writing challenges. We will consider best practices for working with multilingual students on issues of grammar, syntax, lexicon, and acclimating to American academic conventions. We will also discuss our various approaches to commenting on drafts in an efficient and effective manner to address both micro (grammatical) and macro (rhetorical) concerns.

Feedback is essential for learning, and just as essential for teaching. How can instructors obtain and utilize student feedback during, mid-semester, and at the end of the course to make helpful changes/enhancements to their course? Why is student feedback critical in shaping an inclusive, clear, and meaningful learning experience? This workshop will offer instructors - insights into the value of student feedback, ways to elicit this feedback, and strategies to implement the feedback in the design of their teaching practice.

Each year, NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) honors a select group of faculty for their commitment to teaching excellence at NYU. In this session, recipients of the 2021–2022 DTA will continue the tradition, sharing their insights into connecting with students, learning from feedback, and navigating classroom challenges.Charlton McIIwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement & Development will moderate the panel.

Student feedback on teaching can be a powerful tool, but too often we wait until the end of the semester to collect it. In this TeachTalk, Professors Trace Jordan (CAS) and Susannah Levi (Steinhardt) will share the strategies they use to hear from students throughout the semester, enabling them to respond to that feedback and improve their courses in real time.

Are you curious about how your students are engaging with your Brightspace course site and course materials? This session will facilitate a conversation about how to use the Learning Analytics Recent Activity dashboards to develop insights into how students in your course are connecting and communicating with instructors and with course materials. The goal is for instructors to leave with a plan for using the dashboard and making appropriate updates to their course and interventions with students as needed.

Inclusive teaching is a topic that is increasingly part of conversations on college campuses and within higher education more broadly. Students have asked for more inclusive classroom environments and instructors are often asked to articulate their own approach to teaching with an inclusive framework. How can instructors create classroom environments that set up all students for success? This session will introduce key ideas in the field of inclusive teaching and strategies for practice.

There are many approaches to peer observation and feedback on teaching, ranging from highly structured processes to the more qualitative and informal. Which approach is best for you or your department depends on the purpose of the observations (formative or evaluative) as well as how you define effective teaching. Attendees will explore these questions as they develop their own peer observation rubrics through group activities.

Assessment serves many purposes–from ensuring benchmarks are reached to creating opportunities to customize learning experiences mid-stream. This workshop will concentrate on formative assessments which are themselves learning opportunities, from low-stakes responses to long term project-based works. Attendees will be introduced to a wide variety of techniques (for online, in person, large and small classes) and leave the session with simple strategies for refining their own assessment process.

The possibility of teaching remotely—whether planned or unplanned—is now a fact of life. From managing live instruction across time zones to teaching place-based classes at a distance, NYU’s global faculty have had to adapt and innovate in ways similar to their New York–based colleagues. But some challenges are unique to our international campuses. Professors Healey and Lebovits will share how they adapted their content and course delivery, and how their students collaborated and even shared their own cultures despite the distance between them.

How can reflective teaching practices help us navigate these unprecedented times in higher education? Attendees will learn about peer and self-reflection techniques to improve course design and the learning process, while completing a variety of reflection activities. Faculty are encouraged to come prepared with a previously implemented teaching idea that they would like to work on.

Last year, NYU’s Expository Writing Program conducted a pilot of contract grading: the results were exciting. Though skeptics of contract grading cite the potential for lack of rigor and accountability, students didn’t confirm those concerns. Among the pilot’s positive results, most striking was how well it was received by students from underrepresented communities at NYU. In this TeachTalk, EWP faculty will share how contract grading can be used to enhance learning and inclusion in the classroom.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach whereby students engage in collaborative learning and critical thinking processes that are contextualized around solving a real-world problem. Research suggests that PBL activities encourage the development of flexible knowledge, problem-solving, and self-directed learning skills, while also supporting collaborative knowledge construction among learners. In this workshop, participants will learn more about the PBL approach and how to design and implement PBL in their courses.

This past year and a half, faculty and students alike have had occasion to appreciate anew the role of engagement in learning—its challenges, its benefits, how to cultivate it both online and in-person. In this special session of TeachTalks, we’ll hear from a panel of students about what they’ve learned about the importance of connection and communication for engagement this past year: What worked? What didn’t? What practices supported inclusion and belonging?

Are you curious about how your students are using your Brightspace course site? Does your site design help students reach your learning objectives? This session will facilitate a conversation about how to use the Learning Analytics dashboard as a tool to align your learning objectives, course design, and site design.

How do we ensure that we are reaching every learner and providing them with a positive, inclusive, accessible, and effective learning experience? This session will facilitate a discussion around inclusive teaching strategies and pedagogical practices for in-person and online learning environments.

Designing an inclusive, supportive, and spirited classroom—where students learn as much from one another as from you—takes careful forethought and a variety of pedagogical strategies. In this workshop, we explore how a framework of connecting, collaborating, and communicating can set the stage for successful and inclusive student engagement.

Each year, the Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) honors a select group of faculty for their commitment to teaching excellence at NYU. This past fall, recipients from 2019–2020 DTA convened a panel to share the successful classroom strategies they’ve developed over their careers, as well as the challenges they still face. This spring, recipients of the 2020–2021 DTA will continue the conversation, reflecting on their careers, teaching practices, and what they’ve learned about teaching in these extraordinary times.

Careful planning of a course takes time, reflection, and analysis. In this workshop, we’ll use the backward design process to help you to identify and select appropriate pedagogical strategies to assess, engage, and instruct students in any teaching modality (in-person, online, and blended).

There are many approaches to peer observation and feedback on teaching, ranging from highly structured processes to the more qualitative and informal. Which approach is best for you or your department depends on the purpose of the observations (formative or evaluative) as well as how you define effective teaching. Explore these questions to develop your own teaching observation process and rubric using the framework provided in this video.

Teaching observations can offer rich opportunities for instructors to reflect on—and enhance—their teaching. But giving and receiving teaching feedback can be a daunting process for both parties. Professors Duff and Kleinert share their experience both observing and being observed in the classroom, and explain some of the benefits of formative peer review in teaching.

Learning requires the space to experiment, apply, and make mistakes. As we continue to better understand the power of active learning and formative assessment, instructors are increasingly rethinking the value of high-stakes testing. Professors Magder and Ma lead a discussion about the value of low-stakes activities for learning, including emerging practices like ungrading.

How can reflective teaching practices help us navigate these unprecedented times in higher education? Attendees learned about peer and self-reflection techniques to improve course design and the learning process, and completed group and independent reflection activities. Faculty are encouraged to view recording with a previously implemented teaching idea in mind that they would like to work on.

Each year, the Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) honors a select group of faculty for their commitment to teaching excellence at NYU. Moderated by Vice Provost Charlton McIlwain, a panel of three DTA-winners from 2019–2020 discuss some of the successful classroom strategies they’ve developed over their careers, as well as the challenges they continue to tackle.

Designing an inclusive, supportive, and spirited classroom—where students learn as much from one another as from you—takes careful forethought and a variety of pedagogical strategies. In this workshop, we explore how a framework of connecting, collaborating, and communicating can set the stage for successful and inclusive student engagement.

Connecting learning to issues and events that directly affect students is a powerful teaching tool. Professors Deer, Jordan and Klass dis­cuss Pandemics and Plagues, a co-taught medical humanities course offered in Spring 2021. They review how students analyzed their personal ex­per­i­ences of COVID-19 in a literary, historical and scientific context by considering various narra­tives about previous plagues and pandemics.

Educators in the performing arts were challenged to teach as never before during the pandemic. Remote learning technology has been central to their efforts, but so too has been the imagination of faculty and students to find new ways to communicate, build community, and demonstrate their art to a virtual audience. In this session, Professors Jonathan Haas (music, Steinhardt) and Kathryn Posin (dance, Gallatin) will share how they’ve adapted to the technology of online teaching, as well as how they’ve adapted that technology to what they teach. Jonathan will demonstrate the media networking technology he uses to synchronize music played simultaneously by students at varied locations. Kathryn will show how her students created unique dance pieces in locations throughout the world, and will engage participants in a live movement exercise. Both will also share how and why they intend to continue to integrate what they’ve learned when they return to in-person teaching.

Current events, whether or not they directly relate to course material, can have a profound effect on our students and on their learning. Knowing what to say amidst the stress of traumatic news, and how to direct fraught conversations so students don’t feel excluded, may feel outside our role as teachers. Creating space for these conversations and guiding them, however, are important strategies for creating learning and inclusion in the classroom. In this session, Maria Brea (Steinhardt) and Chandani Patel (Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation) will share some of their strategies for holding space for dialog and compassion in the classroom, while also meeting learning goals. In breakout rooms, participants will have the opportunity to discuss their own challenges navigating current events with students.

Since March of last year, being a teacher has been defined by the need to adapt: to new modes of teaching and to new tools, platforms, and techniques. But what has remained the same through it all? What aspects of good teaching transcend format? In this session, Distinguished Teaching Award-winning faculty Elena Cunningham (College of Dentistry) and Selin Kalaycioglu (Courant Institute of Mathematics) will lead a conversation on the evergreen principles of effective teaching. Following brief presentations from the facilitators, participants will join breakout groups to discuss how they’ve remained true to what they value most in teaching, regardless of format.

Remote learning has raised new concerns for maintaining academic integrity, and new challenges for promoting trust between instructors and students. Jenni Quilter, Professor of Expository Writing, and Alexej Jerschow, Professor of Chemistry, will consider approaches to supporting academic integrity in both small and large undergraduate classrooms. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss in small breakout groups their own challenges and solutions for maintaining academic integrity. This session will also touch on the new measures the university is taking to educate incoming students about academic integrity.

It’s been nearly a year since we pivoted to remote learning in New York, and in that time we’ve navigated a great deal of new teaching and learning terrain. Based on the results of the Fall Teaching Survey from the Provost’s office, we continue to seek new ways to learn and adapt for both ourselves and our students. This session will be led by Clay Shirky, Vice Provost for Educational Technologies, and De Angela Duff, Associate Vice Provost and Tandon Industry Professor, who will share a synopsis of the survey’s findings, as well as their insights in response. Participants will share their own lessons from 2020 in small breakout groups.

When NYU shifted to remote learning last spring, there was a clear need for conversation, community and support around the challenges of teaching. Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) developed TeachTalks both to help address that need and to provide a model for others. In this TeachTalk, we’ll hear from faculty and administrators who developed TeachTalk-like programs for their faculty, and brainstorm strategies for sparking similar conversations within your own department or school.

Whatever the mode of teaching, engagement is essential to learning. We’ll review some high-impact, low-effort active learning strategies that can be adapted to online as well as socially-distanced in-person classrooms. In small groups, you’ll have a chance to brainstorm ways to incorporate these strategies into your courses.

Navigating the unprecedented classroom situation this fall will require flexibility from faculty and students alike, as well as a willingness to try new things. Adopting new technologies and teaching modalities can feel overwhelming—even in matters beyond our control, we may feel accountable when things don’t work. Join the conversation to explore how a spirit of pedagogical experimentation can result in meaningful learning.

All classrooms require creative and inclusive ways to engage students, but the blended classroom presents special challenges in this regard. Together, we’ll explore how a framework of connecting, collaborating, and communicating can set the stage for successful student engagement. Facilitators will also demonstrate how inclusiveness is essential to this “3C” approach.

NYU’s Libraries can help you engage your students with research activities and projects. In this session, meet some of NYU’s subject librarians to discuss how collaborative learning can shake up the virtual classroom, and how research instruction can enhance your students’ learning.

How can you create online learning experiences for project-based, experiential, and hands-on learning, while also fostering student engagement? De Angela Duff (integrated digital media) and Jack Bringardner (engineering) of NYU Tandon will share their experiences implementing senior capstone and vertically integrated projects.

How can you communicate what you already know as a subject matter expert through simple, compelling videos? We’ll explore how to create asynchronous, instructional videos that will transform parts of your lecture into engaging digital stories.

What makes an NYU education uniquely NYU even when teaching remotely? Online as well as in person, NYU faculty bring their breadth of experience and insight, their NYC perspectives, and their global connections to students all over the world. Join us to share your unique strategies for ensuring that your students can still experience the feeling of belonging to the NYU academic community.

How can we create online learning experiences that are meaningful, relevant, and accessible to all students? This session will focus on strategies for including the unique experiences and needs of each student in your remote classroom, and for making all students feel like they belong.

What do we do with the time slot we’ve been allotted when our class goes remote? In this discussion, we’ll explore strategies for optimizing the synchronous time we spend with students, as well as some of the asynchronous alternative approaches that are effective when teaching remotely.

After navigating this unprecedented spring semester, what have we learned? What worked, what didn’t, and what lessons can we now apply to the summer, fall, and beyond? Using a framework for reflective teaching, we’ll discuss our most challenging moments as well as the unexpected bright spots we experienced during the sudden transition to remote teaching.

Trust and open communication between instructors and students is fundamental to successful learning, and to membership in our community of scholarship at NYU. In this workshop, participants examined some of the underlying reasons why students are tempted to cheat and plagiarize. As instructors discussed the reasons, they also discussed how to better structure assessments, as well as offer guidance and services to students to maintain academic integrity.

Inclusive teaching places value on creating learning experiences that are meaningful, relevant, and accessible to all students. Learning is also enhanced when students feel like they belong. In this workshop, both instructors and students shared the challenges of creating an inclusive environment and of trying to fit in. Their insight and experiences include ideas for creating meaningful inclusive teaching environments across NYU.