On-Demand Seminars

DCAL offers on-demand seminars on a variety of teaching topics for your department, team, or other cohort group.

About the Seminars

DCAL offers on-demand seminars on the topics outlined below. Each session can be tailored specifically to the needs of each group.

DCAL seminars provide supportive environments in which participants can:

  • Build skills
  • Develop knowledge 
  • Discuss teaching topics with peers
  • Consider the research in the field of teaching and learning
  • Reflect on teaching philosophy and practice
  • Practice techniques and strategies

Seminars are aligned to support participants' progress toward DCAL's learning outcomes:

  • Increasing awareness of the range of evidence-based teaching and learning practices.
  • Integrating evidence-based practices into teaching philosophy and practice.
  • Identifying factors that influence pedagogical choices.
  • Effectively using learning spaces and instructional technologies to facilitate learning.
  • Aligning learning goals, teaching strategies, activities, and assessments at course and/or curricular level.
  • Implementing teaching strategies that foster inclusion and accessibility.
  • An increased sense of belonging to a community of scholar-educators.
  • Awareness of available resources and services to support teaching.

Seminars are facilitated by DCAL staff and/or campus partners, depending on the subject matter of the session. Sessions are typically 1-2 hours in length, and are open to all members of the Dartmouth scholar-educator community regardless of rank, school, discipline, or teaching ability.

Please contact us to inquire about scheduling a seminar for your group. If you are interested in a seminar but do not have an existing group, please get in touch! We are happy to help convene a group around your interest, or to offer individual consultation on any topic.
 

Menu of Seminars

Effective Assignments
Good assignments both measure how well students have learned something, and serve as learning experiences in and of themselves. In this session, participants will learn about how to create assignments that effectively promote and measure student learning. We will discuss which assignment types meet which teaching and learning purposes, and apply these principles to assignments in participants' own courses.

Incorporating Learning Activities into Your Teaching
Learning activities can take many forms and be used in any discipline to engage students in the learning process. In this session, participants will explore how active learning can improve student participation and make teaching easier, then identify a variety of quick, simple methods for incorporating learning activities into their classes.

Reaching All Students
Students come from all backgrounds, including but not limited to different cultures, races, religions, abilities, and levels of preparedness. In this session, participants will consider design approaches and practical teaching strategies that can make their courses accessible to and inclusive of all students. In collaboration with IDE, C3I, SAS, & FYSEP.

Mid-Course Evaluations
Getting student feedback early in the term can give you actionable insight about what is working, not working, or could change about your teaching and students' learning experience. Engaging students in this process can also prompt them to take ownership of their own learning  and invest in the success of the course overall. In this session, participants will review a variety of midterm evaluation approaches and tools, and discuss the utility of the process for their own teaching.

Effective and Efficient Grading
Grades and student feedback are important opportunities in the teaching and learning process, but can be time-intensive for faculty and difficult to do effectively. In this session, participants will explore guidelines and strategies for planning for assessment, aligning grades with teaching and learning goals, giving useful feedback, and saving time throughout.

Using Student Groups in Your Teaching
In this interactive session, participants will discuss when and why to incorporate student groups and how to set them up for success. What is the optimal number of group members, and how should groups be formed? What preparation do students need in order to work well together? What kinds of assignments work well in groups, and how can you assess them? We'll use these questions, combined with your own, to make best use of student groups in your teaching.

Tools for Teaching
A wide variety of educational technologies is now available to support your teaching, from the Canvas learning management system to classroom polling tools, from the basic video lecture to virtual reality. This session will be designed according to the needs and interests of the group, and will focus on selecting the right tool to support your teaching goals and advance student learning.

Student Wellness & Mental Health
Challenges to the mental health and wellness of students are many, and the impacts of these challenges often impede a student's ability to thrive in the classroom and beyond. In this session, participants will discuss how to recognize the signs of student struggle, identify the services and resources available to students at Dartmouth, and explore the teaching and course design strategies that alleviate stress and support student wellness. In collaboration with the Student Wellness Center and Undergraduate Deans Office.

Interpreting Course Evaluations
End-of-term course evaluations can be valuable sources of information about our teaching, but can also be easily misinterpreted or misunderstood, and reflect inherent biases. Participants in this session will review the research on student evaluations of teaching and discuss best practices for reading and interpreting them in their contexts.