TLISI offers Georgetown University faculty and staff from all campuses the opportunity to explore strategies for excellence in teaching and learning. This year’s Institute will focus on several topic areas, including effective teaching and learning practices, inclusive pedagogies, technology-enhanced learning, Ignatian pedagogy, cross-institutional and cross-departmental collaborations, and more.
We hope you’ll join us in our efforts to make TLISI "green"! We’re partnering with the Office of Sustainability to reduce the environmental impact from this year’s Institute by providing compostable materials and expanding our recycling presence. Each registrant will also receive a free aluminum water bottle upon picking up your name badge at registration. You can help us Go Green by bringing your reusable water bottle back with you each day, as we will be limiting our supply of single-use plastics throughout the week. Stop by our information table anytime Monday-Thursday to learn about ways that you can help your office Go Green!
We spend so much time as graduate students thinking, writing, and talking about our research and fields of interests that we sometimes lose sight of the importance of being as effective educators as we are scholars. Despite the fact that most doctoral programs are designed to produce future faculty, much of our pedagogical training is informal and little of it geared toward the likely non-Georgetown students we will one day teach. Realizing this, we decided to create a collaborative space for teaching and learning. “Talking about Teaching” is a space for graduate students to meet monthly to discuss how to support students and implement best practices in the classroom.
The Ignatian ideal of cura personalis naturally lends itself to considering the whole student when we design lessons and policies and establish teaching relationships. In our monthly “Talking about Teaching” meetings, we focus not only on how best to serve Georgetown students as Teaching Assistants and Fellows, but also how to prepare for working in classrooms in universities and colleges beyond the hilltop. The typical U.S. college student looks much different than a Georgetown student — 26 percent are single parents, many are first generation, and those from lower income families are more likely to not complete a degree. We want to leave Georgetown with the pedagogical skills needed to share our subject matter expertise with students of all backgrounds and abilities.
Our panel presentation will provide an overview of the work that we have been doing through our “Talking about Teaching” discussions and share some ideas about how to expand these conversations beyond the Department of History. Our Faculty Facilitator, Professor Amy Leonard, will provide insights on fulfilling student needs from the perspective of a college educator and the Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies. Together, we will discuss ways that both graduate and undergraduate students can best be equipped for life after Georgetown.
In the absence of formal pedagogical training, we believe it is imperative for graduate students to supplement their hands-on experience in the classroom with more substantive discussion on the practice of teaching and learning. We are hoping to use our panel as a forum to discuss our ideas with both graduate students and faculty members in the hope that similar organizations and collaborative spaces dedicated to pedagogy might emerge across campus.
