Teaching Circles
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at Stonehill College is a physical and virtual hub promoting collaboration and innovation in teaching excellence. As articulated in its mission statement, the CETL was “Designed to build upon existing expertise at the College” by cultivating “collaborative relationships and campus-wide dialogue”. To advance this goal, the CETL is offering Teaching Circle Planning and Implementation Grants.
What is a teaching circle?
Pat Hutchings, in her seminal work Making Teaching Community Property (1996), defines a teaching circle (TC) as "a small group of faculty members… [who] make a commitment to work together over a period of at least a semester … to address questions and concerns about the particulars of their teaching and their students’ learning" (p. 7). TCs make the hard work of improving our teaching "public" (Cox, 2001, p. 7) as part of a community of like-minded individuals. It is through this "community building” (Cox, 2001) that we can address the “pedagogical solitude” (Shulman, 1993, p. 6) experienced by many members of the academy while improving our collective teaching practices.
Since their introduction twenty-five years ago, the concept of the TC has been widely adopted and adapted. Despite decades of evolution a few characteristics are still core to the approach: TCs involve commitment on the part of its members, last at least one term, and actively address teaching challenges shared by their participants. In alignment with these characteristics and the Center’s goal of building upon “existing expertise at the College” while providing opportunities for faculty to further develop their pedagogical skills, TCs at Stonehill College build upon prior definitions by emphasizing that the topics for TCs are not driven by the Center or its advisory board (CETL PAC), but instead are identified, proposed, and facilitated by faculty members.
What topics are “right” for a Teaching Circle?
There is no “right” topic for a TC. Just about any topic can be appropriate. The only requirements are that the topic be related to improving teaching and learning and applicable to an interdisciplinary group of faculty. For instance, TC topics might focus on relatively narrow topics, for example active learning strategies, building community in the classroom, using case-study teaching techniques, or sharing strategies to encourage small or whole class discussion. Or, the TC might focus on a broader topic, for example reading and writing as complementary processes, leveraging technology gains made during the pandemic, or rethinking assessment (ungrading). Please note, proposals for TCs that involve inclusive teaching practices, including Universal Design for Learning, are especially encouraged.
Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TiLT) is a set of teaching strategies that focuses on making transparent to students how and why they are learning and engaging with course content in particular ways. TiLT's goal is to provide more concrete support for student success, particularly among students who are the first in their families to attend college or from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. TiLT methods enable instructors to make small intentional changes to their teaching that can have a significant impact on the equity of their courses and their students’ success.
In this Teaching Circle led by Karen Anderson, participants will
- develop a collaborative definition for ‘Transparency in Teaching and Learning
- review the research findings suggesting that TiLT significantly enhances students' success, with greater gains for historically underserved students
- discuss the most common methods of enhancing transparency in a course
- and most importantly have time to work with their colleagues to apply TiLT tenets to their own practice though revising (transparentizing) assignments from their own courses, revisiting their choices for instructional moves, and reworking elements of their course syllabus.
Signature Assignments. This Teaching Circle offers a space for early career faculty to develop an innovative and purposeful signature assignment for a standard 3-credit course. A signature assignment is a semester-long initiative in which students engage critically with course material and think creatively as they develop something of purpose. The key to a signature assignment is its iterative nature; it is broken into parts with building block assignments staggered throughout the semester with opportunities for growth, development, and revision along the way. A signature assignment could take shape in varied forms: a podcast channel where each student produces a podcast on the course topic, a report that challenges a student to incorporate research, theory, and case studies on a topic of their choosing, a real-world action project, a project involving simulation software, or another creative work. Evidence suggests collaborative projects with real world implications embedded into courses throughout a semester help students find “the spark,” defined here as a “strong measure of enthusiasm” for a subject matter, but otherwise known as an “ah-ha moment” in the classroom (Mebert et al., 2020, p. 43). Please consider joining this collaborative and supportive Teaching Circle led by Danielle Waldron if you are constructing or reconstructing a course and looking to build a distinct signature assignment for your students!
Reimagining Assessments: Alternative models that leave grades behind.
Traditional grading (where the faculty assigns a grade based on student work and performance that ranges from A-F or 0-100) is subject to bias, reduces interest in learning and intrinsic motivation, and discourages risk-taking (Bloom, 2020). At the same time, faculty often view grading as a difficult slog yet feel stuck using traditional grading and assessment methods. This teaching circle, led by Stephanie Ernestus, will support the development and implementation of intentional evaluation systems that better align evaluation of students with learning outcomes and college objectives. Faculty will learn about alternative grading models (such as competence-based systems, menu of choices, ungrading), choose a model or system that is a fit for one course, and adapt their syllabus and materials to shift their grading system to one that improves faculty and student satisfaction and engagement.
Developing a Diversity, Power, and Resistance General Education Course. The proposed new General Education curriculum includes a new requirement for students—a course with a “Diversity, Power, and Resistance,” attribute. The creation of this new requirement represents an opportunity for faculty to expand their teaching and design new courses but doing so also creates a demand on our time. This teaching circle, co-led by Stan Thangaraj and Megan Mitchell, aims to partially mitigate that demand by bringing together an interdisciplinary cohort of faculty who are interested in developing a DPR course (or modifying an existing course to meet the DPR requirements) but would prefer to have some support and structure around that course development/modification process. We intend to create a transformative intellectual space by reading and discussing with some foundational work in ethnic (including black and indigenous) studies, disability studies, and queer, feminist critique. Through these texts and in discussions, participants will be invited to reflect on their proposed course and work collaboratively to take their respective course from whatever stage of development it is currently in to one in which it is “ready to submit to curriculum committee” through sustained reflection on both content and pedagogy.
Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TiLT) is a set of teaching strategies that focuses on making transparent to students how and why they are learning and engaging with course content in particular ways. TiLT's goal is to provide more concrete support for student success, particularly among students who are the first in their families to attend college or from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. TiLT methods enable instructors to make small intentional changes to their teaching that can have a significant impact on the equity of their courses and their students’ success.
In this Teaching Circle led by Karen Anderson, participants will develop a collaborative definition for ‘Transparency in Teaching and Learning, review the research findings suggesting that TiLT significantly enhances students' success, with greater gains for historically underserved students, discuss the most common methods of enhancing transparency in a course, and most importantly have time to work with their colleagues to apply TiLT tenets to their own practice though revising (transparentizing) assignments from their own courses, revisiting their choices for instructional moves, and reworking elements of their course syllabus.
Teaching Circle Planning and Implementation Grants
Teaching Circle Planning and Implementation Grants (TCP&I Grants) have two phases, a planning phase and an implementation phase. Successful applicants will receive a $1,000 stipend upon completion of each phase ($2,000 total). Applicants may apply to complete their “planning” as part of either the summer or fall planning cohorts*.
Any faculty member can apply for a TCP&I Grant. You do not need to be an expert in the field or topic you propose to explore. Instead, you only need to have the desire to take on a leadership role planning and facilitating a TC and a desire to work collaboratively to improve your practice. Given this, any faculty member, regardless of where you are in your career trajectory, is encouraged to apply.
Application process. Applications are due by noon on the Friday after March break. Applications will be submitted electronically using the following link.
Selection Criteria
Completed applications will be reviewed and scored by members of the Teaching Circle Planning and Implementation Grant Selection Committee using the following criteria:
- Intellectual merit
- Broader impact
- Feasibility of the TC
- Assessment plan
- Overall quality of the application
Responsibilities – TC facilitators
- Successful applicants (TC facilitators) are required to participate in either the summer or fall planning cohorts, with implementation occurring the following semester. It is anticipated that planning cohorts will meet as a group with the CETL FD at least three times throughout the planning phase. Meetings may be in person or via zoom.
- Upon completion of the planning phase, participants will (1) electronically submit a finalized “TC plan of action” using the following link and (2) be asked to provide written feedback to the Center’s advisory board (CETL PAC) concerning the effectiveness of the planning phase of the Teaching Circle Planning Grants.
Upon completion of these responsibilities TC facilitators will receive their planning grant stipend.
In addition to facilitating their TC as outlined in “TC finalized action plan”, TC facilitators are asked to
- offer individual consultations on their area of interest to faculty unable to commit to a semester long TC.
- serve as members of the Teaching Circle Planning and Implementation Grant Selection Committee the academic year they facilitate their TCs.
- collect and analyze data as outlined in their assessment plan
- provide written feedback to the Center’s advisory board (CETL PAC) concerning the effectiveness of the implementation phase of the Teaching Circle Planning Grants.
- create and maintain a repository of related links, literature, etc. on the CETL website or CETL Team site (if appropriate).
- submit a finalized “TC grant completion report”.
Upon completion of these responsibilities TC facilitators will receive their implementation grant stipend
Repeating TCs
Depending upon faculty interest, TC facilitators may request, or be asked to consider, offering their TC more than once. If this occurs, TC facilitators will receive an addition $500 implementation grant stipend upon completion of the subsequent semester of the TC and its associated finalized written project evaluation.
*If applicants participate in the summer planning cohort, they will implement their TC throughout the fall semester. If applicants participate in the fall planning cohort, they will implement their TC throughout the spring semester.
