TTT #1 09/15/2026

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September 15, 2026

Welcome to the first Tuesday Teaching Tip of the 2026 - 2027 academic year. These weekly teaching tips are designed to bolster your teaching toolbelt with local examples grounded in teaching and learning literature and relevant professional development opportunities.

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: Learning is relational

Students’ relationships in our classrooms shape their willingness to take intellectual risks, support one another, and persist through the challenges of the learning process. Creating the conditions for the kinds of relationships we want - with and among students - requires making intentional choices to build a community of care, trust, and shared responsibility, alongside the other priorities we have for our classrooms.

This week, three Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) Faculty Associates offer strategies they are using to intentionally forge these relationships at the start of the term.

Molly King | Associate Professor, Sociology

When I receive emails from the Office of Accessible Education (OAE) about a student’s documented disability accommodations, I take it as an opportunity to reach out to that student to begin building trust in our relationship. Students initiate these OAE emails by entering faculty information on the OAE website. In my response to these confidential student emails, I aim to demonstrate my commitment to their learning and our shared responsibility in continuing a conversation about their accommodations. I created an email template that can be personalized to students’ individual accommodations.

Further reading: Consider the pointers from the OAE on how to best make specific accommodations work in your classroom environment with your planned activities and assessments. The National Disability Center also has A National Report on Disabled College Student Experiences that outlines top recommendations.

Loring Pfeiffer | Associate Teaching Professor, English

Since Fall 2023, I have been surveying my first-year students about how they use AI to assist with writing tasks. The survey is simple: anonymous, five questions long, conducted via Google. The data from the survey are interesting (particularly the way they’ve changed since I started administering it!), but the real reason I give the survey is so that I can put the responses up on the board and we can talk about them together.

Especially in their first college English class, students can feel worried about the looming topic of AI. Having anonymized data that we can talk through together gives us an evidence-based starting ground for discussing a sometimes polarizing topic.

Further reading: On the topic of asking your students about their AI use, I recommend Ernesto Reyes’s “Ask Your Students Why They Use AI.”

Thiadora (Dori) Pina | Clinical Professor and Associate Dean of Inclusive Excellence, Law

During the first week of class this Fall, I piloted and introduced a collaborative project where law students work in small groups to construct a shared course outline. This structured collaboration helps demystify legal analysis early on and shifts the classroom dynamic from individual competition to mutual support.

Early observations show a noticeable boost in peer collaboration—students are significantly more responsive and supportive during cold calls and daily discussion. This simple exercise sets an inclusive tone that encourages risk-taking and collective problem-solving from day one. This exercise also aligns with the idea that human learning is fundamentally a social process, as Dean Michael J. Kaufman notes in his article cited below. Students do not absorb knowledge in isolation; rather, they construct meaning by interacting, discussing, and negotiating ideas with others. In addition, students also become collaborative problem-solvers which forces students to articulate their reasoning, consider diverse perspectives, and refine their conclusions through peer feedback. According to Kaufman, this leads to deeper conceptual understanding compared to passive or solitary studying.

Further Reading: To explore how collaborative learning transforms pedagogy, see Dean Michael J. Kaufman's article, Social Justice and the American Law School Today: Since We are Made for Love.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

2026 Faculty Awards Celebration on Tuesday, September 15 RSVP

Preparing for Annual Review: Navigating the FAR on Thursday, September 17 RSVP

Shut Up & Prep on Thursday, September 17 RSVP

CAFE: Student Mentorship on Monday, September 28 RSVP

Center for Engaged Teaching & Learning Launch Party on Wednesday, October 10 RSVP

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe, Thiadora Pina, Molly King, and Loring Pfeiffer on behalf of Faculty Development and the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning.

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here.

And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development events.

Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning