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: Teaching Develops in Conversation

Next week, we officially launch the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL, pronounced SEE-tehl). We invite you to gather with colleagues to recognize the contributions of the many SCU community members who have brought us to this milestone, learn more about CETL’s priorities and programming, and help shape the ongoing conversation about how we support faculty and advance teaching and learning at Santa Clara University. Please RSVP and join us next week.

Over these past few months of being in conversation with many of you, I have been demonstrably reassured that I have landed at a values-driven institution where inherent human worth is a central consideration in our decision-making. This is demonstrated through faculty, staff, and students’ thoughtful reflection and iteration on teaching and learning at SCU. I’ve been inspired by the deep and creative commitments to cura personalis and justice in teaching and learning across SCU. Sometimes in the busyness of our work, thinking and learning about our teaching remains more isolated than collective and so investment in teaching development remains invisible outside our individual classrooms, departments, or programs.

Research on faculty learning points to the importance of conversations with trusted colleagues about teaching—particularly when those conversations move beyond simply exchanging techniques to questioning, reflecting on, and making meaning of our practice. This week I invite you to take two small actions:

1. Make one aspect of your teaching more visible. Share an assignment you’re puzzling over. Ask a colleague how they approach a sticky teaching challenge. Invite a student’s perspective on something you’re trying to understand.
2. Show curiosity about a colleague’s teaching. Ask about something you’ve seen or heard: “I’d love to hear more about how that worked.” If a colleague invites your feedback, start with what they’re trying to accomplish, then share specific observations that invite reflection rather than prescribe solutions.

These are small invitations to bring teaching into conversation with others. One of CETL’s priorities is to be a strong partner in building connective tissues across our campus—bringing people, practices, research, and new ideas into conversation in ways that make existing expertise more visible, inspire new possibilities, and support shared learning.

What are you thinking about, trying, or puzzling over in your teaching? Share it with a colleague and with CETL. There is no pedagogical problem too big or too small. We would love to learn more about your teaching and to support your connections with others thinking about similar questions.

In next week’s Teaching Tip, look for reflections from faculty on peer mentorship as well as ideas and resources emerging from this week’s Faculty Café on Student Mentorship. Gratitude to the faculty facilitators and participants for yesterday's conversation. We look forward to continuing this exploration of mentorship at SCU with you.

Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe, Director Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL)

 

Want to explore further?

Cano García, E. (2024). “Peer feedback for teaching professional development: conditions for it to take effect.” Cogent Education, 11(1), 2391577

Roxå, T., & Mårtensson, K. (2015). “Microcultures and informal learning: A heuristic guiding analysis of conditions for informal learning in local higher education workplaces.” International Journal for Academic Development, 20(2), 193–205.

Shulman, L. S. (1993). Teaching as community property: Putting an end to pedagogical solitude. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 25(6), 6–7.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• First Fridays Shut Up & Write on Friday, October 2 RSVP
  
  
• Center for Engaged Teaching & Learning Launch Party on Wednesday, October 7 RSVP
  
  
• Supporting Student Success: Lunch & Learn on Friday, October 9 RSVP
  
  
• Third Thursdays Shut Up & Write on Thursday, October 15 RSVP
  
  
• CAFE: Mind/Body–Joy and Creativity in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship on Tuesday, October 20 RSVP

 

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here. 

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