Tuesday 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: What Sustains Your Teaching?
At this point in the term, what helps you feel supported, energized, and resourced in your teaching? Perhaps it's having a conversation with a colleague, trying a new approach to an assignment, taking time for reflection, or gaining scholarly insight for a sticky challenge.
The demands of teaching, research, and professional service alongside our personal responsibilities can be exhausting, even while deeply rewarding. We are navigating ongoing challenges, experimenting with new approaches, and seeking time on our calendars for restorative moments and connections with colleagues.
This week, we invite you to reflect on what sustains your teaching and identify at least one way to nurture that. Below, we share a few resources and opportunities available through the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) and welcome your ideas about what else might support your teaching and student learning.
A small practice to engage in this week
Take five minutes to consider:
- What's sustaining you? What people, practices, or resources are helping you find energy, confidence, or joy in teaching?
- What are you navigating? What question or challenge might benefit from a new perspective or conversation?
- What might you share? What have you tried or learned that could be useful to a colleague, even if it's still a work in progress?
Find resources and community
We're continuing to transform the Faculty Collaborative space on the second floor of Varsi Hall into a welcoming place for faculty to work, connect, and recharge. Stop by to explore:
- Open workspace for individual work and informal conversations.
- Coffee, tea, and snacks to sustain you throughout your day.
- Books and instructional materials supporting teaching, research, and leadership development.
- Art from our SCU community to inspire reflection and conversation.
- Frida, our friendly office dog, who welcomes visits and pets. We're also happy to accommodate preferences around dogs so everyone feels comfortable. Please let us know!
Learn and contribute
Explore teaching resources. CETL's AI in the SCU Classroom repository includes SCU faculty assignments and assessments. Explore colleagues' strategies and consider sharing your own materials.
Join a faculty project team. CETL's Faculty Associates are leading collaborative projects on accessibility and neurodiversity, assessment in the age of AI, graduate faculty support, and collaborative teaching cultures. Interested faculty are invited to complete an expression of interest by Friday, November 6.
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Teaching develops in conversation. We would love to connect with you. Please reach out any time. There is no pedagogical idea or question too big or too small.
Upcoming Events:
- First Fridays Shut Up & Write on Friday, November 6 RSVP
- Pedagogical Resourcing: Assignment & Assessment Design (in the Age of AI) on Wednesday, November 11 RSVP
- Research Support at Santa Clara on Tuesday, November 17 RSVP
- Third Thursdays Shut Up & Write on Thursday, November 19 RSVP
Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here.
And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development events.
