ETSU Center for Teaching Excellence

Hi Friends,

We're getting excited for our 5 year anniversary next Tuesday!

Stop by anytime between 10AM to 3PM. There will be gifts, games, food, and music.

Help us wear our support of teaching excellence at ETSU with style! Here’s how:

Head over to our website to enter our T-Shirt Design Contest.

Create an original design representing teaching excellence:

* The design should include ETSU and the Center for Teaching Excellence

* The design can be front, back, or front and back

* Use up to three colors

* One design per person please

Use whatever digital design platform you wish, but use the template to show us what the final design will look like on a t-shirt for the final submission.

Upload your submission to the form on our homepage.

Submissions accepted until October 1st, 2022.

Casual Chats are On!
Stop by to ask your quick teaching questions or get a little support in a laid-back setting at either Einstein's in Sherrod Library or along "Main Street" in the Culp. We have small table signs to help you identify us, and we love company!

Weekly through November. No appointment necessary.

Tues | 9:00 - 10:00a | Einstein's
Weds & Thurs | 12:30 - 1:30 | Culp

Come by the Culp in front of Starbuck's next Tuesday (9/20) to get a bookmark of quick but effective teaching tips and enter a drawing for a book of your choice from the CTE’s surplus collection!

Dr. Cerrone Foster first heard about ETSU when she was a summer research fellow in the Ronald McNair Program. Now, she is a highly respected faculty member in Biological Sciences and a true champion for student success.

Episode 04: Dr. Cerrone Foster | Why I Teach: Conversations with ETSU Faculty Dr. Cerrone Foster first heard about ETSU when she was a summer research fellow in the Ronald McNair Program. Now, she is a highly respected faculty member in Biological Sciences and a true champion for student success.

Asking Thinking Questions | Center for Teaching Excellence Resource Center Asking Thinking Questions on Center for Teaching Excellence Resource Center curated by Philip Smith

Pedagogy in Action | Center for Teaching Excellence Resource Center The goal of the Pedagogic Service is encourage educators to reflect critically on their own teaching practices and to support them in exploring new pedagogies. Building on a successful model in the geosciences, we have created a library of pedagogic methods and a collection of activities which ex...

Today is the first day of the challenge. The first week of this challenge asks us to think about ourselves, our values, and our institutions. Here’s a little more information about this week’s challenges:

• Day 1: Today, we’ve asked you to write about your values, how you bring those values into the classroom and why you are participating in this challenge. As an example, one of the things I value is family. Because the bonds of family are so important to me, I try to build a strong community in my classrooms. I spend a lot of time trying to get to know my students and to understand who they are. In the context of this challenge, I know that in my majority-white classrooms, students of color are more likely to feel like they don’t belong. I’m trying to think carefully in this challenge about how to make the community in my classroom more inclusive.

• Day 2: Take one or more of Project Implicit’s Bias Tests These tests help to reveal unconscious or implicit bias. The way I usually describe this bias is, “your brain making decisions without your knowledge.” We all have some implicit bias in part because we live and work in social structures and institutions that have a long history of bias. Learning more about our own implicit bias brings awareness to our unintended thoughts and actions that could influence how we interact with our students.

• Day 3: Here’s where things really start to get hard. On day three you are asked to read one of two articles about meritocracy – the belief that talent and effort are rewarded with power, authority status, and/or wealth (Liu). Meritocracy is often at the center of our university’s values. We look to student achievement to determine who gains admission, who earns a scholarship, who attains academic honors. Meritocracy is central to our lives and yet we often think of merit without regard for differential opportunities.

• Day 4: Watch Jean Cheng’s What’s Race Got to Do with It, a film chronicling student experiences at UC Berkeley and their discussions about race. While the film is somewhat dated, released in 2006, I think you will find the students’ voices still relevant in today’s racial landscape on college/university campuses.

• Day 5: Read Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person. The article references Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack but the link is broken (that’s what I get for sending you to a HuffPo article). But I think the article is helpful when thinking about the categories of privilege to which we may or may not belong. The McIntosh article is worth the read as well.

Finally, this week’s weekend bonus asks you to spend some time on websites that link to racial justice in East Tennessee. If you are able to visit some of these websites, you’ll find a rich history of social justice in the region. When the student 21 Day Antiracist challenge is released in September, they will be asked to engage with some of these websites as well.

Happy Learning. Please feel free to share the challenge with colleagues and friends. And you can post about your experiences on this journey using hashtag.

There's still time to participate in the challenge!

21 Day Antiracism in the Curriculum Challenge This page describes the 21 Day Antiracism in the Curriculum challenge developed and supported by the Center for Teaching Excellence

I wanted to give you a little insight into an important event coming soon ETSU. There's an announcement coming on Wednesday, but you can preview this event here: https://www.etsu.edu/teaching/21daychallenge.php

Join us for this important discussion.

This summer, as the nation’s attention has turned to issues of racial justice in the criminal justice system, the ETSU community is invited to consider the legacy of racial inequality in the U.S. by reading and discussing Dr. Robin DiAngelo’s book, "White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism." DiAngelo’s book asks us to consider the social environment that protects white people from talking about race and racism. In addition, the book provides suggestions and tools for improving our willingness to discuss and confront issues of race.

Participating students, faculty and staff are asked to read the book and then join one of two cohorts of up to 60 members each to discuss, via Zoom, the concepts presented in the text:

Register here: https://t.e2ma.net/click/4q7z1d/sx48rs/w40pln

It's SAI day! Here are a few pieces of advice to keep in mind before you open your SAI reports:

1. Choose a good time to read student responses. You may want to give yourself more than 4 days from the close of the semester to review your reports. Distance often provides a new prospective.

2. Take your students seriously. While SAIs aren't perfect evaluations of your teaching, sometimes students have important things to say that may help you improve your teaching.

3. Look for trends in student comments. Sometimes it is easy to get hung up on one particular comment (either overly good or unduly bad). It's more important to focus on comments that appear three or more times and reflect upon what you may be able to do in response to those comments.

4. Try to avoid rereading negative comments (but you probably won't be able to help it).

5. Don't take comments personally. Especially this term in light of COVID 19, know that you we working under extraordinary circumstances. And even in more typical terms, students are reacting based on course experiences and their personal circumstances. Use comments to make professional improvements.