A workshop on foundations in teaching in higher education was led by CTL's Dr. Misic and Dr. Rymarenko for early career faculty and instructors from ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Having the expertise in teaching and mentoring early career faculty, Misic and Rymarenko designed the workshop based on contemporary, research-based approaches to teaching and learning and grounded in experiential learning and collaborative inquiry.
The aim of the workshop was to rethink the role of the teacher in enhancing learner-centered teaching. During the three-day workshop, participants explored theories of learning and talked about the relationship between teaching and student learning evidenced by research. Participants reflected on their teaching practices, the relevance of the institutional context and the learning culture. They engaged in discussing and applying principles of designing student-centered learning and teaching activities, assignments, and assessment. The highlight of the workshop was a learning-by-doing module, in which participants collaboratively designed and taught their own micro-teaching sessions. Microteaching is a teacher training technique for learning teaching skills in a simulated environment, which aims to increase self-confidence, improve the in-class teaching performances, and contribute to developing classroom management skills through immediate feedback and reflection. Participating colleagues represented different disciplinary backgrounds, including robotics, IT, chemistry, and foreign languages.
Some reflections from our participants:
"I liked the principle of active learning, I will try to use this idea in my teaching practice, since the assimilation of the material is quite productive."
"I realized that I had not approached lectures systematically before. Information on how to approach the design of the course and classes, in general, was very useful to me. In the near future, I will test the knowledge gained in practice with my students."
"The workshop made me consider structured planning as a much more important part of teaching process. I would also like to introduce active learning to my class."
The CTL provides support in innovation in teaching, development and implementation of new teaching strategies and approaches in higher education. The work we do is informed by our on-going research on exemplary practices, new approaches, and new technologies for student centered teaching. We are eager to collaborate with external partners to enhance contemporary, research-based approaches to teaching that help advance excellence in higher education teaching.