The Kroepsch-Maurice Faculty Development and Lecture Series supports the professional development and career advancement of UVM faculty by sponsoring events led by recognized scholars and practitioners in pedagogy, equitable and inclusive teaching, and scholarship of teaching and learning, among other topics. The series memorialize Robert H. and Ruth M. Kroepsch and her parents, Walter C. and Mary L. Maurice. Robert H. Kroepsch, served as Registrar and Dean of Administration at UVM from 1946-1956. Ruth graduated from UVM in 1938 and her father, Walter Maurice, graduated from UVM in 1909. All four were teachers.

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING EVENTS
Project-based learning (PBL)—an evidence-based, high-impact, educational practice—invites students to tackle open-ended, real-world problems and complex questions. Creating engaging PBL assignments requires attention to not only the “what” (the framing of the problem), but also the “how” (i.e., scaffolding skill development and creating equitable teams).

Session 1: “Project-Based Learning Primer” - May 24, 2022, 1:00-4:00 PM
This session introduces you to project-based learning via a participatory exercise, illustrating the design and scaffolding of a student project experience. Working in small groups, we will work through the initial steps of a project and reflect on its educational design and strategies. From there we will examine sample project assignments all with an eye to developing an understanding of what it takes to create high quality experiential learning opportunities for our students. We will close by sharing strategies to overcome the hurdle of adding projects to courses that already keep students and faculty busy.

Session 2: “Project-Based Learning: Strategies for Successful Teamwork” - May 25, 2022, 1:00-4:00 PM
One of project-based learning’s key benefits and challenges comes from using team-based projects. In this session we will share and use tools that reduce stereotyping and bias on student teams, resulting in more effective and equitable teaming. Participants will begin a guided process of developing projects for their own classes, and the session will conclude with the group identifying remaining challenges and brainstorming solutions to these challenges.

Dr. Kristin K. Wobbe, PhD, is the director of Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Project-Based Learning. In that role she provides workshops and training for colleges and universities to support their use of project-based learning. Prior positions include the director of the Great Problems Seminar program, WPI’s first-year projects program, associate dean for undergraduate studies, Metzger Chair and Head of the Chemistry and Biochemistry department. She has been faculty at WPI since 1995. Her teaching awards include the Moruzzi Prize for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, and she a co-recipient of the 2016 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education awarded by the National Academy of Engineering. She received her BA in chemistry from St. Olaf College and her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University. She is co-editor of Project-Based Learning in the First Year (Stylus). Other publications appear in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning and Diversity and Democracy.

For session information and registration, please visit the CTL’s Project-Based Learning Events web page.

 

CLIMATE WISDOM LAB - EMERGENT RESILIENCE
As part of the Faculty Development Series “Equity, Social Justice and the Sustainability Imperative", the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is pleased to host Emergent Resilience’s Climate Wisdom Lab. This program is designed for faculty and staff to address the psychosocial impacts of climate change and other structural stressors on our students and ourselves. By centering awareness on our affective experiences, we will build our understanding of these complex psychosocial dimensions and begin to honestly assess the hidden affective implications of our existing courses, programs, and services. The intention is to create a collaborative creative process for developing innovative new offerings that are responsive to students.

“Future-Scaping”, Tuesday May 17, 2022, 10:00 AM-Noon
The stories we live in shape our energy, agency, and purpose. This session combats powerlessness and despair by identifying assumptions about social change, and fostering new personal and collective stories that can support active engagement and thriving in times of rapid social and ecological change.

“Change-Vision-Action”, Tuesday May 17, 2022, 2:00-4:00 PM
An open-ended workshop to surface essential challenges, prioritize breakthrough leverage points, cultivate a desire for the future, and create a personal (or collective, depending on the setting) plan of action.

“Engaging Climate Emotions”, Monday, January 10, 2022
This session focuses on the role of emotions in how we act and behave in response to crisis, exhaustion, relationships, and trauma. We will discuss why awareness of emotions is integral to systems change work and environmental advocacy via neuroscience, polyvagal theory, and trauma theory.

“Navigating Burnout”, Tuesday, January 11, 2022
This session explores the neuroscience of overwhelm, the common assumptions behind the experience, and the role of trauma and empathic distress in depleting our energy and motivation. Importantly, we will look at learning strategies for cultivating a discipline of resourcedness and rest.

“Emotion Audit”, Thursday, January 13, 2022
In this session, we move into course and program design, and apply insights to existing syllabi, curricula, or workshops. We will examine the emotional subtext that is the “hidden curriculum” of the artifact with the goal of integrating emotions into the desired outcomes.

The Climate Wisdom Lab’s facilitators, Kevin Gallagher, JD, and Sarah Ray, PhD, will guide participants through this process in an interactive and supportive way. The workshops will build on each other, so attending all sessions will yield a richer experience. That said, we want to be as flexible as possible, so there may be opportunities to attend individual sessions, if space allows.

Dr. Ray presented a keynote address at May 2020’s UVM Pivotal Pedagogy conference, What the Climate Crisis has Taught Me about Teaching During a Global Pandemic. She also participated in the CTL book group focusing on her publication Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (2020).

For session information and registration, please visit the CTL's Climate Wisdom Lab's web page.

 

SUPPORTING STUDENT SUCCESS
"Increasing Student Motivation: Strategies that Work" - March 1, 2022, 1:30-3:00 PM
Motivating today’s students to actively engage in learning activities proves challenging for most faculty. Very often Gen Z students do not respond as did students in the past to extrinsic motivators such as bonus quizzes and extra credit assignments. However, as James Raffini presents in 150 Ways to Increase Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom, when the psychoacademic needs of students are met in creative ways, student motivation soars.  This presentation will engage faculty in a discussion of addressing student needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness, self-esteem, and enjoyment in order to significantly increase student motivation.

"Teach Students How to Learn: Metacognition is the Key!" - February 22, 2022, 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
21st Century students come to college with widely varying academic skills, approaches to learning, and motivation levels.  Faculty often lament that students are focused on achieving high grades, but are not willing to invest much time or effort in learning.  This session will focus on the importance of helping students acquire simple, but effective, learning strategies based on cognitive science principles.  We will engage in interactive reflection activities that will allow attendees to experience strategies that can significantly improve student success by transforming students’ attitudes about the meaning of learning.

Dr. Saundra Y. McGuire, PhD, author of Teach Students How to Learn, and Director Emerita of Louisiana State University’s Center for Academic Success, is a chemist and educator who has presented around the world on the science of learning. She has a particular interest in supporting underrepresented students in math and STEM fields, but her work on metacognition and motivation has applications in every field.

For session information and registration, please visit the CTL's Events web page.