Using Teaching Development Groups to Support Innovative Teaching Practice and Pedagogical Research

Instructors often wonder how to make their teaching more effective, in particular how to engage students with content and promote class interaction. To address this issue, teaching development (TD) groups have been established across various departments at Mason. The session presenters are the leaders of these groups. They will share their experiences facilitating TD groups and explain the nature and goals of the groups and group meetings. Presenters will describe common topics discussed in TD groups (e.g., use of technology, flipped classrooms, formative vs. summative assessment, etc.). Participants will be asked to select a topic of interest to them and split into groups accordingly. They will then participate in an activity that will model a meeting of a TD group. Each group will be given a scenario with a description of the chosen topic (for instance, implementation of active learning in large lecture classes, active learning assessment, student resistance to active learning, etc.). During the activity, attendees will reflect on the topic and share their ideas, experience, etc. Finally, presenters will describe the teaching inquiry (TI) groups that will be formed in fall 2015. These groups are designed for instructors who are interested in conducting pedagogical research in their courses.