2024 Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference

Community Based Learning: Challenges and Opportunities Panel

​​ During this workshop we invite a panel of faculty, community partners, and CECiL team members to share their experience in designing, facilitating, and partnering on community based learning (CBL) courses! Topics discussed will include getting started with CBL, working with partners/working with Mason, learning outcome design, ethical considerations, and reflection. The CECiL team will also share resources the office can provide to facilitate CBL experiences at Mason and in the community. Any faculty or graduate students preparing to teach CBL in all modalities are invited to learn more about best practices and share experiences. Attendees will walk away equipped with new knowledge about CBL pedagogy, resources for getting started, and access to a network of peers interested in this teaching style.

Ungrading: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Teaching

In Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), Susan Blum and Alfie Kohn outline some of concerns about letter grades. These concerns range from grades incentivizing cheating to grades detracting from meaningful learning, to grades discouraging creativity and risk-taking. Because Mason faculty are required to submit final grades (and sometimes midterm grades) for students and because ungrading is not common at Mason, implementing the strategy of ungrading can be daunting. In this interactive session, we explore how to effectively deploy ungrading in the undergraduate classroom. We will review why we decided to implement ungrading, the challenges we encountered/mistakes we made, and the benefits of ungrading for both students and faculty. This session would benefit any instructor who teaches undergraduate courses, especially those in the humanities and social sciences.

Collaborative Discussion Guides: Scaffolding Socialization and Learning Community Belonging

A successful foray into teaching the necessary skills of socialization to construct belonging into a learning community can be seen through the assignment of Collaborative Discussion Guides (CDG). CDGs provide students with a framework to engage their fellow classmates as they guide each other through deciphering and learning from a text. In this interactive session, instructors will try their hands at developing a Collaborative Discussion Guide, complete with a summary, guided reflection, large group discussion questions, and activity. This session will benefit undergraduate and graduate instructors of classes meeting regularly for five or more weeks in any academic discipline. While the greatest benefit is in face-to-face courses, implementing CDGs into hybrid (or with modification for synchronous or asynchronous online) modalities can also gain benefits.

The Practice of Full Spectrum Listening

This session will engage participants in an activity they can adapt for courses in most disciplines and to most learners. This session will demonstrate experientially how essential intentional listening can be to team-based inquiry and problem-solving. In the current polarized context, students, workers, and scholars of every stripe can benefit from a deliberate focus on how we comprehend, or disregard, other’s observations, values, and concerns in the public square, the workplace, and academia. The facilitators will guide the participants in Full Spectrum Listening, one of the dialogic practices promoted by Essential Partners (EP). EP designed the Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD) process to work with diverse individuals dwelling and working within polarized communities to develop connections characterized by respect and dignity in the face of divergent/opposing ideas about tackling challenging and even wicked problems on a foundation of mutual dignity. The Full Spectrum Listening activity is a practice that cultivates a way of listening to others that engages us fully in considering with respect what others choose to tell us.