"Could your colleagues benefit from a customized workshop – on anything from course design to instructional technology? See our workshop schedule for ideas."
Teaching and Learning in the FSU Film School
How do you bring best practices in pedagogy and instructional technology to the faculty in your department? That’s the question FSU Film School Dean Frank Patterson asked himself. It’s not that there’s a shortage of good information available on teaching and learning – how to make it more effective and productive, how to eliminate roadblocks and increase student success – but too often faculty may not have the time to take advantage of the knowledge provided in a generic format. No matter how compelling the ideas may sound in the workshop context, it can be time-consuming and frustrating to find specific application to your discipline once you’re back in the classroom.
That’s just the problem Dean Patterson wanted to get around for his busy faculty. The solution: customized workshops designed for the Film School and delivered at their faculty conference on August 19 and 20. Patterson worked with CTL faculty to create a series of custom sessions, covering the essentials of identifying course concepts, communicating expectations to students, and assessing student learning – all within “insider” environment. CTL was “especially adept at translating our field-specific language into useful teaching terms,” says Patterson. “This provided common ground from which faculty could work with one another to improve their individual coursework.”
The custom-tailored sessions, including concrete applications within the discipline, enabled faculty to discuss specific applications in their courses by the end of the sessions. And these discussions are continuing back in the department. The sessions thus provided both a collegial opportunity and stimulus for teaching enhancement. A sampling of documents utilized in the custom workshop includes:
- Course Planning Worksheet - helps align learning outcomes with practice, assessment, and feedback.
- Syllabus Checklist - keeps you from forgetting all the necessary components of a good syllabus.
- Communicating Expectations - learning tool that helps identify clear outcome statements.
- Expectations Worksheet - tool to help create measurable learning outcomes for course plan.
- Grading Creative Assignments - helps build a grading rubric to convey expectations for specific assignments.
Could your colleagues benefit from a customized workshop – on anything from course design to instructional technology (see our regular schedule for ideas)? If you’re curious, give the Center for Teaching and Learning a call. One or more customized sessions might be just what faculty are looking for.
Photo: Behind the scenes on "Movie Magic". Used by permission of the Film School, Florida State University.
