Nearly 200 George Washington University faculty members from across the disciplines gathered for Teaching Day last week, where they took part in workshops, heard from experts and shared strategies for engaging with students and encouraging critical thinking at a crucial historical moment. Presented by GW’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) in the Division of Libraries and Academic Innovation (LAI), the day also featured a teaching resource fair connecting faculty with support staff and offices from across the university.
“Your influence on our students, the impact that you have, literally lasts [students’] entire lifetime,” Dean of Libraries and Academic Innovation and Vice Provost for Libraries and Information Technology Geneva Henry told the audience before the day’s keynote. “The things you do as an instructor and as a mentor to our students shape their lives. There is a science to teaching and learning…and it is important.”
In morning sessions, faculty considered ways to engage students using generative AI, primary sources from local museums and opportunities for authentic community-based learning. The morning concluded with a panel discussion of ways the creation of online courses expanded faculty members’ thoughts about engaging students.
Faculty members also connected and collaborated during lively workshops over the course of the day. During one morning workshop, “Lessons on Promoting Civil Dialogue in the Classroom from the Citizens & Scholars Institute,” Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs Alex Dent and Associate Professor of Geography David Rain shared insights into addressing contentious issues with students in a fraught political atmosphere. In part, they said, the secret lies in setting an expectation that the classroom will be a safe place to explore and change opinions, but also that the process may feel unsettling. In fact, sitting with discomfort is one of the necessary skills being imparted.
Part of a teacher’s responsibility is to examine their own biases and assumptions, especially when it comes to grading, said keynote speaker Joshua Eyler, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a clinical assistant professor of teacher education at the University of Mississippi. The A to F evaluation paradigm widely accepted in the United States is used more because it is a useful way for institutions to communicate with each other than because it accurately captures student progress or motivates better learning, said Eyler, the author of “Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do about It.”
Eyler went on to lay out a range of ways in which traditional grading systems interfere with learning, making a strong case that grades do not accurately measure learning but that many solutions exist that can be adapted to individual teachers and institutions. Eyler himself uses standards-based grading, a collaborative, qualitative approach that prioritizes progress over time.
“It honors and acknowledges the fact that learning is deeply complex, and it unfolds at different rates for different learners, so that student who may need more time to really kind of get the ropes and brush up on some things can still get the same grade for the course by meeting the same number of standards over the course of the semester as any other student would,” Eyler said.
Immediately following the keynote, Teaching Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jay Daigle, Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of First-Year Writing Wade Fletcher, and Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration Elizabeth Rigby shared their successes with alternate grading approaches such as labor-based grading and specifications grading. Some faculty who attended teaching day reported that they are now considering ways they might change their approach to grading and will be attending a workshop on alternative grading practices that will be offered by Eyler in March.
At a crowded afternoon session, faculty members heard what makes a course engaging from their most important constituents: students. Undergraduates Anndarling Ebba, Samuel Li and Kuren Vandyoussefi shared their favorite classes and took questions on what made them stand out. Their favorite professors, the three said, made individual connection with their students however possible—whether directly or through student learning assistants—and took a participatory approach that went beyond regurgitating the textbook and enabled students to teach and learn from one another. Li, a second-year premed student in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, praised two poetry classes he's taking for nonjudgmentally encouraging his creativity, which he found not only balanced out his rigorous hard-science studies but also helped him make unexpected connections and spark new ideas.
Above all, all three students stressed flexibility. Their favorite classes were those that allowed them to approach the subject in their own way, without rigid structural requirements. And they valued the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, rather than being summarily penalized for them.
“Having a generalized and not a strict rubric is really beneficial because it really lets the student be creative with what they're doing,” said Li, unknowingly echoing Eyler’s keynote. “If you restrict them, it can be a little damaging…having freedom in the topic can really help motivate the student to learn.”
