Year: 2025

In case you missed it or want a refresher of this workshop, read on!

This workshop marked the launch of the first CRTLE faculty gathering for Spring semester, 2025 and we were off to a great start!

We had a fabulous workshop on “Starting the Semester Strong” at the UTA Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence with engaging faculty presenters, networked knowledge, and interactive dialogue about starting the semester strong and focused! Thanks to everyone who came and shared!

Dr. Larry Nelson shared about how the engagement ideas from Dave Burgess’s Teach Like a Pirate program have inspired his teaching in kinesiology! Dr. Nelson especially loves the aesthetic engagement “hook” techniques.

We also heard from Dr. Andrew Clark, myself, Dr. Beth Fleener, Dr. Kevin Carr, and Dr. Jeff Witzel.

The slide deck is here: Slide deck [accessible to UTA-affiliated with login]

Dr. Rosie Kallie (below), Associate Professor of Instruction in Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering, engaged faculty in her advice for faculty on providing effective and interesting instruction in week 1! Here she wore a “clean room” lab outfit to talk about her previous job to future engineers in her course. She and other faculty facilitators and CRTLE staff presented topics and facilitated dialogue in our session “Starting the Semester Strong and Focused. Stay tuned for future workshops and resources!

In our inaugural teaching post for the Pedagogy Next “Voices from the Faculty” series, Dr. Peter Nkhoma shares insights about seeking feedback from his students. Check out his suggestion here.

I use this simple assessment-for-learning strategy in my smaller classes: I provide students with small booklets where they can record questions about concepts or ideas they didn’t understand or want to explore further. I address these questions in subsequent lectures. Students also use the booklets to note anything they found particularly interesting, share their thoughts on how the lesson went, and provide feedback on which teaching activities were effective or should be adjusted.

This approach has not only helped me connect with students and demonstrated that I value their participation, ideas, and learning, but it has also opened up opportunities for enriching class discussions. Additionally, it has provided insights into students’ thinking and introduced new perspectives that I did not anticipate. The technique fosters a sense of ownership in the learning process, encourages reflective thinking, and helps create a more inclusive and responsive classroom environment. Moreover, it provides me with valuable feedback to continuously refine my teaching methods and tailor lessons to meet the needs of the class more effectively. However, it may be challenging to implement in larger classes.

This teaching suggestion is from Dr. Peter R. Nkhoma. 

The image above is of Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Peter Nkhoma, History and Geography Department, College of Liberal Arts

Dr. Nkhoma’s Bio:

I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of History and Geography. Previously, I taught in the School of Geosciences and Honors College at the University of South Florida. My teaching experience spans secondary and higher education in Africa, the UK, and the US.

Disclaimer:

All viewpoints are individual faculty members’ perspectives, not those of The University of Texas at Arlington or the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence (CRTLE).

We want to hear faculty voices! Contribute Teaching Ideas to the Pedagogy Next Blog.

Are you UT Arlington faculty and do you have a teaching idea you want to write up (200-1000 words) for a post to the Pedagogy Next blog?

Email your idea or draft blog post to us at: crtle@uta.edu or peggys@uta.edu with your teaching suggestion!