January 29, 2009
Talking about teaching, twice-monthly at the UW Club
Teaching is on the menu at the UW Club twice a month.
Members of the Teaching and Learning Consortium will host a table at the club from noon to 1:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday and Thursday of each month. The next discussions will be on Feb. 4 and 5. They invite anyone interested to stop by and chat.
“We sponsor a lot of workshops and other programs,” said consortium spokesperson Mary Pat Wenderoth. “But we thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have an informal opportunity to just talk about teaching.”
Wenderoth, a senior lecturer in biology, is co-chair of the Teaching Academy, one of 11 current members of the consortium. The group was formed two years ago after two of its member organizations inadvertently scheduled programs on the same day.
“Given the limited amount of time and resources we have, that seemed kind of foolish,” Wenderoth said, “so Gerry Baldasty (professor of communication and interim dean of the Graduate School) called on organizations concerned with teaching and learning to meet and try to coordinate what they do.”
Teaching Tables are just the latest idea for the group, which presents workshops almost every week when classes are in session. The first Teaching Tables were held on Jan. 7, when Wenderoth and Janice DeCosmo associate dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, hosted. On Jan. 8, Wayne Jacobson, interim director of the Center for Instructional Development and Research; and Tom Lewis, director of Catalyst, hosted.
Celeste Berg joined Wenderoth and DeCosmo that first day. “I did not know about the teaching table,” Berg said. “I went to the Faculty Club [UW Club] for lunch, saw the table, chatted with Mary Pat Wenderoth about the group, and she invited me to join them.”
Berg said the conversation was wide-ranging, covering everything from mechanisms to create active, hands-on learning processes in large classes to ways to help undergraduates gain first-hand experience in science by working in a lab.
“The discussion was extremely helpful to me,” Berg said, “especially regarding the undergraduate research review process.”
Not bad for something you just stumbled upon, which is pretty much what Wenderoth and her colleagues had hoped for. “Everybody has to eat, so we just thought, why not talk about teaching while you eat,” she said.
Berg was the only “customer” at the Teaching Tables last month, but Wenderoth said the consortium hasn’t yet publicized the program widely. They plan to send out e-mails to everyone who has attended one of their workshops, and she believes word of mouth will do the rest. The group is committed to hosting the tables through the end of the academic year.
“We have many workshops, but they’re always one-time shots,” Wenderoth said. “You come, you get excited, you have problems when you try to implement the idea and there’s nobody there to continue to support you. So the Teaching Tables are one way to try to continue that conversation.”
More information about the Teaching and Learning Consortium, including a list of its member organizations and the workshops offered this quarter, can be found here. You don’t have to be a member of the UW Club to visit the Teaching Tables. If you’re interested in attending but aren’t a member, contact Christine Sugatan, sugie@u.washington.edu.
Hosts for the February tables are Wenderoth and John Webster, director of writing, on Feb. 4 and John Sahr, associate dean, Undergraduate Academic Affairs and Jim Borgford-Parnell, assistant director, Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching, on Feb 5. They invite faculty to join them for a tasty serving of teaching.
