Teaching Highlights

The Crown Center supports and celebrates the excellent teaching of our colleagues across campus. If you have an item to share, please let us know!

In an essay published this past summer in Faculty Learning Communities Working Towards a More Equitable, Just, and Anti-Racist Future in Higher Education, Associate Professor of Education Tina Valtierra and Interim President of CC Manya Whitiker shared the frameworks and initial outcomes of CC’s innovative Instructional Coaching Program. Titled “Building Faculty Capacity for Anti-oppressive Teaching: Instructional Coaching and the Inclusive Pedagogies Observation Protocol at Colorado College,” the essay explores how our Inclusive Pedagogical Observation Protocol (IPOP) is informed by critical theories and K-12 professional development literature all in the service of a program that is “strategically designed to support higher education faculty’s anti-oppressive pedagogical development.”

Associate Professor of Southwest Studies, Karen Roybal recently published an essay titled, “Deconstructing the traditional classroom through intersections of critical place-based communication.” Co-authored with Jaelyn deMaría from the University of New Mexico, the essay appears in print and online in Communication Education (73/3). Together Roybal and deMaría explore an “interdisciplinary approach that bridges critical communication theory and place-based models of education that honor specific embodied knowledge from those directly and deeply connected to traditional, multigenerational educational models embedded in the lands and waters in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.”

Crown Faculty Fellows Pilot

We are pleased to announce the second of these endeavors: Alternative Assessment Strategies in STEM. Led by Assistant Professor of Physics Dhanesh Krishnarao, this project addresses the long-standing dilemma of providing an inclusive and learning oriented community in STEM classes, while accurately assessing a student’s level of competency and understanding towards a course’s primary learning goals. In this project, alternative assessment strategies will be explored, with opportunities to discuss, develop, implement, and assess the effectiveness of different styles of formative assessments on the Block Plan. This will be accomplished by first forming an Educator Learning Community (ELC) with other CC STEM faculty with the mission to collaborate and build on alternative assessment strategies and collect data on its effectiveness. Any STEM faculty interested in joining this community, either to try implementing a known strategy, or workshop new ones together, should complete this brief form. We anticipate that the first ELC meeting of this group will take place in the middle of Block 2.

Block 2 Crown Center Lunch: Faculty Advising at CC

Hosted by Assistant Dean of the Faculty, Marion Hourdequin (Philosophy), our Block 2 lunch takes place on Tuesday, Oct. 1 from 12:15-1:30 p.m. in Tutt 317. Supportive advising enables students to chart a thoughtful path through CC and beyond, taking advantage of the college’s rich curriculum and co-curricular activities, as well as opportunities such as study away, internships, and undergraduate research. Whether you’re new to advising or a seasoned advisor, please join us for a lunchtime workshop on advising at CC. We’ll briefly discuss advising nuts and bolts, then invite colleagues from across campus to share approaches and ideas for effective (and efficient!) advising, leaving plenty of time for questions and broader discussion. Although the focus of this session is on faculty advising, all interested members of our educational community are welcome. Click here to RSVP.

Arts-Based Pedagogies Survey

The Crown Center for Teaching is gathering information about teaching strategies across campus. Our first survey focuses on the extent to which faculty in all disciplines use creativity-building exercises and arts-based pedagogies. Regardless of whether you do or do not use these strategies, we encourage you to complete the brief survey. Doing so will identify areas that call for additional support and help us tell the story of innovative teaching at CC. For more information, please get in touch with Jessica Hunter, Associate Director of the Crown Center for Teaching.

Additional Opportunities for Educational Development:

Empower Hour: Unveiling HR’s Role and Elevating Employee Support: RSVP for an engaging open forum on Oct. 10, 2-3 p.m., designed to shed light on the pivotal role of HR in our organization. This session, led by Debi O’Connor, will provide an insightful overview of our employee relations and support initiatives, explore how we can better assist you, and offer a platform for open dialogue. Whether you have questions, suggestions, or simply want to understand how we can better support your needs, this is your opportunity to connect with HR, share your thoughts, and collaborate on enhancing our workplace environment. Power up with a complimentary sports drink and protein bar and seize this opportunity to make your voice heard and create change!

Excell at CC is CC’s in-house professional development program. Information on the upcoming Block 2 sessions can be found on their calendar and registration page:

Oct. 3 – Budget and Finance
Oct. 8 – History of Disability
Oct. 9 – Giving Effective Feedback

Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Opportunities:

Accepting Registrants: New to the ACM: An Online Orientation for Faculty and Staff at Member Colleges (sessions on Sept. 25 and Oct. 9).

Accepting Registrants: An Online Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Series for both faculty and staff. A four-month virtual professional development “course” to help your colleagues design and complete a SoTL project. The Priority Registration Deadline Oct. 2 (grant funded).

Upcoming Series: This fall, ACM will launch a virtual professional development series, Sustaining Belonging: Webinars on Cultivating Inclusive Residential Colleges, with speakers lined-up to talk about supporting first-gen and low-income students and LGBTQIA+ students (operations funded).