Practical Pedagogy roundtables give teachers and others interested in pedagogy a forum for discussing how theory and practice come together in the college-level classroom. During roundtables, graduate students and faculty with various levels of teaching experience collaborate to present on a topic and facilitate discussion about it. Previous roundtables have addressed issues such as designing “creative” assignments, leading better discussions, being queer in the classroom, teaching with technology, designing teaching portfolios, and addressing “difficult” subject matter. Roundtable facilitators are encouraged to keep their initial presentations limited to ten minutes in order to allow time for all participants to join in the discussion.

People of all levels of experience are welcome to submit proposals—some of our best discussions have been led by people who had more questions than answers about their topic!

2008-2009 Roundtable Series

          Information for Fall Quarter 2008 events is displayed on                       the Home Page.


2007-2008 Roundtable Series


Spring Quarter

Friday April 18, 12:30-2:00, CMU 202

"Teaching as Perfomance: Performativity and Authority in the Clasroom"

When is an instructor like an actor? What roles do instructors play in the classroom, intentionally or not? When do performance modes enhance learning and when do they detract? How does the teacher perform authority in the classroom? Through demonstration and simulation, this workshop explores the performing instructor and how performativity and authority raise issues for the inclusive learning environment. Facilitator: David Garfinkle (School of Drama).


             Wednesday May 7, 3:30-5:00, CMU 226

"Politics in the Classroom"

What is the place of "politics" in the classroom? And whose politics? The political/left bias in higher education has been recently critiqued by right-leaning David Horowitz and the Students for Academic Freedom (SAF). These critiques are often dismissed as empty right-wing rhetoric. However, they  have also gained traction in some circles, making it essential for college-level educators to understand the arguments and thoughtfully consider how "politics" are manifest in the classroom. This workshop will facilitate a lively discussion of classroom power and pedagogical practice. Facilitator: Sheryl Cunningham (Communication).

Winter Quarter


Thursday, January 10, 3:30-5:00pm. CMU 202

"Centering Our Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum: Creative Ways to Work Campus Writing Centers into Course Assignments and Student Assessments"

Steven Corbett (English) welcomes you to an interactive discussion on the multiple ways campus writing centers can be used in our course writing assignments and assessments. Past and present representatives from UW writing centers and writing programs share their "centered" experiences and suggestions. For those of us who design our courses, how can we create writing prompts that take advantage of the many writing resources students have available to them across campus? For those of us who do not design our own curriculum or use writing that often in our teaching, what can writing center theory and practice add to our teaching? And for all teachers across campus, how can we collaborate with our writing center colleagues to offer students more authentic and personalized writing instruction and assessment?

Thursday, February 21, 3:30-5:00pm. CMU 202

"Using Debates and Role Playing in the Classroom"

Instructors are occasionally confronted with student resistance to discussing controversial subjects and may wonder how to best keep a few vocal contributors from silencing the rest of the class. Structured activities like debates and role playing exercises can create an effective 'safe space' for students, provide boundaries for acceptable behavior, and engage the entire class. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to contestation as a teaching strategy and will discuss strategies for successfully introducing these kinds of activities in their classrooms. Facilitators: Mary Lynn Veden (Communication) and Christi Siver (Political Science).


Fall Quarter

Monday, October 8: 3:30pm, Communications (CMU) 202

"Multi-media and the Senses: Bridging Everyday and Academic Literacies Through Alternative Pedagogies"

Megan Kelly (Engllsh), Shannon Mondor (English) and Angie Rounsaville (English) will present teaching strategies that utilize students' sensory and technological literacies to ease their transition to college writing. This interactive demonstration features student examples that integrate aural, visual and kinesthetic literacies with diverse media tools. Our assignments affirm students as already having valuable knowledge and skills, thus presenting the expectations of academic literacy as another set of choices they add to existing repetoires. Using sensory and media  literacies for building more critical and academic literacy skills thus presents academic language and expectations as situated and rhetorical conventions instead of as "correct" English.

Wednesday, November 14: 3:00-4:30pm, Communications (CMU) 202

"Mobilizing Learning Through Technologies"

What is mobile learning? How might it be used to facilitate research, writing and critical thinking both in and beyond the classroom?  And how is it beneficial, particularly at a university such as UW?

In this interactive, hands-on workshop, Curtis Hisayasu (UW English) and Jentery Sayers (UW English) will address these questions, consider various pedagogical strategies for incorporating mobile learning into coursework, and introduce technological resources that are currently available to UW instructors, students, and staff. Emphasis will be placed on mobile technologies, such as cell phones and IPods, and how student familiarity with these everyday devices can augment academic exploration.

2006-2007 Roundtable Series

Spring Quarter

"Losing Face? Role Play in Teaching"
May 23 | 3:30-5:00 pm
CMU 226

How is role play being currently used in UW classrooms? What are the possibilities and pitfalls of its use? How might shared discussion of these issues assist in making our teaching more inclusive, critical, and relevant?

Craig Jeffrey (UW Geography and International Studies), Tory Browning (UW English) and Kara McKinney (UW English) will lead an exploration of these issues in this fun, interactive workshop. We will place particular emphasis on issues of power, ethics, and performance as these relate to instructor-led and student-led role play.

"Applying the Teaching Philosophy to the Classroom"
April 25 | 3:30-5:00 pm
Simpson Ctr Conference Room (CMU 202)

Why do you teach?
How do you teach?
How do these inform one another?

Have you thought about how the types of activities you use in the classroom reflect what you value about teaching?

The teaching statement is a dynamic professional document that demonstrates your pedagogical philosophy and what you do in the classroom, as well as giving you a way to talk about the connections between them. Since the teaching philosophy is always a “draft,” this workshop provides the opportunity to articulate where you are now in the process and to further practice and refine.

This hands-on workshop will provide a space to talk about possibilities for aligning teaching practices with different types of teaching philosophies. The “practical” side of this workshop will include activities designed to consider how different types of activities are (and are not) aligned with different pedagogical approaches. Roundtable facilitators, Riki Thompson (English/CIDR) and Sarah Read (English), will share sample teaching philosophies, as well as stories about how their teaching is (or is not always) aligned with their teaching philosophies.

If you have a draft of your teaching philosophy, please bring it with you to the workshop. If you have not yet begun to think about your teaching philosophy, just bring your imagination. As preparation, we encourage you to think about what you value about teaching.

Winter Quarter

"Creativity in the Classroom"
February 20| Tuesday
3:30-5:00 pm
Simpson Ctr Conference Room (CMU 202)

"Teaching Argument with Classical Rhetorical Theory"
February 1| Thursday
1:30-3:00 pm
Simpson Ctr Conference Room (CMU 202)

In this roundtable presentation, TAs from both Communication (Ben Crosby , Leah Sprain, & Dru Williams) and English (Raymond Oenbring) will present fresh approaches to teaching argument using ideas from several classical rhetoricians (e.g., Protagoras, Isocrates, Pseudo-Cicero, Quintilian). Those who attend will go home with several classroom-ready handouts. No knowledge of rhetorical theory required! Discussion to follow.

Fall Quarter

"Mapping, Re-Mediating, and Reflecting: Transitioning from Print to Electronic Portfolios in the Writing Classroom"
November 29 | Wednesday
4:00-5:30 pm
Simpson Ctr Conference Room (CMU 202)

This roundtable addresses the idea of mapping the “re-mediating” potential of e-portfolios in the writing classroom. Cara Lane, Janice Fournier and Laura Baldwin from Catalyst Research and Development, Steve Corbett from the Expository Writing Program, and Shawna Shapiro from Computer Integrated Courses will kick off the conversation by presenting the first-year findings of an ongoing research study involving the transition from print to electronic portfolios in multiple sections of English 131 here at the UW. We invite everyone to join in on the conversation of what’s at stake when we begin to integrate technology into our curriculum. (Hint: A lot more than just waving bye bye to a box-load of paper!) We will focus especially on the potential e-portfolios hold to help re-mediate student—and instructor—reflection on their composing—and teaching—processes.

"Creating Community Through Blogging"
October 31 | Tuesday
5:30-7:00 pm
Simpson Ctr Conference Room (CMU 202) 

The premise of Creating Community Through Blogging is that blogging creates practices and texts that can produce multiple connections within the university and between the university and the wider community. Considering the weblog as a medium with its own techniques, audiences and methods that enable conversations across disciplines, the group will explore how blogs challenge conventional paradigms of research, how blogging relates to pedagogical practices, and how blogging develops sites for public humanities. The project known as Creating Community Through Blogging was created in late 2005by graduate students Honni van Rijswijk (English) and Matthew James Vechinski (English and Textual Studies). Through the generous support of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the project is moving forward as a cross-disciplinary research cluster for the 2006-2007 academic year. This roundtable is the first reading group meeting.

How can blogging be used effectively in the classroom? We will discuss how to integrate blogs into the design of courses as a means of developing the classroom community as well as explore ways we might use blogs to connect the classroom with communities outside the university. Further, we will look at pedagogical and practical issues to consider before using blogs in the classroom for the first time. This roundtable, cosponsored by the graduate research cluster called Creating Community Through Blogging will include instructors who have used blogs in their courses and their former students.

Prior to the roundtable, participants are asked to contribute to the multi-user blog "Blogging and Pedagogy" on the Creating
Community Through Blogging interface. There roundtable facilitators and interested instructors will share links to existing course blogs and discuss relevant scholarship to establish a knowledge base on which to build future discussions.

 

 

The colloquium is currently accepting proposals for the 2008-2009 roundtable series!

If you are interested in leading a roundtable this year, please send a
short proposal explaining your idea to  Shawna Shapiro or Sarah Read.

See descriptions of past colloquia. 

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: updated 9/5/06