A message from the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning

Skidmore College
Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning

Featured Events

At the Front of the Room: Understanding Challenges to Marginalized and Minoritized Instructors' Authority & Credibility in the Classroom

Monday, October 5, from 3-4 p.m.

In this one hour session, Dr. Whitney Peoples of the University of Michigan and Dr. Corinne Moss-Racusin, Associate Professor of Psychology, will participate in a conversation about the common challenges faced by minoritized faculty in the higher education classroom around matters of identity and authority.

Dr. Whitney Peoples

This session is designed to prompt and inform campus conversations, particularly among departmental and campus leaders, aimed at: (1) understanding the experiences of marginalized and minoritized faculty in the classroom; (2) supporting these same faculty members when they are actively dealing with identity-focused forms of disrespect, disruption, and hostility in their teaching contexts; and (3) cultivating and sustaining teaching and learning environments that are more resistant to identity-focused forms of disrespect, disruption, and hostility. Dr. Peoples will also offer a more intimate workshop on this topic later in October.

 

Whitney Peoples is Director of Educational Development & Assessment Services and Coordinator of DEI Initiatives & Critical Race Pedagogies at the University of Michigan�s Center for Research on Learning & Teaching.

Join the Zoom meeting

Meeting ID: 938 1295 5232

Passcode: 357294

Having Difficult Conversations: Mindful Dialogue

Tuesday, October 6, from 11 a.m.- noon

Sharing differences in opinions, making a request, or giving and receiving feedback can often be difficult, but there are simple tools and practices that can not only reduce our stress and anxiety but transform them into opportunities for greater connection. In this session, we will experience how mindfulness practices coupled with some simple communication strategies can build your confidence and help you enhance your relationships, your leadership, and hopefully your job satisfaction and overall wellbeing.

 

 

Register here. If you have any questions, please contact Beth DuPont, LEDS.

Behavioral Research: The Shift to Online

Thursday, October 8, from 1-2 p.m.

Are you involved in lab-based social and behavioral research at your school? If so, you know the challenges of trying to do that remotely due to campus closings and restrictions on social gatherings. In order to not let things come to a grinding halt and avoid disrupting current and planned studies, we need to address this urgent situation by finding ways to tools and methods to perform this type of research online. This workshop � intended for university administrators, academic technologists, and instructional designers � will provide an overview of how to move research and teaching in the social and behavioral sciences from the lab to online. A big challenge is finding ways that students can learn how to do behavioral research without having access to physical labs.

 

 

Register here. If you have any questions, please contact Beth DuPont, LEDS.

Faculty Roundtables on Teaching During the Pandemic

Given the difficulties of preparing for and teaching in the midst of a pandemic, the CLTL will host three roundtables for faculty to share their successes, challenges, and questions with colleagues teaching using different modalities: (1) hybrid, (2) remote, and (3) in-person. Please join us!

Remote Teaching

 

led by Kristie Ford

Wednesday, October 14 from 4-5 p.m.

Join the Zoom meeting

Meeting ID: 986 8226 7807

Passcode: 667958

In-Person Teaching

 

led by Kate Graney

Friday, October 16 from noon�1 p.m.

Join the Zoom meeting

Meeting ID: 970 4438 7705

Passcode: 395323

Featured Faculty/Staff

Kimberley Frederick

Professor Kim Frederick teaches chemistry, specifically this semester CH 125 (Principles of Chemistry). This is her 24th year of teaching and she still likes to try out new methods of instruction to help her students learn better. Her favorite part of her job is working with students and particularly loves working closely with students in her research lab. Their work together focuses on developing low-cost, low-tech testing devices that can be used for environmental testing or health care. One example is a device to let people who live near hydrofracking sites determine if their water has been contaminated.

Kimberley Frederick

Most recently, Prof. Frederick and her students adapted their research technology as a safe way to deliver chemistry labs for students studying at home. The labs they developed are being used by thousands of students across the country during the 2020-21 academic year including in the CH 125 labs at Skidmore.

 

Professor Frederick is teaching remotely this semester: "I am trying to embrace the unique methods of engagement that are available with online instruction. For example, each student gets to choose the different ways that they want to demonstrate their knowledge. We don�t have any traditional exams. Instead students can choose to demonstrate their knowledge by making a video tutorial for a high school student, making an infographic, working a problem that they explain on a video or writing a letter to the editor explaining how what we are learning in class is related to an issue they care about. We still meet on Zoom to do problem solving in groups in order to foster a sense of community and interaction but I am trying to give students more autonomy and choice in order to get out of the course what is most important to them."

Featured CLTL Student

Lilia Wilson '21

Lilia is a senior from Chicago, IL. She majors in Anthropology and double minors in Mandarin and Asian Studies. Her passions circle around topics of equitability in health and health policy reform. She spent this past Spring semester on a study abroad program that focused on global contexts of health and community in South Africa, Vietnam, and Argentina. This semester she is volunteering with a non-profit called Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson in order to help guide issue-based attention and funds back to communities that have been stripped of fundamentals of health and human rights.

Brandy Smith '21

Student Voices

What has your experience been with in-person classes so far this fall? Do you have any inclusive pedagogical advice on this topic?

 

"I don�t have any in person classes so I can�t judge how that is going apart from what my peers have told me. From my own experiences with online courses, it has been pretty accessible in my opinion. My professors have adapted syllabi, have allowed room for students to reach out to discuss anything personal going on, and during the course if anyone needs to turn their video off or if someone is in a space where wifi connection is not great, those have both been acceptable in all of my classes as long as there is communication there. The communication is also on the end of the professors so that it is not only on students to reach out. All of my classes are in the Gender Studies department and the English Department, and both of my professors are women, which very well may affect how adaptable and accessible my online experiences have been this fall."

 

"I have one in person class and it is once a week. When it�s that time a week to go to that in person class I have to really prepare myself. It�s starting to get cold outside and even though I have been dressing appropriately for the weather I find myself distracted asking questions like what if I get a cold/get sick. My other classes are all online and I like my professors, but I feel like they�re moving faster than usual. I wish my professors knew that online classes does not mean they should speed up lessons. That�s not inclusive at all. If some of us are behind and the professors just move on because the lectures are recorded it is very discouraging. If anything I think professors should slow down because we are still fighting a pandemic and it affects us all differently."

News and Resources

In accordance with our liberal arts mission, Skidmore College�s Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning (CLTL) partners with faculty, staff, and students on campus to promote excellence and innovation in teaching and learning through inclusive, evidence-based, and student-centered practices. [read more]

Contact

 

Kristie Ford

 CLTL Director

  

(518) 580-5425

Skidmore College

 

 815 North Broadway

 Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

 518-580-5000