We offer several campus-wide professional development opportunities throughout the year.
To support the intentional and strategic design of your courses and/or student research experiences, we’ve developed FurmanFlex and Online Learning resources so that we can journey together as a community to design learning experiences that highlight the unique and transformative value of a Furman education. For an up-to-date list of all events related to FurmanFlex or online instruction, please see here.
Talking Teaching conversations provide an opportunity to build community and reflect on links between our teaching practice and student learning experiences. Join colleagues from a range of disciplines to discuss ideas about both long-standing and emerging pedagogical challenges. Each session will involve reviewing a short preparatory reading or podcast (your choice) to spark the exchange of ideas and teaching practices during our informal conversation. Visit this link to peruse topics for Spring 2021 and register to attend one or more sessions.
If you’ve got an idea that you’d like to discuss that isn’t on our schedule and you are willing to help facilitate a conversation, we invite you to submit this brief interest form. Interest in the topic, not extended preparation or expertise, is the only requirement to lead a Talking Teaching conversation.
The goals of the First Year @ Furman program are:
The First Year @ Furman program encompasses two central elements:
Click here for programming dates and descriptions for AY 20-21.
The goal of our reading groups is to enable small but sustained communities of scholars at Furman to work together to explore particular problems or themes through established research/literature, with outcomes that might range from new or revised courses to published work inflected by the reading and discussions that have taken place. Are you looking to expand your intellectual horizons through discussion with peers in related disciplines? Ideally, this includes at least 2-4 faculty from at least two departments/programs.
Propose an interdisciplinary reading group!
Each year, during spring study day, the Faculty Development Center facilitates the Furman Learning Exchange, an annual gathering of faculty, instructional staff, and students to exchange teaching and learning strategies, professional development hacks, and research in support of high impact practice in and beyond the classroom. Details about this event will be posted in early Spring 2021.
This series of engaging professional development short courses is designed to provide space for important but time-consuming collaborative work that is often difficult to accomplish during the busy school year. During each MayX session, we sponsor several opportunities for concentrated professional development activity. Each hands-on, individualized course is designed to facilitate focused, guided activities that allow participants to meet individual goals and objectives. Course participation involves 3-4 concentrated sessions during the MayX term each year, with associated self-directed tasks. MayX opportunities are communicated prior to the end of spring semester courses.
With a full semester of teaching at Furman behind you, this session is designed to provide space to pause for reflection on your teaching experience over the fall semester. How have your expectations about teaching at Furman matched the reality? Have you adapted your pedagogical approach?...
As pandemic teaching requires us to spend significant time in front of a screen, you may have felt tired, uninterested, or frustrated with video conferencing – an indicator of Zoom fatigue. This Talking Teaching discussion will focus on what a why Zoom fatigue happens and...
The complex and competing demands placed on our brains during periods of stress can reduce our mental bandwidth. This Talking Teaching discussion will focus on the impacts of such cognitive overload, both during the pandemic and for other reasons such as poverty, racism and social...