We offer multiple campus-wide professional development opportunities throughout the year. Our calendar of events will be available in early August 2022. To get a sense of historical offerings, take a look at Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 events.
Our popular Lunch & Learn series involves brief and interactive presentations from members of our campus community on a wide range of topics – from teaching tips, to career development, to support for co-curricular experiences. Come gather with us over lunch to hear from campus partners about promising practices, relevant campus processes and procedures, and novel ideas to support teaching, learning, and scholarship. Have you got an idea for a Lunch & Learn event? Please submit your proposal here and if you have any questions, contact us at fdc@furman.edu. Beginning in 2022, many Lunch & Learn session recordings are available on the FDC Moodle Commons website.
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 involves reviewing a short preparatory reading or podcast (your choice) to spark the exchange of ideas and teaching practices during our informal conversation. 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.
Our Learning by Design studios are focused on-demand sessions that explore a specific skill, technique, tool, or strategy. Watch these videos at your convenience and participate in a linked asynchronous discussion board. Access studio videos here.
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!
We offer an bi-annual four-week undergraduate research planning course UR Academy to support an in-depth planning process for your undergraduate research and creative project(s) that account for a variety of potential scenarios of engagement (face-to-face, online, hybrid). The collaborative learning academy includes four facilitated asynchronous online planning modules (each with preparatory tasks and peer feedback) and a weekly interactive live reflective session. The weekly time commitment is approximately 3-5 hours per week. Upon completion, participants will have developed a detailed plan of action for engagement, mentoring, and project management that supports transformative research experiences for Furman students. The course involves four components:
Our UR Academy takes place during the spring semester from mid-March to mid-April every other year. Our next academy will occur in spring 2023.
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. One recent event included an asynchronous Escape Room (with a timed mission, puzzles, and “promising practices” content curated from our community). You can register to access the escape room here. Our 2023 event will take place in April 2023.
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.
2022 MayX Pro Course: Inclusive Excellence via Community Engaged Learning
May 17, 24, 31, and June 7 @ 9-10:30am
Community Engaged Learning (CEL) encompasses a wide range of pedagogies that involve partnerships with external stakeholders to simultaneously cultivate learning while addressing community needs. CEL partnerships offer rich opportunities to foster and advance Furman’s commitment to support a diverse, inclusive, and equitable learning, living, and working environment on our campus, in Greenville, and beyond. Join a cohort of colleagues in this four-week MayX Pro course of self-guided planning tasks and interactive synchronous sessions as we explore the foundations of mutually beneficial CEL partnerships. By the end of the course, participants will have a plan of action and support resources to design and/or implement a community-engaged learning component for an existing or new course. Course participation involves four concentrated virtual workshop sessions (one per week) from May 17 – June 7, 2022 with associated self-directed asynchronous tasks to complete each week. If you would like to participate, please email us at fdc@furman.edu.
Our institute is offered at least once a year for anyone interested in enhancing their course design and structure, typically during the summer months. Whether you are hoping to make minor tweaks or a major overhaul, join us for a multi-week redesign process. Our institute involves a series of self-guided planning tasks and interactive synchronous sessions as we work through a step-by-step process designed to build a thoughtful, pedagogically sound course informed by the transformative power of liberal learning. Participants can anticipate 6-8 hours of investment per week. Using principles from Dee Fink’s Designing Significant Learning Experiences backwards design process, universal design for learning, and inclusive pedagogy, participants will have the opportunity to apply research-based teaching and learning principles to course design by:
Our 2022 Institute will take place in June 2022. Please email us at fdc@furman.edu to join.
No upcoming events found.