Assignment Sequencing in the FYWS
Bowdoin faculty are invited to join us on Monday, March 28, 4:15-5:45 pm for a conversation on assignment sequencing in the First-year Writing Seminar classroom. Angel Matos, Emily Peterman, Kristi Olson and Meredith McCarroll will share assignments and talk through various paths that meet the revised goals of the FYWS program. We will meet in the Faculty Commons in H-L Library 206.
Hope to see you then!
FMI: Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric, Baldwin CLT
Dr. Mays Imad: Bearing Witness as an Act of Love, Resistance, and Healing
November 16, 2021
7-8:30 PM
Kresge Auditorium (Bowdoin Community) and livestreamed (public)
In this interactive session, we will consider the notion of psychological trauma–why it happens and how it impacts our body and brain. We will examine the connections between stress and trauma and how stress can become traumatic when not managed. We will examine neuroscience of traumatic stress and its impact on our ability to engage, connect, and learn. We will reflect on the questions of how we will welcome our students and colleagues to our institutions and classrooms this fall and beyond? What can we, educators, possibly do to help attend to their mental health and ameliorate their exhaustion and distress, while at the same time, intentionally engaging in self-care? We will consider the imperative of self-care while caring for others. Last, we will examine the principles, notable misconceptions, and practical examples of trauma-informed care, and reflect on the connections between trauma-informed education, healing, and restorative justice. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Education Department, Brodie Lecture and the Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching.
Mays Imad is a Gardner Institute Fellow and an AAC&U Senior Fellow within the Office of Undergraduate STEM Education. A nationally-recognized expert on trauma-informed teaching and learning, she passionately advocates for institutions to make mental health a top priority and to systematically support the education of the whole student. Dr. Imad’s research focuses on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, and how these impact student learning and success. Through her teaching and research she seeks to provide her students with transformative opportunities that are grounded in the aesthetics of learning, truth-seeking, justice, and self-realization. She has taught Physiology, Pathophysiology, Genetics, Biotechnology, and Biomedical ethics at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona and founded Pima’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). Dr. Imad works with faculty members across disciplines at her own institution and across the country to promote inclusive, equitable, and contextual education–all rooted in the latest research on the neurobiology of learning.
Faculty Workshop with Dr. Mays Imad: Beyond Trauma-Informed Education: Empowering and Elevating the Spirit of the Community
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
11:45am-1:00pm
Lancaster Lounge, M-U
Bowdoin faculty are invited to a workshop with Dr. Mays Imad, "Beyond Trauma-Informed Education: Empowering and Elevating the Spirit of the Community." Bowdoin Dining will provide a buffet lunch. Please register on or before Thursday, November 11 so we can get an accurate lunch count. Register here. Contact Katie Byrnes, Director, Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching, FMI.
August 17-19, 2021 Course Design Experience (with Colby and Bates)
Want to take 3 days in a community of colleagues to:
- design, refine or reimagine the course learning goals/outcomes
- align assignments with those goals and
- practice and experiment with inclusive/anti-racist pedagogies for one course you are teaching in 2021-22?
Experience the CDE for the first time or the fifth time. Both in-person and live virtual options will be available. For more information and to register, go here.
Past participants have observed:
- “Thank goodness someone kicked me in the butt to start working on this class.”
- “We decreased anxiety about our upcoming courses and developed a more effective assessment plan.”
- “In 3 days, I formalized (1) incorporating student metacognition into class, (2) explicitly building community as a goal, and (3) providing formative feedback (and telling students they are receiving it).”
Friday, August 27, 2021 Colby, Bates & Bowdoin Pedagogy Matters Conference: Anti-racist Education
Day-long, 3rd annual conference with faculty and instructional staff at Bates, Colby and Bowdoin. Conference includes a faculty panel, keynote lecture, lunch discussions, an afternoon workshop, and reception. This year’s conference will be virtual with the option to attend an in-person reception on all 3 campuses. Participants can register for one, multiple or all conference sessions. For more information go here.
Recordings of the August 27 Pedagogy Matters Faculty Panel and Dr. Kim Case’s Workshop are now available on the cbbpedagogymatters.com website along with resources from Dr. Case. Contact Katie Byrnes (kbyrnes) for the password to access the recordings.
Postponed to November 2021:
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mignonne Guy, Virginia Commonwealth University
KEYNOTE: Summoning Freire and Evoking Baldwin to Navigate the Politics of Disruptive Pedagogy
November 5, 2021
2:30-4pm
Virtual (open to faculty and staff at Bates, Bowdoin and Colby Colleges)
In the wake of two pandemics that have disproportionately taken the lives of Black Americans — COVID19 and the killings of Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, VCU alumni Marcus Peters, along with many others in recent months and years, the need to redress historic and present racialized injustices has become a civic imperative. Mirroring inequities across multiple health and social conditions, Black Americans have borne a disproportionate burden of incidence of and mortality from COVID-19.
Among other structural factors, researchers have attributed this inequity to economic and housing policies, and social factors such as essential worker status, multigenerational and family households, and overrepresentation in congregant living environments (Moore et al., 2020). The conditions that have increased the exposure and burden of disease among Black Americans arise from long- standing discrimination and injustices stemming from structural and institutional racism. The racist systems that have rendered Black Americans more vulnerable to COVID19 are the same that fuel the killings of Black men, women, and children with impunity and recent data show that 1/1000 Black men and boys will be killed by police (Edwards et al., 2019).
In response, students, community members, and scholars of all racial and ethnic backgrounds have demanded action in their communities, the workplace, and in classrooms to publicly denounce anti-black racism, and to call attention to the ongoing devaluation and dehumanization of black and brown people in the U.S. These acts have taken the form of public protests, investments in organizations and institutions that support racial justice, and institutional commitments to anti-racism and systemic change by way of decolonizing K12, undergraduate/graduate, and professional education.
Dr. Mignonne C. Guy will address the renewed urgency to teach about race in the U.S., cultivate a culture of anti-racism, and build coalitions to further an overdue and necessary shift towards conscientization in teaching, critical pedagogy and social and political activism, all with the goal of creating a more just, inclusive academy and society.
Dr. Mignonne Guy is an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University who teaches courses on health inequities in the Black community and other courses in critical race theory and interdisciplinary research methods.
Workshop Facilitator: Dr. Kim Case
Dr. Kim Case serves as Director of Faculty Success and the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence in the Office of the Provost at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also tenured full Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and Professor of Psychology.
August 16 and August 23, 2021 Writing Workshops for Bowdoin Faculty
Contact Meredith McCarroll for more information.
August 16, 2021
10:00-11:30 AM Teaching Close Reading in the Writing Classroom
We tend to presume that our students know how to read for different purposes, and we expect a connection between the texts that we assign and the writing that they produce. This workshop will talk through strategies and activities to break down the reading process for your students to be sure that they are making the most of the texts that you share. Led by Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric, Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching. Kanbar Hall 107. Register here.
1:00-2:30 PM Working with Library Liaisons and Special Collections in FYWS
Working with Library Liaisons and Special Collections in the First Year Writing Seminar (FYWS). Led by Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric, Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching, and Library staff. Kanbar Hall 107. Register here.
August 23, 2021
9:00-10:30 AM Strategies for Peer Review in the Writing Classroom
Eager to incorporate drafting and revision into your course but overwhelmed by the time it may take? Join a workshop on various models for effective peer review in the writing classroom. We will break down the requisite components (self-reflection; guided reading and prompts; review and response; incorporation and reflection) of a dynamic peer review process. Led by Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric, Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching. Sills Hall 117. Register here.
1:00-2:30 PM Exploring Feedback and Assessment Models in the Writing Classroom
From Peter Elbow’s landmark Writing without Teachers (1973) to Susan Blum’s Ungrading (2020), writing teachings have struggled to encourage individual voice, enable deep revision, guide reflection and empower student writers. This workshop will look at various models and activities (large and small) to help you consider the most effective ways to offer feedback and assess student writing. Led by Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric, Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching. Sills Hall 117. Register here.
