CTLT

Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology

Book Circles - Spring 2021

Book CirclesThe CTLT hosts book circles every academic quarter and during summers. They are open to all Cal Poly educators. Selected books draw from a broad array of thoughtful and inspiring educational literature. These are opportunities to enrich your knowledge about timely and significant topics related to higher education while engaging with colleagues from across campus. Themes for book circle selections include: inclusive educators, mastery teaching, mindful educators, navigating academia, educating for sustainability, and writing instruction. Participants receive a complimentary copy of the selected book with the expectation that they will engage in three or more discussion sessions. 

Our cumulative Book Circles list of titles is available here

Register for Spring 2021 Book Circles

Cheating Lessons: Learning From Academic Dishonesty

by James M. Lang

Flourish book cover

Few topics generate as much passionate debate among university educators as student cheating, especially as higher ed instruction has moved online in academic year 2020-2021. Faculty often want to learn effective methods for "catching cheaters" and a sizable software industry has emerged offering high-tech "solutions" in response.

Author James M. Lang takes a different approach: He views instances of cheating as opportunities for student learning as well as instructor reflection about their pedagogical practices. His take-home point is that the most effective strategies that we can use to reduce cheating also happen to be methods that improve both students' learning and instructors' teaching.


 

Meeting Dates & Times:

  • Tuesdays, 12:10-1:00pm, April 27, May 4, May 11, May 18

Meeting Location: Online in Zoom (link will be sent to registrants)

Facilitator: Dr. Dianna Winslow, CTLT Assistant Director

A "Mastery Teaching" selection

Resilient: How To Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength and Happiness

by Rick HaNSON

 Resilient book coverThe end of one of the most challenging academic year in memory is within sight. The stresses on our physical and psychological selves has been relentless as we strived to sustain the quality and consistency of our work as educators. The experience has, perhaps, made glaringly obvious that we cannot be at our best for others if we are not whole and healthy ourselves.

This book circle is intended to be a restorative retreat, an opportunity to tend to our own well-being at a time when our personal reserves may be running on fumes. Dr. Hanson is a senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, which is a terrific resource of science-based insights for a meaningful life. This book provides perspectives and specific practices for well-being that are grounded in neuroscience, positive psychology and the meditative traditions. Participants will come away with a deeper foundation of knowledge and an expanded repertoire of practical methods to strengthen your personal and professional resilience.

Meeting Dates & Times:
  • Wednesdays from 12:10-1 pm, April 21, 28 and May 5
    OR
  • Thursdays from 4-5 pm, April 22, 29 and May 6

Meeting Location: Online in Zoom (link will be sent to registrants)

Facilitator: Dr. Patrick O'Sullivan, CTLT Director

A "Mindful Educator" selection

Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers

by Alison James and Stephen Brookfield

Flourish book coverThe previous year has presented several major challenges, notably COVID-19. As educators we have had to be more creative, resourceful, and innovative than ever before as we rapidly transitioned to online teaching and learning. Perhaps along the way we discovered new ways of teaching and engaging students that we’ll bring back to the in-person classroom. And perhaps our students discovered new ways of and preferences for learning. Hence, this is an opportune time to continue our creative momentum as we transition back into a classroom that will likely look and feel different than the “way things used to be.”

This book, “Engaging Imagination,” enables instructors across all disciplines to encourage greater engagement, critical thinking, and learning through innovative, multisensory approaches - visual and verbal, kinesthetic and cognitive, online and offline, solo study and group work. It explores alternative methods of learning and assessment by explicitly linking creativity, play, and imagination to reflective practice. The mixture of exercises, activities, theories, positions and approaches presented are appropriate for higher education and Cal Poly’s “Learn by Doing” philosophy and have potential to enhance learning in all disciplines. 

This circle is a collaboration of the CTLT and Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Faculty from any discipline that are interested in promoting creativity in their courses (and themselves) are welcome. The structure of the group will differ slightly from traditional book circles in that we will not only read and discuss the book together, but also offer an opportunity later in summer to explore ways to adapt and extend the ideas and activities to our own classrooms.

 Meeting Dates & Times: 11:10 am-12 pm, Tuesdays, April 27 and May 4, 11, 18

Meeting Location: Online in Zoom (link will be sent to registrants)

Facilitators: Dr. Lauren Cooper (Mechanical Engineering and CIE Faculty Fellow) and Dr. Patrick O'Sullivan (CTLT)

A "Mastery Teaching" selection

Register for Spring 2021 Book Circles

 

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