Community Information

Community Duration: Fall 2024

Meeting Schedule, Modality & Location: 

• Monday, September 9, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (in-person, location: TBD)
• Monday, September 23, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (in-person, location: TBD)
• Monday, October 14, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (in-person, location: TBD)
• Monday, November 4, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (in-person, location: TBD)
• Monday, November 18, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (in-person, location: TBD)

Community Participants:

All BGSU full-time faculty (TTF and QRF) and adjunct instructors are encouraged to participate.

Community Description:

Are you interested in making small, manageable changes in your teaching that will have a positive impact on student success and long-term learning? In this learning community, we’ll explore and apply effective, evidence-based teaching practices from James Lang’s Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (2nd ed, 2021). Together, our goal is to make small, sustainable changes in our classes throughout the semester.

During our in-person community of practice meetings, we’ll discuss chapters from the book as well as our ideas for implementing the practices in our specific teaching contexts here at BGSU. For example, one topic we’ll consider is retrieval practice, which can be incorporated into the beginnings and endings of classes, in ways you can try out in the next class period—no course overhaul needed. 

Join us for this community of practice to focus on teaching and supporting student success together! 

All members of the community will be provided with a hard copy of the book.

Community Learning Outcomes:

By participating in this community, you will be able to:

• Identify teaching approaches that are well supported by research.
• Evaluate your current teaching practices. 
• Implement new evidence-based approaches in your classes. 
• Create a resource, presentation, or other deliverable to share with BGSU colleagues.

Participant Expectations:*

As a member of this community, you are expected to:

• Meet the community learning outcomes.
• Attend 80% (4 out of 5) of learning community meetings or complete alternative participation as arranged with facilitator (in the case of absences due to illness or emergency).
• Complete 80% of learning community discussion boards on Canvas.
• Keep a reflective teaching log to track insights from the book as well as classroom implementations. This log will not be submitted to the facilitator, but it will be a helpful tool for participants to prepare for discussions and the creation of a “deliverable” (see below). 
• Create one or more “deliverables” to represent and share your learning with the campus community (individually or in collaboration with one or more other participants). Choose from the following options or discuss another idea with the facilitator:
  • Create a resource for the CFE website based on a technique from the book (lesson plan/activity, infographic, multimedia presentation).
  • Prepare a proposal for a session at the CFE Teaching and Learning Summit (Tuesday, May 13, 2025) based on your work in the learning community.
  • Gather data from your students about the implementations you try in the classroom (such as: Canvas survey, end-of-class minute papers, etc.), compile the data, and submit a short summary and reflection based on what you find. 

*Participants in this community must meet the stated participant expectations in order to be eligible to receive funds for participation.