The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Academic Leadership offers structured instructional workshops that bring faculty together with the goal of engaging around focused topics on a variety of teaching practices. Workshops offer a low-commitment, high-impact opportunity to gain new knowledge and expand your teaching toolkit while also developing and/or strengthening professional relationships with colleagues across campus who share similar interests. Some of our workshops may be at various times and locations around campus, however most of them are considered Bear Bites luncheon events! These typically happen around the lunch hour (meal provided) and are held in the Executive Dining Room of the Christian Cafeteria (entrance through the black awning at the south-east corner). You will see this fun logo to designate each Bear Bites event!
Creating Cultures of Thinking in the Classroom
Date: January 20, 2026
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Christian Cafeteria Executive Dining Room
Facilitator: Stacy O’Brien
Imagine a classroom where students don’t just absorb information—they actively wrestle with ideas, make their reasoning visible, and develop into confident, independent thinkers. This workshop introduces Ron Ritchhart’s “Cultures of Thinking” framework, exploring eight powerful cultural forces that shape learning environments: language, time, environment, opportunities, routines, modeling, interactions, and expectations. You’ll discover practical strategies to make thinking visible in your classroom, from crafting thoughtful questions to documenting thought processes. Leave with concrete tools to shift your teaching from content delivery to cultivating a vibrant intellectual community where both you and your students think better together.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
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Expanding Worldviews Through our Curricula: Experiences with and Ideas for Intercultural Instruction
Date: January 27, 2026
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Christian Cafeteria Executive Dining Room
Facilitator: Christina Jeffrey
Intentionally including varied worldviews in curricula and academic culture is crucial in decreasing senses of isolation and stigma in students, creating a sense of group identity and inclusion in the classroom, and increasing congruence amongst students and instructors. While these benefits are clear, there is no consensus on the precise means of how such perspectives are introduced or interwoven in the classroom. As a result, faculty may struggle with a sense of role ambiguity in how to discuss intercultural perspectives in class due to a lack of clear guidance in such instruction. Drawing upon results from a series of faculty focus groups, this presentation offers further insight into if, what, how, and when global perspectives are introduced in professors’ past higher education, their personal feelings of preparedness in incorporating diverse worldviews into their own curricula, and ideas for strengthening such integration in courses and institutions.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
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Making the Core Rubric Work for You: Practical Strategies for Assessing Student Presentations
Date: February 3, 2026
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Christian Cafeteria Executive Dining Room
Facilitator: Katherine Bray
Assessing student presentations can be challenging, but the UCA Core Oral Communication Rubric offers a clear framework for consistent and meaningful evaluation. In this interactive session, faculty will practice applying the rubric to sample presentations, clarify distinctions among performance levels, and explore strategies for aligning expectations with students’ developmental stages. Participants will also discuss ways to integrate rubric language into assignments across disciplines, streamline assessment, and provide feedback that supports student growth as communicators. Join colleagues to calibrate scoring, share approaches, and leave with practical tools you can immediately implement in your courses.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
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Exploring Some Specs of Specification Grading
Date: March 31, 2026
Time: 1:40-2:30
Location: Torreyson West 302
Facilitators: Donna Bowman & Sharon Mason
What is specifications grading? What are the pros and cons? During this engaging session, two faculty with specifications grading experience will share their stories and lessons learned. You will learn why one tried it and is now moving back to traditional grading and why the other remains committed and continues to modify her approach to specs grading. You will leave with more information to help you determine if specifications grading is the right move for you and your students!
All faculty welcome!
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First-Day Scavenger Hunt: Kickstarting Engagement
Date: April 15, 2026
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Christian Cafeteria Executive Dining Room
Facilitators: Amber Brantley, Will Slaton, Kristine Hicks
Tired of the standard syllabus review? Transform the first day of class into an interactive adventure with a syllabus or classroom-based scavenger hunt! Instead of passively listening, students actively explore the course material, classroom layout, and institutional resources. This creative strategy is a high-energy way to:
- Boost Engagement: Get students talking, moving, and collaborating from minute one.
- Improve Retention: Research shows that active learning leads to better memory of key information, like grading policies and office hours.
- Build Community: Small groups working toward a common goal break the ice and foster connections between peers, setting a positive, collaborative tone for the rest of the semester.
It’s a memorable, low-stakes activity that converts a necessary procedural task into a meaningful, student-centered learning experience.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
REGISTER