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!
Meaningful Feedback That Makes a Difference
Date: September 18, 2025
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Torreyson West 319
Facilitators: Jenny Brewer and Faculty Panel
Program: Supporting the Faculty for Successful Students Campaign
Join us for a practical, faculty-led conversation on what makes feedback truly meaningful for students—and manageable for instructors. This session will highlight strategies that promote student engagement, save time, and support learning across disciplines. Faculty panelists will share real-world examples of how they provide written, audio, and video feedback, how they balance formative and summative feedback, and how they use tools and techniques that work.
Whether you’re teaching online, in person, or somewhere in between, come away with ideas you can use right away to make your feedback more effective and impactful.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
REGISTER
Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About: Designing Purposeful Presentation Assignments
Date: September 23, 2025
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Torreyson West 319
Facilitator: Katherine Bray
Ditch the deer-in-headlights look and awkward silences! This lunch program reveals the secret sauce for creating presentation assignments that actually work—no fluff, no stress, just results. Discover how to seamlessly weave presentations into your curriculum while keeping your content goals front and center. We’ll share battle-tested strategies from professors across disciplines who’ve cracked the code on making presentations both meaningful and manageable.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
REGISTER
Expanding Worldviews Through our Curricula: Experiences with and Ideas for Intercultural Instruction
Date: September 30, 2025
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Torreyson West 319
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!
REGISTER
Supporting Students – Without Losing Your Sanity
Date: October 14, 2025
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Location: Torreyson West 319
Facilitators: Jenny Brewer and Faculty Panel
Program: Supporting the Faculty for Successful Students Campaign
Low-lift, high-impact ways to personalize student support and connect them to resources.
Finding meaningful ways to support students can sometimes feel overwhelming—especially when you’re managing multiple classes, grading, meetings, and life outside of work. This session focuses on small but powerful strategies faculty can use to offer individualized support to students—without burning out. Learn how to personalize your approach, build student connection, and point students to the right resources—while protecting your own time, energy, and boundaries.
We’ll also hear from UCA faculty who are doing this well—offering encouragement, structure, and support without overextending themselves. Join us and leave with realistic ideas you can start using right away.
Lunch provided. All faculty welcome!
REGISTER
The COIL Journey: Sharing Strategies for Cross-Cultural Online Collaboration
Date: November 18, 2025
Time: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
Location: TBD
Facilitators: Evan Faidley, Allison Freed, Adriian Gardner, & Leah Horton
Program: Global Learning Recognition
Join us for an engaging lunch and learn session to discuss the successes and challenges of implementing Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). This session is perfect for those interested in examining the role of cross-cultural online collaboration in their courses. We’ll be candid about what works and what doesn’t so that you can walk away with a realistic understanding of this high-impact teaching model and how it can support you toward tenure and promotion.
During the session, we will focus on three overarching themes: building international partnerships, teaching across cultures, and communicating COIL experience to others.
Building Your COIL Partnership:
Learn the nuts and bolts of establishing a successful partnership, from finding the right international counterpart to aligning academic objectives, goals, and technology platforms. We’ll share stories of early challenges and share strategies that work.
Teaching Across Cultures:
Explore strategies for effectively teaching and facilitating a COIL course. We’ll discuss how to navigate cultural differences in communication, manage group dynamics in collaborative work, and keep students engaged across cultures.
Communicating Your Success and Challenges:
We’ll also share our experiences and help you articulate the value of your COIL work for your tenure and promotion binders. We’ll discuss how to frame your efforts to highlight your contributions to internationalization, curriculum innovation, and student success.