THRIVE will begin regular meetings in Fall 2024, and all are welcome to an information session on the program held on Thursday, September 12, at 3:00 PM on Zoom (information coming soon).
THRIVE is a pedagogical development community for early career faculty across all UMSL colleges and appointment types. This community invites faculty in their first five years of teaching to meet monthly with three goals:
- To build community and support among early career faculty who are managing the demands of faculty life
- To share evidence-based and time-saving teaching strategies that empower faculty to share their disciplinary expertise and create rapport with their students, in line with UMSL’s definition of teaching effectiveness
- To cultivate a collaborative approach to pedagogical development, from troubleshooting classroom management issues to preventing burnout and creating engaging assignments
This program is led and facilitated by Dr. Ana Quiring, CTL Learning Innovation Specialist, and meets monthly on Zoom, supplemented by quarterly in-person socials. During these meetings, we will discuss teaching strategies, try out activities for use in class, and share concerns and ideas. Topics we cover may include:
- How can I integrate active learning techniques without drowning in grading?
- What do I do about AI?
- How can I keep my students from cheating?
- How can I focus my teaching on concerns beyond preventing cheating?
- I’m getting crickets. How can I get my students to participate in class?
- I inherited this course from another professor, and I’m not sure how to make it my own.
- There’s some tension between students in my class, and I’m not sure what to do.
- My students never seem to apply my feedback. How can I make my grading more useful and less time-consuming?
- My workload feels unsustainable. How can I make my teaching practices more time-effective and less draining?
In addition to building expertise and community, participants will earn formal badges in teaching effectiveness that they can add to their CVs, LinkedIn, and MyVita. This program requires only a 2-hour commitment per month. If you are interested in learning more or have questions, please contact Ana Quiring at ana.quiring@umsl.edu.
