Happy April, everyone. Here are some important dates and updates from CAST:

Scholarship Talks: Save the Dates!

  • On April 8th from 1:20-2:30 in JR G40 we will have talks by Rory Turner and Tom Kelliher. Rory will be presenting Radical Critical Empathy and Cultural Sustainability and Tom will present Hacking; Shifting the Focus of Teaching Computational Thinking; More Hacking, but of a Different Kind.
  • On April 22nd, from 4-5:10 in JR 130, we will have talks by Flo Martin and Brian Patrick.  Brian will be presenting Measuring people’s beliefs about the compatibility of autonomy and relatedness in interpersonal relationships and Flo Martin will present “A distant episode”: transnational film in Morocco.

No RSVPs needed. Come support your colleagues and enjoy delicious snacks and drinks.

CPE Summer Development Institutes: Save the Dates & RSVP!    

  • We will have a two-day bootcamp on May 21 and 23 (skipping the 22nd due to graduation events). Faculty will get an introduction to CPEs and problem-based learning, help flushing out your course’s big ideas/complex problem, time to develop student outcomes, and consider what sustained collaborative project(s) make sense for their class. Participants will receive a $500 stipend. RSVP to cast@goucher.edu
  • We will have two, week-long institutes this summer. The first will be June 3-7 while faculty are still on contract. The second will be July 8-12. During these institutes, you will go through a course design process that includes a full day of problem-based learning instruction from a trainer at University of Delaware, formulation of learning outcomes, assignment design, scaffolding and course planning, community building, and teaching interpersonal communication and group work skills, etc. You will leave with a solid plan for your course to teach in Spring 2020 and you will receive a $1250 stipend.    RSVP to Cast@goucher.edu

Special thank you to Jamie Mullaney, Michael Curry, and Janine Bowen who will be helping with these this summer as I am on maternity leave.

May faculty development days reminder: May 29 & 30, plan to be there!

More information to come, including an agenda, soon. In addition, there will be more information about the Assessment day, May 31, forthcoming (this is not organized by CAST) but please save that date, too.

Notes from a recent meeting of CPE instructors (aka the Mini CPE Summit):

On March 26th, CAST hosted a meeting for past and upcoming CPE instructors to discuss feedback we’ve received from students and faculty and ways we can improve these courses through enhanced support and structure. We had about 20 faculty attend. The meeting notes are attached and I think would be of interest to all faculty. Based on this feedback we are slated to have meetings/workshops specifically for CPE faculty at the May and August faculty development days, we are making CPE summer institutes 5 days instead of 4 to expand on problem-based learning and teaching group work, and we are building out a CAST website which will supply much needed resources on teaching (group work resources in particular are being compiled by Janine Bowen, a draft outlining the types of resources she’ll provide is also attached). We will also work on implementing some additional supports throughout the semester for those teaching CPEs.