CETL Workshops

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) offers a range of workshops and asynchronous courses designed to support faculty in developing inclusive, engaging, and effective teaching practices. These sessions provide practical strategies grounded in research and tailored to the needs of Virginia Tech educators. Workshops are offered both in-person and virtually to provide flexibility.

Workshops

Foundations of Global Learning: Expanding Your Teaching Toolkit

• Tuesday, September 8
• 1:00-3:00 p.m.
• Virtual

This workshop is designed to provide faculty and staff with a shared understanding of global learning and intercultural development. This session introduces key concepts, institutional priorities, and practical steps for incorporating global perspectives into teaching, programming, advising, and campus life at Virginia Tech. Participants explore why global learning matters, what it looks like in different contexts (curricular, co-curricular, research, and advising), and how it aligns with Virginia Tech’s land-grant mission, Ut Prosim ethos, and Beyond Boundaries vision. By the end of the session, participants will be able to: 1) Define global and intercultural learning in context; 2) Describe how global education aligns with Virginia Tech’s institutional mission and values; 3) Identify practical opportunities to contribute to global education and engagement at Virginia Tech through teaching, advising, programming, or research; 4) Recognize ethical considerations for global engagement, including best practices for local-global connections; and 5) Learn about Virginia Tech’s global education network, tools, and resources.

Virtual Global Collaboration and COIL: Bringing the World into Your Classroom

• Tuesday, September 15
• 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
• Virtual

Join the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Global Education Office, and Technology-Enhanced Learning and Online Strategies to learn about Virtual Global Collaboration (VGC) and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) - and ways to incorporate these global learning opportunities in your courses! VGC at Virginia Tech includes a variety of global and intercultural learning strategies that connect your students with their peers from institutions around the globe through online learning activities and experiences. This session will cover 1) what VGC is, its benefits, and ways it can be implemented, including examples of COIL and other types of virtual learning experiences, and 2) opportunities to engage in VGC at Virginia Tech. The goal of this session is for participants to leave with an expanded notion of how to incorporate global learning in their classes and a plan to include global engagement in their courses through Virtual Global Collaboration.

The Art of Guiding Inquiry: Facilitation Strategies for Discussion-based and PBL Teaching Contexts

• Wednesday, September 16
• 10:00-11:30 a.m.
• Virtual and In-person (TBD)

This workshop helps faculty develop the confidence and skill needed to guide student inquiry without taking over the learning process. Participants will explore questioning techniques, scaffolding approaches, and ways to balance support with autonomy. We will also discuss strategies for maintaining productive momentum when students encounter uncertainty or roadblocks.

Rebuilding Student Reading Skills in the Age of the Attention Economy

• Friday, September 18
• 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
• 3310 Torgerson

In this practical session, we'll explore how the attention economy is affecting our students' reading abilities and their analytical comprehension. We will walk through how these trends have evolved, what's driving them, and share battle-tested strategies to get our students to engage with academic texts again. You'll leave with practical approaches you can adapt tomorrow to help students in any discipline build stronger reading comprehension, sharpen their critical analysis, develop better focus, and help them transform from reluctant readers into more confident academic readers.

Strategies for Class Preparation, Organization, and Management

• Thursday, October 1
• 1:00-3:00 p.m.
• Virtual

Providing a meaningful learning experience for students involves an intentional process, including course design, facilitating class time, and assessing student learning. This workshop will focus on using class time to maximize student learning and will share a variety of strategies for preparation, organization, and management of class time. Ultimately, the purpose of this workshop is to provide participants with strategies for using and managing class time that will be immediately useful in their teaching. Note: This workshop will focus on foundational teaching knowledge and skills.

Making the Most of Groups and Teams for Learning

• Tuesday, October 6
• 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
• Virtual

As instructors, we often incorporate groups and teams into our courses to promote student learning and to foster transferrable skills with benefits beyond the classroom. In addition to these positive outcomes, however, group- and team-based learning experiences can also present challenges – for both instructors and students. This session will focus on strategies for engaging groups and teams to facilitate learning while maximizing the benefits and addressing the challenges of working with others. Topics addressed in this workshop will include 1) the learning benefits of working in groups and teams, 2) common ways in which groups and teams are incorporated into learning contexts, and 3) strategies for effectively developing and implementing group- and team-based learning experiences (e.g., activity/assignment design and assessment, group/team formation, supporting positive and productive groups/teams in learning). By the end of the session, participants will be introduced to a variety of strategies for effectively integrating groups and teams in the courses they are currently teaching and/or designing or redesigning for the future. Note: This workshop will focus on foundational teaching knowledge and skills.

This session is cross listed for CETL’s PBL Workshop entitled Collaborative Brilliance: Building and Managing High-Functioning Student Teams.

Effective teamwork doesn’t happen by accident—this session provides practical strategies for forming, developing, and sustaining high-functioning student groups. Faculty will learn approaches to establish expectations, assign roles, and support productive collaboration. We will also examine common teamwork challenges and explore tools for addressing conflict, accountability, and communication issues.

Claude Cowork for Academic and Intellectual Workflows

• Tuesday, October 13
• 2:30-4:00 p.m.
• 3310 Torgersen

In this practical session, we will look at what changes when we move from using AI as a chatbot to using a dedicated workflow system like Claude Cowork. We'll walk through how Cowork runs on standing projects and context documents that grow with your work, the guardrails you can build against cognitive offloading, drift, and overload, and real workflows built to augment faculty work: building slide decks, processing conference notes, and tracking literature and sources.  You'll leave with a working method you can start using tomorrow, a clearer sense of the line between what's safe to hand off and what should stay yours, and the foundation to move from cautious chatbot user to someone using AI as a genuine academic think partner.

Developing Grading and Feedback Strategies to Promote Learning

• Thursday, October 15
• 2:00-4:00 p.m.
• Virtual

Providing regular and meaningful feedback for and evaluations of work is essential to the teaching and learning process. Doing so, however, can be a challenge, particularly in relation to assignment type, class size, and grading resources (e.g., instructor's time). During this workshop, participants will learn about ways to provide feedback through both formative and summative assessments and explore best practices in grading strategies. Participants will also have time and support to design or redesign current or future assessments. Note: This workshop will focus on foundational teaching knowledge and skills.

Why Bother with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

• Thursday, October 22
•  2:30-4:00 p.m.
• 40 Graduate Life Center

This workshop explores why the scholarship of teaching and learning matters, the difference between the scholarship of teaching and learning and scholarly teaching, and how to generate ideas to research.

Teaching With, Against and Around AI: Pedagogical Strategies for Faculty

• Friday, November 6
• 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
• 3310 Torgersen

How do we teach well when AI is everywhere? Join us as we review current AI capabilities while focusing on what matters most: our pedagogical goals and student learning. We'll move beyond reactive fixes ("How do I prevent ChatGPT on this assignment?") to intentional pedagogical design. Together, we'll explore:

• When AI tools genuinely support our learning objectives—and when they undermine them
• How to make purposeful choices about integrating, limiting, or reimagining assignments
• Strategies that center human connection, critical thinking, and meaningful learning

This isn't about either policing AI or adopting every new tool. It's about reclaiming pedagogical agency in a rapidly shifting landscape and making choices aligned with our teaching values and our students' growth.