GET SET Institutes & Conference

Our teaching institutes and workshops offer opportunities to develop your teaching skills, gain theoretical grounding and practical strategies, and to connect with fellow teaching graduate students and postdocs:


Essentials of Teaching Institute

In this four-part workshop series you will explore strategies to foster a positive classroom environment, create effective interactive teaching activities to help students learn, and develop fair methods for assessment and grading.

Building on the foundation of the TA Online Orientation, this Institute allows participants to explore strategies to incorporate inclusive teaching practices, support their students’ learning, and best assess this learning process. Throughout this institute, participants will develop an action plan for a course they may teach, culminating with peer feedback on this plan in the fourth workshop. Individuals who complete all four workshops under the Essentials of Teaching Institute will earn a letter documenting their completion from CTI.

As a result of attending the institute, participants will be able to:

  • identify strategies to help students cultivate an appreciation for diversity.
  • explore classroom strategies that engage a variety of learners.
  • discuss methods of assessing student learning.
  • develop an action plan for a course that they may teach.

Who Can Attend

Graduate students and postdocs at Cornell.

When is the Essentials of Teaching Institute

The institute is held in the fall semester.

Registration Process & Deadline

Please check our current programming schedule for specific dates and times and information on how to register.

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Inclusive Teaching Institute

The Inclusive Teaching Institute for Graduate Students & Postdocs is an opportunity to explore diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education learning environments.  This interactive workshop invites you to reflect and connect with graduate students and postdocs to share knowledge, explore how and why social identities come into play in the learning environment, consider how to remove barriers and increase accessibility, and create a plan to support student learning. 

Which frameworks might guide your decision-making and professional development to develop an equity-minded teaching practice? How can you prepare to facilitate discussion when it’s personal, political, or charged? How do your past learning experiences inform your emergent practice, commitments, and professional development needs? What does education research say about how to support belonging?  The institute is a place to get started or deepen your learning.

As a result of attending the institute, participants will be able to:

  • use a framework to guide planning for inclusion
  • select teaching strategies that foster engagement, belonging, and accessibility
  • increase your confidence in facilitating an inclusive learning climate

Who Can Attend

The Inclusive Teaching Institute is designed for graduate students and postdocs at Cornell.

When is the Inclusive Teaching Institute

The Inclusive Teaching Institute took place February 9 - 16, 2024. Future workshop dates will be posted here as they are scheduled.

Read more about the institute.

Registration Process & Deadline

  • This institute has taken place for the Spring '24 semester. Registration links for future offerings will be added here as available.
  • The program is capped at 25. We ask that you please commit to both engagements fully.
  • If you have any questions, please contact Melina Ivanchikova (md734@cornell.edu) at the Center for Teaching Innovation or Colleen McLinn (futurefaculty@cornell.edu) at the Graduate School’s Future Faculty and Academic Careers office.

Sponsorship

This event is sponsored by the Center for Teaching Innovation and the Graduate School’s Future Faculty and Academic Careers office.

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Teaching Portfolio Institute

How do you document and showcase your teaching and professional experiences? This institute is taught as a series of four workshops that will guide you through the process of developing components of an electronic teaching portfolio. These workshops are an opportunity to draft a teaching philosophy statement and examine the key components of a professional teaching portfolio. We encourage all graduate students and postdocs at any stage to attend. 

The institute will focus on three distinct elements of portfolio creation: collecting your documents; selecting what best showcases your development, values, and experience; and reflecting on your professional journey. Through a series of four workshops, you will have an opportunity to draft a teaching philosophy and a diversity statement and receive peer feedback. 

As a result of attending the institute, participants will be able to:

  • identify the components of a teaching portfolio
  • create a draft of a teaching philosophy statement
  • articulate important components of a diversity statement
  • assess platforms for presenting portfolio materials

Who Can Attend

Graduate students and postdocs at Cornell.

When is the Teaching Portfolio Institute

The institute is held in the fall semester. 

Registration Process & Deadline

Please check our current programming schedule for specific dates and times and information on how to register.

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Active Learning Institute

How might you engage students and encourage them to participate in their learning more directly? How does active learning help people learn? What strategies, from the simple to the complex, would you implement in your classes? In this series of four workshops, you will explore active learning strategies and examine how they help students learn more effectively based on current educational and cognitive research.

Active learning refers to strategies that ask learners to engage and participate in their learning by stimulating student motivation, curiosity, and metacognition skills. Activities such as writing, discussing, reflecting, or problem-solving can help learners organize knowledge and communicate it to others, practice expert thinking, and remember longer and better.

In this four-part workshop series, you will explore active learning strategies and examine how they help students learn more effectively based on current educational and cognitive research. Experience a variety of activities--such as polling questions with peer discussion, minute papers, and more--and select practices to adapt for your specific teaching context. Leave with a list of strategies you can apply in your classes.

As a result of attending the institute, participants will be able to:

  • discuss some of the most common active learning strategies and why they are effective
  • practice designing active learning activities for a specific teaching context and learning outcome
  • learn principles for planning out a class session that includes active learning activities

Who Can Attend

Graduate students and postdocs at Cornell.

When is the Active Learning Institute

The institute took place in October 2023. Please check back for future course offerings.

Registration Process & Deadline

Please check our current programming schedule for specific dates and times and information on how to register.

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Course Design Institute

This series of four workshops guides you through the basic elements of course design, and strategies to define learning outcomes, align assignments and activities, evaluate student learning, and create a student-centered syllabus.

Where do you start when developing a course? This four-part workshop series will lead you through a process known as backward course design in which you start by defining what you want students to learn and then align these learning outcomes with assignments, assessments, and learning activities.

As a result of attending the institute, participants will be able to:

  • create student-centered learning outcomes

  • align learning outcomes with assessments and assignments

  • apply backward course design principles to develop a learner-centered syllabus

  • discuss how to implement one or two classroom strategies that align with course learning outcomes

Who Can Attend

Graduate students and postdocs at Cornell.

When is the Course Design Institute

The Course Design Institute is a series of four workshops, which are scheduled to take place as follows:

  • Tuesday, March 5, 2024, 12:00 - 1:15 p.m. 
  • Tuesday, March 12, 2024, 12:00 - 1:15 p.m.
  • Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 12:00 - 1:15 p.m.
  • Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 12:00 - 1:15 p.m.

Registration Process & Deadline

Please check our current programming schedule for specific dates and times and information on how to register.

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University-Wide GET SET Teaching Conference

The University-Wide GET SET Teaching Conference provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions on teaching with faculty and colleagues from across campus on current topics in teaching and learning.

Who Can Attend

The U-Wide is open to Cornell graduate students, teaching assistants, postdoctoral fellows, and the Future Faculty and Academic Careers community.

When is the University-Wide Teaching Conference

The Spring 2024 University-Wide Teaching Conference will be held on Saturday, April 20, 2024.

Registration Details & Deadline

Register for the University-Wide GET SET Teaching Conference

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