It’s Spring 2020 at CTL!
It’s a new decade and a new academic semester here at Georgia Tech, and we at the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) are looking forward to a productive semester supporting Tech faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.
Two major initiatives and themes in our work with faculty this semester will be students’ academic wellbeing in the classroom and the impact of grading practices on learning and wellbeing. We’ve already designed a set of resources you can easily access for more information on the role of faculty in these initiatives – visit our Learning Environment Toolkit and Grading and Assessment Resources webpages to learn more. (While you are there, check out our collected teaching and learning resources on preparing courses, engaging students, and developing as a teaching professional!)
GTREET
One way we will be moving these themes forward this Spring is through CTL’s Georgia Tech Retreating Exploring Effective Teaching – GTREET – event on January 17th, from 10-2 in the Piedmont Room of the Student Center. This year, GTREET will be an opportunity to actively work with peers from across the 
institute to consider the question, “How might we move beyond (unhelpful) traditional educational structures to build a culture of challenge, meaningful experience, and flourishing for our Georgia Tech students?”
We are excited to be hosting Dr. Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, for this year’s event. She is the author of I Love Learning, I Hate School: An Anthropology of College and a forthcoming collection on “ungrading.” (Learning more about ungrading here and here.) Dr. Blum’s talk, Building on Students’ Superpowers: Ungrading, Motivation, Curiosity, and Real Learning, will share her findings and personal experiences, as well as introduce the concept of ungrading as one way to build a culture of challenge, meaningful experience, and flourishing for our students. Dr. Blum and CTL faculty will then lead participants in a think-tank-style set of activities to explore our guiding question and create actionable steps forward.
You can learning more about GTREET and register for the event here. Lunch and dessert will be served!
Teaching and Learning Buzz Podcast
Another way CTL will be exploring issues related to academic wellbeing, grading, and teaching and learning at Georgia Tech more broadly is through our new podcast, Teaching and Learning Buzz (website coming soon). Each month, hosts Dr. Carol Subino Sullivan and Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark will discuss a teaching and learning topic and interview Tech faculty doing interesting things on campus.
Our first episode launches here on the blog next Wednesday. We discuss three different types of grading practices – traditional, norm-based, and mastery-based – and what Tech students think about these practices as well as chat with Dr. Al Ferri of mechanical engineering about his interest in grading practices and the new additions to the student expectations of faculty guidelines related to norm-based grading and timely feedback.
Check back this time next week for this episode of the Teaching and Learning Buzz podcast. We’ll have the episode, transcript, and show notes ready for you!
CTL Blog Content
We hope you will bookmark the CTL website and for all our upcoming content. On the blog, you’ll find informational posts, upcoming events, episodes of 
the podcast, student thoughts on teaching and learning at Tech, and additional resources to consider in your teaching.
And, as always, we are available to talk about teaching and learning and hope to see you at upcoming CTL events!
