Fall 2025 Workshops

Developing a Teaching Portfolio (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Monday, August 18, 2025
10:00 am – 11:30 am

Craft a standout teaching portfolio to effectively communicate your teaching responsibilities, philosophy, goals, and achievements. This interactive workshop will teach you how to present an engaging teaching philosophy and compile compelling evidence of your teaching success. You will also learn to highlight your professional growth and development as an educator. If you wish to attend the workshop or to receive the video recording after the workshop, please register.

Writing & Refining the Teaching Philosophy (In-Person Working Session)

Tuesday, August 26, 2025
9:30 am – 11:00 am
in-person in New Brunswick

This workshop is a deep dive into what might be the most important piece of a teaching portfolio or teaching statement: the teaching philosophy statement. This reflective and highly personal narrative encapsulates an instructor’s instructional goals, teaching methods, and their approach to assessing student learning. In this interactive session we explore examples from different disciplines before spending time writing, editing, and peer reviewing. This workshop will be held in person in New Brunswick (location will be shared prior to the event) and will not be recorded. Because of limited space, we are capping registration at 20 participants. Please register if you plan to attend.

School & Department Customization of SIRS for Actionable Data (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Tuesday, August 26, 2025
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

This session is designed for deans and department chairs to understand their options for customizing their Student Instructional Ratings Survey questions to receive actionable information. It will detail the options of schools and departments to change or add questions as appropriate to SIRS and/or midcourse surveys, give examples of changes Rutgers units have already undertaken and those of other institutions, and provide space for discussion and questions.

Preparing Teaching Documentation for Promotion, Reappointment, and Renewal (Virtual Presentation and Discussion)

Thursday, September 4, 2025
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

What should be included in a teaching portfolio? How should one respond to peer review of teaching suggestions? What really matters about student feedback? In this workshop, we talk about how to put together evidence that demonstrates effective teaching. This session is open to instructors of all ranks and others involved in promotion, reappointment, or renewal, and will include opportunity for discussion. If you wish to attend the workshop or receive the video recording after the presentation, please register.

Blue Dashboard Training for Administrators

Wednesday, September 10, 2025
9:30 am – 11:00 am

The Blue Dashboard allows Deans, Directors and administrators to look longitudinally across their SIRS data to glean actionable insights and have meaningful conversations in their departments. While not an alternative to an official teaching grid, the Blue Dashboard will provide an opportunity for units to look at trends across their courses and determine strengths and areas for improvement.

This training session will explain how to use the Blue Dashboard, understand the statistics that are provided, and the differences in reporting between the Blue Dashboard and individual reports. We hope that this will be a powerful tool to support improving your courses and teaching within your units.

Interpreting SIRS and other forms of Student Feedback (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Thursday, September 11, 2025
9:30 am – 11:00 am

While students are crucial stakeholders in the university’s teaching enterprise, their feedback should not be mistaken for “evaluation of teaching,” which is a task for instructional colleagues. Student feedback is an indicator which provides evidence that must be interpreted. In this workshop, we explore scholarly research on the limitations and potential biases of student feedback. We present strategies for how department chairs and program directors should review, interpret, and utilize the likert-scale and comment responses from the Student Instructional Ratings Survey (SIRS) to improve course curriculum, support faculty, and evaluate teaching. This workshop is especially beneficial for those who regularly engage with SIRS, but we also encourage anyone from the university community interested in learning about best practices in interpreting student feedback to join us. To attend the workshop or to receive the video recording after the workshop, please register.

Designing a Departmental- or School-Level Midcourse Survey Process (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Tuesday, September 16, 2025
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Midcourse student surveys provide a valuable option for formative assessment of instruction. Departments and schools can encourage this work and support instructors by establishing a midcourse survey process for all instructors or a subset, such as new part-time lecturers. This session is designed for chairs and deans and will review how some other departments and schools have implemented midcourse surveys, helping to ensure that a new midcourse survey process is an informative and worthwhile endeavor for all.

Navigating Peer Review of Teaching (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Thursday, September 25, 2025
9:30 am – 11:00 am

Peer review of teaching is an important part of the advancement, reappointment, and promotion process for instructors of all ranks. This workshop is primarily designed to prepare reviewers tasked with conducting peer review of teaching, but instructors preparing to be observed may also find this session helpful. This session focuses on peer review of in-person classroom instruction and peer review of course materials, and provides suggestions for effectively documenting observations. A version of this workshop was previously offered in Spring 2024. If you wish to attend the workshop or to receive the video recording after the workshop, please register.

Interpreting and Utilizing Student Feedback for Change: Midcourse Surveys

Friday, September 26, 2025
9:30 am – 11:00 am

Do you know what your students think about your lectures, discussions, activities, or your carefully crafted selected assignments? This workshop is geared toward instructors and explores how to conduct a midcourse survey using Blue or another platform like Google Forms. We provide a discussion of how to employ quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data you obtain, and how you should share this information with your students. Our underlying focus in this session is to help you develop the insight you need to address student concerns and make course adjustments before the term is over.

Assessment of Learning 101

Friday, October 17, 2025
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

This workshop explores the fundamentals of academic assessment, including program learning outcomes, course learning goals, and both direct and indirect assessment techniques. We will examine the crucial role of rubrics within the assessment process and discuss how assessment strategies can effectively inform course design. The workshop will also address best practices for enhancing assessment quality, including the implementation of blind grading procedures, ensuring grading reliability through inter-rater checks, and utilizing multiple reviewers for comprehensive evaluations. This workshop is designed for faculty who are new to academic assessment or need a refresher on learning about different methods of assessment and the assessment cycle. Last offered in Spring of 2025. Please register to attend or receive the recording.

Peer Review of Online Teaching (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Tuesday, October 21, 2025
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Peer review of teaching plays a crucial role in the advancement, reappointment, and promotion process for instructors across all ranks. Many educators now teach courses with significant online components, including asynchronous online, synchronous online, and hybrid formats. Peer review of these courses presents unique challenges, such as defining the concept of “observation,” understanding the integration of course design and student engagement, and recognizing the specific challenges faced by both instructors and students in online settings. This workshop offers a platform to share best practices and engage in discussions about these issues. If you wish to attend the workshop or to receive the video recording after the workshop, please register.

Designing Assessment Plans for Academic Programs

Tuesday, November 4, 2025
9:00 am – 10:30 am

Unlock the full potential of your academic program by mastering the art of assessment. This hands-on workshop will empower you to develop a comprehensive and meaningful assessment plan from the ground up. You will learn to articulate clear learning goals, design a curriculum map that connects those goals to your courses, and effectively measure program success. We will explore a variety of direct and indirect assessment techniques and demystify the difference between programmatic and learning-focused evaluation. Whether you are launching a new program for Board of Governors review, revitalizing an existing curriculum, or aiming to improve your current assessment strategies, this session will provide you strategies for success. Please register to attend or receive the recording.

Using the Rutgers Guidelines for Presenting Evidence of Effective Teaching (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Wednesday, December 3, 2025
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

This workshop will explore the Guidelines for Effective Teaching, which adopts a framework showing what effective teaching looks like and encourages faculty to present evidence that shows their strengths across all aspects of teaching. As part of this session, participants evaluate samples of evidence and brainstorm what sources of evidence they can muster to build their promotion packets. This workshop is intended for all instructors presenting evidence for effective teaching. Please register to attend or receive the recording:

Developing a Teaching Portfolio (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

Tuesday, January 6, 2026
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Peer Review of the Teaching Portfolio (In-Person Hands-on Workshop)

Thursday, January 15, 2026
9:30 am – 11:00 am
in-person in New Brunswick

Does your teaching portfolio present strong evidence showcasing your teaching success? Is the teaching philosophy clear and well-matched with your instructional goals? In this workshop we provide a rubric for evaluating teaching portfolios and assign participants to small teams to peer review their portfolios and document effective strategies and presentation of evidence. We will share results so that all participants can see the best strategies and learn from each other. This workshop will be held in person in New Brunswick, and is meant for those who can bring a draft portfolio to share with others.