UIC Programming
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Together with CATE we host a variety of workshops and gatherings to create a space for UIC educators to continue their learning about evidence-based teaching practices and to build community.
Learn more about the most common types of events we host on this page and visit our events page or subscribe to our newsletter to find out about upcoming events and registration information.
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Interactive Workshops Heading link
We regularly offer workshops grounded in scholarly research with pragmatic strategies, focusing on timely issues, interspersed with active engagement to enhance the teaching and learning experience of UIC instructors and students. We also offer professional development workshops to support graduate students and postdocs with their career advancement. CIRTL participants can also attend CATE Teaching Tidbits workshops Speaker Series events, and more.
Past workshops include:
Past Workshops Examples Heading link
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Supporting Neurodivergent Students
These workshops provide a helpful introduction to neurodiversity and the experiences of students with neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more. Participants collaborate to develop changes to their teaching to better support and include neurodivergent students.
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Teaching Statement Workshops
Our workshops guide attendees through the creation and revision of their teaching statements for the job market. Participants are given opportunities to reflect on their teaching philosophy, to generate examples from their experiences, and to develop a cogent and compelling statement.
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Teaching Tidbits
Join CATE facilitators for 60 -120 min online and in-person interactive workshops. These span a number of topics such as inclusive teaching, active learning and student engagement, teaching with technology, and curriculum design.
Reading Groups Heading link
Each semester, CIRTL@UIC offers a 4 to 6 week reading group on contemporary topics in teaching and learning. This informal discussion community is an opportunity to be introduced to research on teaching and learning in across disciplines and to discuss articles and books with CIRTL@UIC staff, other graduate students, and postdocs, faculty, and academic and research staff. Each session will also help you consider how you can consider questions and apply new strategies to inform your own teaching practices.
Fall 2023 Reading Group Heading link
Trauma-Informed Pedagogies Reading Group
Join us Wednesdays, October 4th-November 1st from 1 PM-2PM CT for this 5-week reading and discussion group on Trauma-Informed Teaching. Trauma-informed pedagogies aim to reduce barriers of access for students who have experienced past trauma through compassionate and flexible course design and with the aim of creating cultures of well-being and belonging in classroom spaces. Each week we will read and discuss a chapter from Trauma-Informed Pedagogies: A Guide for Responding to Crisis and Inequality in Higher Education, making connections with our own teaching experiences and thinking through ways we might apply these insights in our own classrooms.
Attendance and Materials: You are encouraged, but not required, to attend all sessions. Register for all sessions you think you might attend. Trauma-Informed Pedagogies: A Guide for Responding to Crisis and Inequality in Higher Education is available online through the UIC Library, or physical copies can be ordered through the publisher’s website or major book retailers. You can also visit this page for the weekly reading list including key topics and discussion prompts, and view this list of upcoming readings:
October 4th: Chapter 1: “Developing a New Default in Higher Education: We Are Not Alone in This Work,” p. 1-6 (stop at Origins and Aims), “Hope Matters,” Mays Imad, and “Hope Still Matters,” Mays Imad
October 11th: Chapter 2: “Centering Equity: Trauma-Informed Principles and Feminist Practice” p. 15-33
October 18th: Chapter 3: “Our Brains, Emotions, and Learning: Eight Principles of Trauma-Informed Teaching,” p. 35-47
October 25th: Chapter 15: “An Educator’s Scope of Practice: How Do I Know What’s Mine?,” p. 175-185
November 1st: Chapter 17: “What Are We Centering? Developing a Trauma-Informed Syllabus”
Register Here for the Fall 2023 Reading Group
Past Reading Groups Heading link
Learn more about past reading groups below:
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Radical Hope Reading Group
Join us on Zoom February 16th-March 16th on Thursdays from 2-3 PM CT for a weekly reading and discussion group on Kevin Gannon’s engaging and educational book, Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. Whether you are brand new or a seasoned pro to inclusive teaching, Gannon’s book is an excellent guide to thinking more deeply about how we can transform our classrooms to best teach and support all of our students. We’ll be reading and discussing two chapters each week, using the prompts included at the end of each chapter to guide our consideration of the important ideas presented, connections we find to our own teaching and learning experiences, and ways we might apply these insights in our own classrooms.
This is also an opportunity to build community with other UIC instructors and scholars who are interested in learning more about, reflecting on, and implementing inclusive teaching in their classrooms.
February 16: Introduction; Chapter 1: Classrooms of Death; Chapter 2: The Things We Tell Our Students
February 23: Chapter 3: Cultivating Transformative Teaching; Chapter 4: Teaching and Learning Inclusively
March 2: Chapter 5: Making Access Mean Something; Chapter 6: Encouraging Choice, Collaboration, and Agency
March 9: Chapter 7: A Syllabus Worth Reading; Chapter 8: Pedagogy Is Not a Weapon
March 16: Chapter 9: Platforms and Power; Chapter 10: I Don’t Know…Yet; Coda: Radical Hope, Even When It Seems Hopeless
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bell hooks' Pedagogy
Join us in April on Tuesdays at 12 PM CT, for a weekly reading and discussion group on bell hooks’ pioneering pedagogy texts: Teaching to Transgress, Teaching Community, and Teaching Critical Thinking. We’ll be reading a short selection each week and having a group discussion around the important ideas presented, connections we find between her thoughts and our own teaching and learning experiences, and ways we might respond to these in our own classrooms.
This is also an opportunity to build community with other UIC instructors and scholars who are interested in learning more about, reflecting on, and implementing inclusive teaching in their classrooms.
April 5: Teaching to Transgress: Introduction and Chapter 1
Key topics: classroom community, engaged pedagogy, pleasure and joy, vulnerability and trust
April 12: Teaching Critical Thinking: Engaged Pedagogy; Teaching Community: Democratic Education
Key topics: engaged pedagogy, classroom community, conditions of learning
April 19: Teaching Community: How Can We Serve
Key topics: teaching as service, the value of teaching, exclusion of marginalized students
April 26: Teaching Community: Heart to Heart: Teaching with Love
Key topics: emotional connection, objectivity, competition/fear vs connection/love