Teaching Squares Introduces Faculty to Different Teaching Styles
The Teaching Squares program is available for all university faculty again this spring
to give professors an opportunity to share their teaching practices with each other.
Participants in the program's third session will visit other professors' classes over
the semester.
"Participating faculty members are not observing classes to evaluate teaching; instead, they are there to see different approaches to teaching, to gain insights into their own teaching and to learn from one another," said C.W. Eaker, dean of Constantin College. "We encourage all faculty members, especially new ones, to participate."
Faculty who participate in Teaching Squares are grouped with three other professors, and each participant individually visits one class from each other member of his or her Teaching Square during the semester. Teaching Squares are interdisciplinary, which allows, for example, an art professor to sit in on classes from classics, business and physics professors.
"The program underscored UD's unity — we are a university and not a multiversity," said David Upham, assistant professor of politics and a participant in Teaching Squares last year. "I saw firsthand what exceptional teachers we have in other departments."
Faculty who are interested in participating should email Eaker by Wednesday, Feb. 6. In addition to sitting in on other square members' classes, there will be a brief organizational meeting at the beginning of the program and a luncheon in late April when the program concludes.
PHOTO: Melissa Caraway's Children's Literature Class