Teaching and Scholarship Hub

Your FYS syllabus represents your approaches to teaching and learning, as well as your seminar's overall design and “experience.” Reading each other’s syllabi can help us be more intentional about our approaches to course design and teaching, as well as give us the opportunity to learn from our collective wisdom and experiences teaching our FYSs.

During this hands-on workshop, participants will briefly review how Richmond's revised FYS differs from previous iterations of the seminar, as well as some basic principles for effective course and syllabus design. We will then break into small groups and read each other’s draft FYS syllabi using a list of questions as a guide. Each participant will have the opportunity to both give and receive practical feedback on their FYS syllabus. Following the small groups, we will briefly debrief to share effective ideas and approaches for designing and teaching these important courses.

Michael Reder, Director of the Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning at Connecticut College, will be joining us. Among his areas of interest are effective teaching and learning, especially using writing and other active teaching techniques to enhance student and faculty learning, and the creation of faculty teaching and learning centers at small colleges.

Faculty members are asked to bring four copies of a draft of their FYS syllabus.

Participation in this event will count as the required professional development for FYS under the new General Education Curriculum.