Faculty Cohorts On Teaching

The CTE’s Faculty Cohorts on Teaching program seeks to bring faculty together to explore innovative approaches to significant teaching and learning questions. Participating faculty spend a year investigating a new pedagogical or course design approach to be implemented in at least one of the courses they teach. A late spring kick-off meeting sets the stage for the conversation, and then monthly seminar meetings during the academic year are organized around relevant readings in the pedagogical literature and case studies developed by cohort participants.

All Boston College faculty are eligible to participate. To learn more about the benefits and expectations of the cohort program, please see the tab below.

Any questions about Faculty Cohorts in general—or about the specific cohorts being offered next year—can be directed to centerforteaching@bc.edu.

2022-23 Cohort Applications

Applications for our 2022-23 cohorts, 'Teaching for Inclusion and Social Justice' and 'Applying Learning Sciences to Our Teaching', are now closed (you can find complete descriptions of each cohort in the tab below). We will be following up with applicants by the end of March.

Interested faculty were asked to submit a brief online application for either the cohort that includes a project proposal explaining what they hope to gain from their cohort participation. Applicants were also asked to have their department chair send a very brief email to centerforteaching@bc.edu indicating their support of the applicant’s participation in the cohort. Part-time faculty were asked to have their chair speak specifically to the ways the department would benefit from their participation.

Participating faculty receive a $2,500 stipend and the opportunity to interact with an engaged group of colleagues. Please note that individuals who have administrative roles and teach are eligible to participate in a cohort but ineligible to receive the stipend, as per Boston College policy. Faculty who choose to participate can expect to:

  • attend a kick-off meeting the spring before the cohort launches;
  • participate in monthly cohort meetings during the academic year;
  • develop a short teaching case to be shared with other members of the cohort;
  • experiment with at least one significant revision to their teaching during the cohort year; and
  • submit a brief final report within one month of concluding the cohort, as well as participate in other assessments the CTE conducts of the cohort program.

Teaching for Inclusion and Social Justice

As institutions of higher education admit increasingly diverse student bodies and seek to cultivate more inclusive and just learning environments, faculty can sometimes struggle to carve out classroom spaces that support all students in their learning. The question of inclusion and social justice in the classroom has implications for all parts of our practice: pedagogical approach, classroom interaction, and curriculum development. 

Our seventh (and final) offering of the “Teaching for Inclusion and Social Justice” cohort invites faculty to participate in a year-long inquiry into this complex pedagogical puzzle. All participants are asked to identify at least one new pedagogical strategy they want to implement in one of their courses meant to improve either the inclusiveness of their course design, content, or climate. We seek faculty from a range of disciplines to participate, particularly those whose subject matter doesn’t necessarily lend itself to discussions of “diversity.” Although we welcome a broad definition of inclusion and justice in this conversation, we focus most of our emphasis around questions of race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and ability.

Applying Learning Sciences to Our Teaching

As instructors have confronted numerous pedagogical challenges over the past two years, many have sought out findings from cognitive psychology and other learning sciences. These insights, valuable in any context, suggest ways to support student learning by focusing on their metacognition, motivation, reflection, and self-agency. The “Applying Learning Sciences to Our Teaching” cohort invites faculty to participate in a year-long collaborative inquiry into this fruitful intersection of theory and practice. Participants will each identify a learning problem common to the courses they teach and then experiment with implementing different pedagogical responses to that problem, informed by the learning science literature.

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