KEYNOTES

Basic Info

We design our keynotes to inspire attendees’ interest in teaching and motivate participants to take actions that improve both teaching and learning experiences.

Our keynotes fit best in a 90-minute timeframe, but we can shorten or lengthen them at your request. We believe in modeling the behaviors we encourage instructors to implement in their courses. All of our keynotes include interactive engagement opportunities for participants.

Keynotes can be adapted into workshops. We offer both in-person and virtual keynotes.

Below are a few keynotes we’re most frequently asked to give. If you have something else in mind, we can work with you to adapt or custom design a keynote to meet your needs.

Six Essentials of Effective Instruction

How can we effectively communicate about and collaborate on teaching with our colleagues and students? In this presentation, we introduce the Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) framework, a tool that synthesizes research on effective teaching practices in higher education into six categories of observable behaviors. Definitions and behaviors listed on the CTB framework help faculty develop a shared understanding of good teaching. This foundation prepares faculty to have productive conversations about teaching with colleagues. When we speak a common language, we can claim agency in telling our teaching stories, share and recognize effective teaching practices, and collaborate to develop more equitable measures for evaluating teaching. In this session, we will lay the foundation for these discussions by exploring the framework, using it to reflect on our teaching, and sharing our strengths and strategies with colleagues.

Using Critical Teaching Behaviors to Transform Conversations about Teaching

Who Tells Your Story?

Reflection and Agency in Documenting Teaching Effectiveness

When it comes to teaching effectiveness, who tells your story? Often, documentation of teaching privileges student or colleague voices or simply lets materials speak for themselves. Using the Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) framework, we discuss a documentation method that promotes instructor agency in shaping teaching narratives while fostering reflective habits that improve teaching. The framework provides guidance to instructors crafting their first teaching narrative and presents more experienced teachers with a new lens to think about their teaching. Participants will begin framing a persuasive, coherent teaching narrative using the CTB and evidence from instructional artifacts easily available to them.

Foundations for Success

Defining Critical Teaching Behaviors for Student Learning

As teachers, student learning is our goal. Research on teaching and learning offers insight into what we can do to support student success; however, staying current on this research is time-consuming and can be overwhelming for instructors delving into a new field. Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTBs) prepare instructors to foster student success by providing foundational knowledge of effective teaching practices. In this session, participants will use the CTB framework to reflect on their current instructional practices and pedagogical areas of interest to identify strategies they can implement to promote student learning while reinvigorating their teaching.

Watch Us Present

Watch Lauren Present

In this clip from New York Institute of Technology’s Faculty Professional Development Day, Lauren talks about the “Include” category of Critical Teaching Behaviors.

Watch Claudia Present

In this clip from New York Institute of Technology’s Faculty Professional Development Day, Claudia talks about the “Engage” category of Critical Teaching Behaviors.

Contact Us

We’d love to hear your questions about or experiences using the CTB materials.

Email
CriticalTeachingBehaviors@gmail.com

Photo © Newman University, 2024. Used with permission.