This mural is featured in the UCLA Black Bruin Resource Center depicting Black Bruins from past to present. Learn more about the mural and its development here.

Dear Colleagues,

The Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences invites you to join us in honoring Black History Month by taking some time over the next few weeks to research, identify, elevate, uplift, and share out the work of Black Scholars within your own discipline with your colleagues and students.

I would also like to take a moment to express that we are all heartsick over the news and images coming out of Turkey and Syria in the aftermath of the deadly earthquakes on Monday. The loss of life and human suffering that will unfold from this tragedy are beyond chilling. Our thoughts are joined with those in our UCLA community and all over the world. If you'd like to donate to those in need, please view the JDC website or resources provided in this Time Magazine article. This evening, Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor is lecturing on her book: The Grieving Brain (see details below). We encourage you to attend the Zoom event if you are able and would find this to be a helpful resource.

Warmly,

Rachel and the CEILS team

In our transition “post” pandemic and back to in person, there is no denying that things have changed. It feels more difficult to know how to prioritize teaching and professional development with all that you are being asked to do.  

As a teaching center, we want to meet your needs, where you are at. Asking you to work on your teaching on top of everything else might be adding to that overwhelm, which is not what we want to do. What we hope to provide our instructors is a service to you that we know will make you more skillful and equitable, your students more satisfied and give you a sense of community and connectedness with each other and your students, in a way that supports your overall goals and responsibilities. 

So that we understand better what will best serve you and your needs, please complete this very short questionnaire (2 questions!). Thank you as always for your dedication and commitment to teaching excellence. 

UCLA Represents at SABERWest 2023!

A wonderful group from UCLA comprised of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, CEILS team members, team members from the Center for Educational Assessment, and instructors recently attended the annual regional conference for the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). Presentations and posters on UCLA's education research initiatives highlighted UCLA's contributions to education innovation. Thanks to all who attended this year's conference!

What's the buzz about Chat GPT? CEILS Education Research Talk - Resources and Recording Available

Yesterday, February 8th, CEILS hosted an Ed Talk by team member Jess Gregg on ChatGPT with great attendance in person and on Zoom. Thank you to all who attended to contribute to the conversation, ask questions, and learn together.

The recording of the talk along with resources are available here:

https://ceils.ucla.edu/recorded-workshops-resources-from-past-events/

Regarding ChatGPT at UCLA- Please note that additional campus-wide events and resources will be announced shortly, stay tuned!

Join us for our final Winter 2023

Ed Talks @CEILS: Learning Community Meeting!

February 15th | 3:00 - 3:50pm | Terasaki Life Sciences 1100

Happy Hour to follow in the Hershey Hall Front Courtyard

Join us as we explore the latest high quality STEM Education Research studies and how to implement effective and inclusive teaching. We welcome guest speakers from UCLA and other academic institutions to share their research and lead small group discussions with our teaching and learning community. Faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and anyone interested in STEM education research are welcome to participate.

Towards a Pedagogy of Belonging:

Ensuring Inclusion in Design and Practice

Friday, February 10, 2023, 2-3:30 pm via Zoom

Register Here

Making students feel a sense of belonging is a common goal for instructors, but what does it actually mean? How can instructors design their courses to ensure that all students feel belonging? This workshop is an opportunity for instructors to engage with these questions, to reflect on their own pedagogical practices, and to learn new strategies for embedding belonging in their course design. Participants will be introduced to some of the research on belonging and its importance for creating safe and welcoming learning environments. Different strategies will be discussed to create opportunities for student belonging throughout the course: the first point of contact with the instructor, in the classroom, and beyond the end of the quarter. Facilitated by Dr. Christian Reyes.

Luskin/Wachs Lecture: Accessibility, Social Equity, and Contemporary Policy Debates with Robert Cervero

February 28th from 5:30 - 8:00

UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute auditorium

RSVP & More Info



UCLA transportation scholar Martin Wachs’ seminal 1973 paper on accessibility as a social construct continues to influence urban planning policy and practice a half-century later. It also shaped a generation of research on, broadly speaking, the ‘transport-land use connection’, including his PhD student, Robert Cervero.

Peer-Assisted Reflections on Student Learning (PAROSL)

UCLA’s Peer-Assisted Reflections on Student Learning program--or PAROSL--is a research-based program designed to help faculty boost their teaching dossier and hone their pedagogy. PAROSL focuses on equitable teaching: student-centered instruction and inclusive practices. Faculty participate in pairs to support—not evaluate—each other through reciprocal observation of lessons and the implementation of an innovative teaching strategy. Engagement in PAROSL spans a quarter, and faculty typically spend a total of about thirteen hours supporting each other and improving their own practice.

What are faculty saying about the benefits of participating in PAROSL?

 “Hearing what [my partner] observed about my pedagogical practices and how it influenced student learning has made me a more aware educator. While participating in PAROSL I learned a great deal from observing [my partner’s] course, but I also learned how to observe my own teaching practice.” - Fall 2022 Participant

Instructors who complete all program requirements for PAROSL are eligible to apply for up to $1,000 to support further teaching-related professional development. Space is limited!  



Learn more and apply here for Spring 2023!

Contact the CAT team at parosl@teaching.ucla.edu with questions.

Community Instructional Transformation Initiative (CITI@CAT)

The CITI@CAT initiative is a multi-quarter structured research program offered through the Center for the Advancement of Teaching to help a group of instructors design and implement changes to their course and evaluate the impact of those changes. We expect participants to commit about 5 hours per quarter, which includes meetings as well as the preparation and evaluation of your changes. Priority will be given to UCLA instructors who are teaching undergraduate courses. You’ll build community, improve your course, and will be eligible to apply for up to $1,000 to support further teaching-related professional development. We are still accepting applications! Learn more and apply here by February 10.

Workshop: Creating Impactful Research & Writing Projects Using Library Tools

Thursday February 16 from 10-11:30am Pacific Time – VIA ZOOM

Register Here

Join the Center for the Advancement of Teaching for a panel discussion and workshop featuring instructors and librarians sharing insights about using the UCLA Library’s Writing Instruction & Research Education digital toolkit (WI+RE) to design effective projects for courses of all sizes, from large lectures to small seminars. Panelists will discuss strategies for supporting students with varying skill levels, designing micro-lessons for lecture/section and homework, breaking down large assignments–and more! During the second half of the program, attendees will be able to meet with panelists and librarians in breakout rooms to identify practical steps for incorporating WI+RE tools into their own courses. Faculty and graduate student instructors in all disciplines are welcome to attend!

Panelists:

• Michelle Rensel – Assistant Adjunct Professor of Society & Genetics and Faculty Coordinator for the Biotechnology & Society Freshman Cluster
• Laurel Westrup – Continuing Lecturer in Writing Programs and Coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogy

Apply by February 10 for the Collegium of University Teaching Fellows

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching is currently accepting applications for the Collegium of University Teaching Fellows (CUTF) program, an opportunity for UCLA's advanced graduate students to develop and teach a lower division seminar in their field of specialization. This experience serves as a “capstone” to the teaching apprenticeship, preparing graduate students for the academic job market and their role as future faculty. Fellows must advance to candidacy by Fall 2023 and be able to be employed at the level of teaching associate or teaching fellow (preferred) to be eligible to participate in the program.

Interested graduate students must submit applications to the CUTF program by 5pm on Friday, February 10th. Departments will be asked to endorse their graduate student applicants and to provide a faculty advisor before applications are sent back to the selection committee for review. Visit the CUTF program page of our website for additional details, including a complete list of eligibility requirements.

Additional recommended resources:



1. In reparations debate, UCLA students help amplify Black Californians’ voices
2. Evading Race: STEM Faculty Struggle to Acknowledge Racialized Classroom Events
3. Teaching: How Can STEM Instructors Show Students They Belong?
4. Positionality practices and dimensions of impact on equity research: A collaborative inquiry and call to the community
5. Inclusive and accurate methods for teaching sex- and gender-related topics
6. Advancing Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Organizations: A Consensus Study
7. Annual reminder for all UCLA employees, including student employees, of the duty to provide appropriate accommodation for all individuals (including students and employees) with disabilities
8. Harvard neuroscientist: The 'most underrated' skill all successful people have—'especially introverts'
9. Inclusive Teaching Begins with Authenticity | Faculty Focus

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Association for 

Biology Laboratory Education 

June 27 - 30, 2023 | University of California San Diego 

School of Biological Sciences 

Registration opens March 15th 

More Info

The Inclusive STEM Teaching Project, a NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program, is hosting a six-week Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from March 6 - April 28, 2023 via edX. Join the community of nearly 8,000 faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and staff, and register for the online course this spring. By participating in this course, you will learn how to:

• Advance your awareness, self-efficacy, and ability to cultivate inclusive classroom environments;
• Support your development as a reflective, inclusive practitioner;
• Engage in reflection and discussion around topics of equity and inclusion across a variety of institutional contexts;
• Implement inclusive teaching methods in your classes which will remove common barriers and enhance learning in STEM for all students.

Apply for the July QUBES Deep Teaching Residency

Tues. June 27- Sat. July 1 (Arrival afternoon/evening Mon. June 26, Depart afternoon Sat. July 1)

Location: Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Chevy Chase, MD

Cost: All lodging and meals at HHMI are included free of charge for participants.

• Participants are responsible for costs of transportation to/from the workshop. Travel grant opportunities will be available to applicants following notification of residency acceptance

The Deep Teaching Residency (DTR) is a year-long faculty development program in inclusive pedagogy that aims to meaningfully transform faculty mindsets and practices. ‘Deep Teaching’ is an inclusive pedagogical philosophy that seeks to engage faculty in a critical evaluation of how instructor self-awareness, students’ personal histories, and broad social structures impact the development of an equitable pedagogy. 

Included in the year-long experience is a five-day immersive in-person workshop (contingent on health and safety measures related to COVID 19), where we come together as co-learners to examine, discuss, and apply inclusive teaching theories, models, and practices.

• Prior to the workshop, participants will engage with and reflect on readings that provide a foundation for our time together.
• Participants will then gather at the workshop for interactive sessions, large and small group discussions, time to work on the development of a project, and some free time to informally socialize or take time for independent self-care (See ‘Face-to-Face Workshop at a Glance’ below).
• Following the workshop, participants will engage in a virtual learning community throughout the academic year to maintain connection, conversation, and support while implementing projects at their home institutions.

Learn more and apply here!

StEm PEER Academy

Apply Here

Are you an education professional engaged or driven to improve the preparation, participation, and contributions of those underrepresented in engineering? Would you like to join a community of like-minded professionals committed to and equipped with the resources to change the face of our national engineering landscape? The Engineering PLUS Alliance is training, empowering, resourcing, and supporting a national network of change agents. 

Upcoming Events & Trainings

Live Trainings: 

Topics include:  

• Quickstart: Preparing to Teach in Bruin Learn 
• Set Up Your Bruin Learn Site with Migrated CCLE Content 
• End-of-Term Grading in Bruin Learn & MyUCLA 
• Build Your Bruin Learn Site from Scratch Using a Template 

Office Hours are also available for individuals to drop-in to discuss advanced topics or design considerations. 

Resources for Winter

Check out these resources to get you started at your own pace:

• Recorded Webinars
• Self-Paced Training

Reminders:

• 24/7 Help is available through live chat and via phone.
• Once logged in click on "Help" from the global navigation to view all of the instructional support resources and to connect to a live person.
• Bruin Learn Support Site

For the most current job openings, please visit this link: Job Opportunities

For more information about CEILS events and resources, including a list of STEM education events from previous mailers, please visit the CEILS website at www.ceils.ucla.edu or stop by our CEILS office in 222 Hershey Hall. If you wish to be added to the CEILS mailing list for future newsletters and special announcements, please send your request to media@ceils.ucla.edu.

Please note, this monthly newsletter is circulated through many departmental listservs. Most other CEILS correspondence, including special event announcements and reminders, are sent to CEILS mailing list recipients only. If you have questions or have difficulty reading this newsletter, please email us at media@ceils.ucla.edu.