TaLT Topics
Beginning this year, the Faculty Development Center is hosting dialogues focused on timely issues in teaching and learning. In these sessions, which we are calling TaLT Topics, students, faculty, and staff will engage in meaningful conversations about topics that affect our classrooms and campus and that are important to our shared, collaborative community.
Previous TaLT Topics
Bringing Joy to Teaching and Learning
Facilitated by Dr. Jessica Swan, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education; Ashley Morin, Student in Secondary English & AnnaBelle Favre, Student in Elementary Education
The Teaching and Learning Together (TaLT) Initiative at EMU was born of the idea that education (including teaching and learning) is a relational endeavor; that is, one occurring in the context of human social relationships, and one directly affected by the quality and impact of those relationships. Furthermore, students’ connections to others, their sense of belonging or relatedness, and their connection to place (or sense of place) impact students’ sense of well-being, motivation to learn and persist, achievement and learning, retention, and degree completion. We cannot afford to ignore (or even superficially address) the power and impact of the student-faculty relationship if we are committed to rethinking education at EMU.
As partners in the improvement of our shared educational experience at EMU, this TaLT experience will offer students and faculty an opportunity to collaboratively explore our shared humanity as the basis for building and strengthening student-teacher relationships. We will engage with scholarly concepts that guide us in the process of seeing one another as whole and valued human beings; have opportunities to reflect on actively improving the conditions for teaching and learning grounded in our human needs; and identify actionable ways that we can modify the structure and expectations of courses, relations, and to facilitate holistic well-being and joy for everyone.