AUK Center for Teaching Excellence Hosts Workshops with Dr. Nancy W. Gleason

The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at AUK hosted a two-day workshop entitled, Trauma Informed Pedagogy: A Student-Centered Learning in a Disrupted Classroom with Dr. Nancy W. Gleason, director of the Hilary Ballon Center for Teaching and Learning and associate professor of practice and political science at New York University, Abu Dhabi. Attended by AUK faculty, Dr. Nancy emphasized best teaching practices and pedagogy to ensure students’ optimal experiences in classrooms. 

The first workshop explored challenges that resulted from global disruptions including COVID-19 and natural disasters. The session detailed how to foster trustworthiness through communication to help students address the uncertainty of such times, how to design and facilitate peer-to-peer activities to cultivate support in classrooms, and concluded with a review about the importance of building connections and fostering purpose.  

The second workshop focused on deploying in-class discussions to exercise learning objectives and engage students with the course material. The session covered instruction methods that focus on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning within disrupted classrooms. 

The Center for Teaching Excellence aims to provide AUK faculty with continuous support and resources necessary to apply modern curricula to their classrooms and promote a holistic educational culture that allows faculty to utilize technology while harnessing the best methods of teaching to ensure constructive and active learning environments.
 

Dr. Nancy W. Gleason