workshops
Center for the Enhancement of learning and teaching
2025-2026 CELT Workshops
Our workshop topics include instructional design strategies, assessments, instructional technology, and teaching and learning theories. *NOTE: Meeting rooms will appear in your confirmation email after registering for the workshop.
Pedagogy Unlocked: Building Fundamentals for Lasting Relational Impact (GTAs Only)
Explore core teaching principles that go beyond content delivery to foster meaningful connections with students. Learn strategies to design and facilitate lessons that cultivate trust, engagement, and long-term learning. Leave with tools to make your teaching both effective and relationship-rich.
DATE: Monday, August 18, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Bridging the Feedback Gap: Strategies to Cultivate Students' Feedback Literacy (required)
This workshop provides the foundation for the certificate, highlighting the key features of feedback literacy, which will be fundamental to the subsequent workshops. The workshop will include content delivery, gamified interaction, small-group discussion, and an individual activity that will serve as the first deliverable in the certificate program. During this workshop, we will also:
- Define feedback and feedback literacy in higher education.
- Explore challenges students may experience in receiving or implementing feedback.
- Discover approaches for implementing feedback literacy.
DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 11:15am
Poll Everywhere: Presenter Training (ONLINE)
Join Donnie Richards for an interactive workshop designed to help you get started with Poll Everywhere. This session will walk you through the essentials of using the platform to engage students and assess their understanding in real time. During this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to:
- Log in and navigate your account
- Understand the Activities page
- Organize Activities and Folders
- Adjust settings and defaults
- Choose between Activity types
- Add Activities to Folders
- Configure Activities
- Present Activities live and asynchronously
Presenter: Donnie Richards
Zoom Link: https://polleverywhere.zoom.us/j/8344440903
DATE: Friday, September 5, 2025
TIME: 11:00am - 12:00pm
The Art of Building Rapport as a Grad Student (GTAs Only)
Discover how to create authentic, professional connections with students while navigating your unique position as a graduate instructor. We’ll explore practical communication, presence, and classroom practices that encourage student trust and participation. Build confidence in balancing authority with approachability.
DATE: Monday, September 8, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Legal Issues for College Faculty - Book Group (Session 1)
Faculty members navigate complex legal issues every day, often without realizing it. Join us for a semester-long book group on “Navigating Choppy Waters: Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know” with author Kent Kauffman, Associate Professor of Business Law. Over four interactive sessions, we will engage in small-group discussions and facilitated Q&A focusing on key themes from the book. Participants will gain critical insights and deepen their understanding of legal issues in higher education, while Kent provides expert guidance to help unpack these issues.
- Contribute to small-group discussions by sharing relevant experiences, examples, or perspectives related to the session’s discussion questions.
- Engage in Q&A sessions with the author by posing questions, offering clarifications, or responding to prompts.
- Collaborate with peers to explore multiple perspectives on legal issues in higher education.
- Synthesize discussion insights in a written reflection that connects the book’s themes to their own professional context.
DATE: Tuesday, September 9, 2025
TIME: 3:15pm - 4:30pm
REGISTER: If you're interested in participating in this book group, you must submit this request form. Space is limited, and participation depends upon your availability.
Rewiring Motivation: Teaching Gen Z in an age of Disconnection
Engaging today’s students brings the unique challenge in that they often navigate learning in a world of constant distraction and digital saturation. Participants in this workshop will examine the unique motivators, challenges, and values shaping Gen Z, along with evidence-based approaches to foster genuine connection and drive. Through discussion and hands-on activities, faculty will leave with tools to reframe motivation and create learning environments that inspire focus, curiosity, and persistence.
DATE: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Feeling Our Feedback
This workshop focuses on the feelings that students have when they receive feedback. It recognizes how emotional reactions can challenge feedback usage. During this workshop, we will also:
- Recognize and analyze emotional responses to feedback.
- Explore the role of emotion in driving students’ future development.
DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 10:50am
Re-View: Considering Your Academic Identity and Purpose
Faculty engage in structured reflection about their career trajectory, values, and energy levels. Using a validated burnout inventory (e.g., Maslach Burnout Inventory or Oldenburg Burnout Inventory), participants identify what energizes and drains them, preparing for deeper exploration in subsequent sessions.
DATE: Thursday, September 18, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Foundations for Effectively Measuring Student Learning (Required)
In this foundational workshop, we will explore an evidence-based process for collecting, synthesizing, and evaluating information to measure student learning. As we apply the 5-step process to our own subjects, we will look for opportunities to enhance student learning, as well as our own satisfaction with the assessment process. By the end of this workshop, we will:
- Recognize the purpose and importance of using a systematic process to measure student learning.
- Examine the alignment between course assignments and desired learning outcomes.
- Identify opportunities to enhance student learning through diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment practices.
DATE: Monday, September 22, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 11:45am
Feeling the Impact: Emotions, Growth, and Community-Engaged Learning
This workshop focuses on the feelings that students may have when receiving feedback from a community partner in work-based learning experiences, which helps the faculty prepare for potentially challenging situations. During this workshop, we will also:
- Recognize and analyze emotional responses to feedback.
- Explore the role of emotion in driving students’ future development.
DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 10:50am
Legal Issues for College Faculty - Book Group (Session 2)
Faculty members navigate complex legal issues every day, often without realizing it. Join us for a semester-long book group on Navigating Choppy Waters: Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know with author Kent Kauffman, Associate Professor of Business Law. Over four interactive sessions, we will engage in small-group discussions and facilitated Q&A focusing on key themes from the book. Participants will gain critical insights and deepen their understanding of legal issues in higher education, while Kent provides expert guidance to help unpack these issues.
Objectives:
- Contribute to small-group discussions by sharing relevant experiences, examples, or perspectives related to the session’s discussion questions.
- Engage in Q&A sessions with the author by posing questions, offering clarifications, or responding to prompts.
- Collaborate with peers to explore multiple perspectives on legal issues in higher education.
- Synthesize discussion insights in a written reflection that connects the book’s themes to their own professional context.
DATE: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
TIME: 3:15pm - 4:30pm
REGISTER: If you're interested in participating in this book group, you must submit this request form. Space is limited, and participation depends upon your availability.
Engaging Silent Learners
We often lean heavily on students who readily participate in our classrooms. At times, this participation (or lack thereof) can influence our perspective of a student's ability and or engagement in the educational process. In this workshop, we will explore why students may or may not readily participate and discuss strategies for engaging more students.
DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
From Feedback to Feed-Forward: Fueling Faculty Success
This workshop discusses how feedback can be used to propel someone forward. We will focus on the faculty perspective on feedback they may have received on their own work. During this workshop, we will also:
- Recognize how feedback drives future learning and outcomes.
- Develop effective feedback with QM’s model for helpful recommendations.
DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 10:50am
Re-Fresh: Preparing Your Mind and Schedule for Cognitive Renewal
Faculty will explore principles from Cal Newport’s Deep Work alongside strategies for resisting the “tyranny of the urgent” in academia. Through reflection and practical exercises, they will identify distractions, time-fragmenting habits, and cultural narratives that drive busyness. Participants will develop intentional approaches to structuring their time and mental energy—supporting deeper focus, sustainable productivity, and renewed engagement with their teaching, research, and service.
DATE: Thursday, October 9, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Building Good Habits: The Necessity of Self-Care and Time Management (GTAs Only)
Teaching is demanding—your habits as a grad student can make or break your success. Learn from the experiences of second-year grad students in a panel presentation and Q&A format. Our focus will be on developing the skills to prioritize self-care, manage schedules effectively, and set boundaries that sustain energy and focus.
DATE: Monday, October 13, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
From Feedback to Feed-Forward: Tailoring Feedback for Maximum Impact
This workshop discusses how feedback can be used to propel students forward. We will focus on the student perspective and how feedback can move them forward in their education. During this workshop, we will also:
- Recognize how feedback drives future learning and outcomes.
- Develop effective feedback with QM’s model for helpful recommendations
DATE: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 10:50am
Poll Everywhere: Presenter Training 1 (ONLINE)
Join this interactive webinar designed to help you get started with Poll Everywhere. This session will walk you through the essentials of using the platform to engage students and assess their understanding in real time. During this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to:
- Log in and navigate your account
- Understand the Activities page
- Organize Activities and Folders
- Adjust settings and defaults
- Choose between Activity types
- Add Activities to Folders
- Configure Activities
- Present Activities live and asynchronously
Presenter: Katie Jia
Zoom Link: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/my/katiejia
DATE: Friday, October 24, 2025
TIME: 9:00am - 10:00am
Exam Design: A Comprehensive Approach for Student Success
In this workshop, we will explore testing practices that not only help us effectively measure student learning but also help students develop skills for exam success. We will discuss several key topics related to exam design, including test-item construction, exam blueprints, exam analysis, and exam wrappers. By the end of this workshop, we will:
- Use blueprinting to evaluate an exam’s content coverage and difficulty.
- Develop test items that measure various levels of learning.
- Use item analysis to inform our understanding of student performance and exam effectiveness.
- Design exam wrappers that promote students’ future success.
DATE: Monday, October 27, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 11:15am
Legal Issues for College Faculty - Book Group (Session 3)
Faculty members navigate complex legal issues every day, often without realizing it. Join us for a semester-long book group on “Navigating Choppy Waters: Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know” with author Kent Kauffman, Associate Professor of Business Law. Over four interactive sessions, we will engage in small-group discussions and facilitated Q&A focusing on key themes from the book. Participants will gain critical insights and deepen their understanding of legal issues in higher education, while Kent provides expert guidance to help unpack these issues.
- Contribute to small-group discussions by sharing relevant experiences, examples, or perspectives related to the session’s discussion questions.
- Engage in Q&A sessions with the author by posing questions, offering clarifications, or responding to prompts.
- Collaborate with peers to explore multiple perspectives on legal issues in higher education.
- Synthesize discussion insights in a written reflection that connects the book’s themes to their own professional context.
DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
REGISTER: If you're interested in participating in this book group, you must submit this request form. Space is limited, and participation depends upon your availability.
Navigating Power Dynamics in a Student-Instructor Relationship
Whether we like it or not, power dynamics impact our classrooms. Titles, roles, attitudes, and demeanor all contribute to the classroom mix of power. How we engage with this power impacts our learning environment. In this workshop, we will explore the seven types of power: legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, referent, information, and connection (French and Raven, 1959), how this power is derived and the impact it may have in our classroom.
DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Re-Connect: Embracing Collegiality in a Disconnected World
Collegial relationships are more than just pleasant workplace interactions—they’re essential to job satisfaction, resilience, and long-term success in academia. In this session, we’ll explore how authentic professional connections can enhance collaboration, reduce burnout, and create a stronger sense of belonging. Through discussion and practical strategies, you’ll learn how to cultivate trust, navigate differences, and contribute to a positive departmental and campus culture.
DATE: Thursday, November 6, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Motivating the Gen Z Learner (GTAs Only)
Understand the values, learning styles, and motivators of today’s students. Explore strategies to spark curiosity, foster engagement, and create relevance in your teaching. Learn how to meet Gen Z where they are while encouraging them to stretch and grow.
DATE: Monday, November 10, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Legal Issues for College Faculty - Book Group (Session 4)
Faculty members navigate complex legal issues every day, often without realizing it. Join us for a semester-long book group on “Navigating Choppy Waters: Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know” with author Kent Kauffman, Associate Professor of Business Law. Over four interactive sessions, we will engage in small-group discussions and facilitated Q&A focusing on key themes from the book. Participants will gain critical insights and deepen their understanding of legal issues in higher education, while Kent provides expert guidance to help unpack these issues.
- Contribute to small-group discussions by sharing relevant experiences, examples, or perspectives related to the session’s discussion questions.
- Engage in Q&A sessions with the author by posing questions, offering clarifications, or responding to prompts.
- Collaborate with peers to explore multiple perspectives on legal issues in higher education.
- Synthesize discussion insights in a written reflection that connects the book’s themes to their own professional context.
DATE: Tuesday, November 11, 2025
TIME: 3:15pm - 4:30pm
REGISTER: If you're interested in participating in this book group, you must submit this request form. Space is limited, and participation depends upon your availability.
Idea Incubator (Required)
This is a hands-on workshop where faculty begin developing an action plan related to their feedback literacy goals. During this workshop, we will also:
- Create a simplified plan of feedback practices aligned with the initial goal.
DATE: Wednesday, December 12, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Balancing Academic Rigor with Appropriate Student Support
In this interactive workshop, we will explore the critical balance between maintaining academic rigor and providing robust student support, and how appropriate student support can lead to increased academic rigor.
DATE: Wednesday, November 12, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Poll Everywhere Course Management Training (ONLINE)
Join this interactive webinar designed to help you use the Poll Everywhere Course Management feature to track student engagement and participation and export results in Brightspace Grades. During this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to:
- Sync the course roster
- Create Poll Everywhere assignments, which can be synced as grade items in Brightspace
- Config the "assignment" based on participation and correctness
- Sync grades back to Brightspace
Zoom Link: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/my/katiejia
DATE: Friday, November 14, 2025
TIME: 9:00am - 10:00am
Assignment Design: An Alignment-Driven Approach for Student Success
This interactive workshop will explore best practices in writing assignment design, including authentic tasks, clear expectations, scaffolding, and University resources to support student success. A portion of the workshop time will be used to apply these practices to our own writing assignments through a collaborative activity with colleagues. Attendees should bring 2 copies of an existing assignment for this exercise. By the end of this workshop, we will:
- Discuss the value of authentic writing tasks that align with desired learning objectives.
- Practice developing clear criteria for evaluating student writing that effectively guide student focus and effort.
- Explore opportunities to integrate scaffolding and student support strategies into large writing tasks and assignments.
- Enhance an existing writing assignment through collaborative exchange of constructive feedback with colleagues.
DATE: Monday, November 17, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 11:15am
Re-Discover: Exploring Vitality via Generativity
Faculty are presented Erikson’s psychosocial theory, which places midlife at the crossroads of generativity vs. stagnation. Faculty will have an opportunity to explore the drift that may be inadvertently creeping into their work. Faculty will be encouraged to consider their own vitality and how they may generate new ideas by investing in the next generation—mentoring, co-authoring, and student partnerships.
DATE: Thursday, November 20, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Implementation Lab (Required)
This workshop will serve as a place for faculty to present their plan, PechaKucha style, to the group and receive feedback. During this workshop, we will also:
- Define a feedback action plan using feedback from peers.
- Develop an implementation plan for feedback.
DATE: Wednesday, December 3, 2025
TIME: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Re-Focus: Navigating Institutional Change and Role Negotiation
For those areas outside faculty control, this session introduces mindset reframing strategies drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), positive psychology, and narrative reframing. Faculty will learn to “re-author” discouraging narratives and realign with purpose.
DATE: Thursday, December 4, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm –1:15pm
Identifying and Supporting Struggling Students (GTAs Only)
Gain tools to recognize early signs of academic or personal struggles in your students. Learn how to provide supportive interventions, connect them with resources, and maintain an encouraging classroom climate. Strengthen your role as both an educator and a mentor.
DATE: Monday, December 8, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm.
Transforming Classroom Challenges
Classroom challenges impact the operation of our classroom. They either impact our ability to teach or a student's ability to learn... or maybe both. If these challenges are too many and too often, it may even impact our passion for teaching. In this workshop, we will explore the interpretation of challenges, options for avoiding them, and ways to handle challenges in a constructive manner.
DATE: Wednesday, December 10, 2025
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Teaching Identity: Affirming your Teacher Identity While Enhancing your Teaching Practice (GTAs ONLY)
Reflect on who you are as an instructor and how that shapes your teaching. Explore ways to align your values and strengths with effective teaching practices. Leave with a stronger sense of professional identity and strategies to continually refine it.
DATE: Monday, January 26, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Rewiring Motivation: Teaching Gen Z in an age of Disconnection
Engaging today’s students brings the unique challenge in that they often navigate learning in a world of constant distraction and digital saturation. Participants in this workshop will examine the unique motivators, challenges, and values shaping Gen Z, along with evidence-based approaches to foster genuine connection and drive. Through discussion and hands-on activities, faculty will leave with tools to reframe motivation and create learning environments that inspire focus, curiosity, and persistence.
DATE: Thursday, January 29, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Engaging Silent Learners
We often lean heavily on students who readily participate in our classrooms. At times, this participation (or lack thereof) can influence our perspective of a student's ability and or engagement in the educational process. In this workshop, we will explore why students may or may not readily participate and discuss strategies for engaging more students.
DATE: Thursday, February 19, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Teaching Difficult Topics: Scaffolding for Learning
Some subjects challenge students because of their complexity, abstractness, or cognitive demands. This workshop focuses on how to break down difficult content into manageable steps, building skills and understanding over time. Learn scaffolding techniques that help students progress from initial exposure to deep mastery.
DATE: Monday, February 23, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Navigating Power Dynamics in a Student-Instructor Relationship
Whether we like it or not, power dynamics impact our classrooms. Titles, roles, attitudes, and demeanor all contribute to the classroom mix of power. How we engage with this power impacts our learning environment. In this workshop, we will explore the seven types of power: legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, referent, information, and connection (French and Raven, 1959), how this power is derived and the impact it may have in our classroom.
DATE: Thursday, March 19, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Considering Multiple Perspectives: Developing a Reflective Approach to Teaching
Effective teaching requires seeing your classroom from more than one angle. Learn to integrate student, peer, and self-reflection into your practice to uncover blind spots and spark growth. Develop a reflective approach that continually enhances your teaching effectiveness.
DATE: Monday, March 23, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Balancing Academic Rigor with Appropriate Student Support
In this interactive workshop, we will explore the critical balance between maintaining academic rigor and providing robust student support, and how appropriate student support can lead to increased academic rigor.
DATE: Thursday, April 9, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Transforming Classroom Challenges
Classroom challenges impact the operation of our classroom. They either impact our ability to teach or a student's ability to learn... or maybe both. If these challenges are too many and too often, it may even impact our passion for teaching. In this workshop, we will explore the interpretation of challenges, options for avoiding them, and ways to handle challenges in a constructive manner.
DATE: Thursday, April 30, 2026
TIME: 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Brightspace Essentials Asynchronous
This self-paced asynchronous certificate helps you build your Brightspace toolbox to support your teaching and learning needs in Brightspace, our campus Learning Management System. Working in an asynchronous Brightspace course, you can complete this certificate for broad insights into Brightspace and gain a strong utility of the most common Brightspace tools, solutions, and recommended practices. You will build and manage your courses in “better and brighter” ways.
If you are interested and would like to enroll in this CELT certificate, please email Andrea Bearman, CELT Instructional Designer, at [email protected].
DATE: August 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026
TIME: This workshop is ONLINE and self-paced (asynchronous)
Brightspace Advanced Asynchronous
Ready to take your Brightspace skills to the next level? This self-paced program guides you through advanced tools and how to apply them effectively in your own courses. You’ll explore features such as Optimizing Quizzes, Intelligent Agents, Advanced Gradebook Solutions, Rubrics, Awards & Release Conditions, and Creator+.
DATE: August 1, 2025 - May 31, 2026
TIME: This workshop is ONLINE and self-paced (asynchronous)
AI for Educators Asynchronous
This self-paced asynchronous certificate aims to help instructors navigate the opportunities and challenges associated with teaching in an AI-powered Age. Through engaging workshops, participants will identify the potential impacts of AI tools on student learning and assessment design, develop effective prompting strategies for different teaching and learning related tasks, enhance activity and course design to support student learning and assessment through AI tools, identify the potential benefits of AI for instructors' efficiency, and develop AI usage policy by considering the legal and ethical dimensions of AI in education.
*If you are interested and would like to enroll in this CELT certificate, please follow these instructions:
- Log into Brightspace.
- Once you are logged in, CLICK THIS LINK. It will take you directly to the CELT Certificate Brightspace Enrollment Survey.
- Then follow the directions to enroll in the AI for Educators Asynchronous certificate. Thank you!
DATE: August 1, 2025 - May 31, 2026
TIME: This workshop is ONLINE and self-paced (asynchronous)
Workshop Alternative Plan Request
Workshop Alternative Plan Request
CELT is available to do customized workshops, including evenings and Saturdays, upon request for small groups with a minimum of four attendees.
Recorded Workshops
Explore previous workshops and webinars.
- Getting Started with Brightspace
- Using Brightspace Gradebook
- Brightspace Quizzes and Surveys
- Course Migration from Blackboard to Brightspace
- Navigating Through Brightspace
- Brightspace Similarities and Differences
- Creating Video Assignments
- Creating Assignments with Video Components
- Blackboard vs Brightspace Groups and Discussions