Open Class Celebration: Faculty Visiting Faculty Program
Do you ever feel stuck in a teaching routine? Would you like to see how your colleagues engage students in their classes? Would you like to demonstrate how you teach?
Faculty and instructional staff are invited to participate in Open Class Visits in the spirit of CETL's pillar of "making teaching and learning visible."
- View the Open Class Schedule for February 24-28, 2025
- Sign up to visit a class
- See the Key Dates below for links to sign up to open your class or visit a class
2025 Open Class Visits
- By February 10: Sign up to open your class
- February 11: Open Class Visit schedule announced
- February 19: Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium
- February 24-28: Open Class Celebration
- February 11-27: Sign up to visit a class
Note: sign-ups will close 1 day before the open class date, and each class has capacity limits. - Week of March 3: Discussion sessions for OCC participants (to be confirmed)
The purpose of the Open Class Visit program is to foster community among faculty members.
Potential benefits for participants (both visitors and hosts) include opportunities to:
- Engage with other colleagues in a pedagogical community
- Foster curiosity and prompt self-reflection
- See your colleagues in action in various learning environments
- Share how you incorporate effective and evidence-based teaching techniques and tools
- Learn new approaches to teaching and engaging students
- Experience what students feel as they are in class as learners
For faculty members opening their classes:
- Sign-up to open your class. This will let us know that you invite faculty colleagues to visit your classroom or synchronous online class. The sign-up form requests brief information about the class topic, instructional strategy or class context, and visitor capacity. It is important to keep in mind safety and your students’ learning; please adhere to the physical capacity and balance the number of visitors with class enrollment.
- A list of participants will be emailed to you 1 day in advance.
For faculty members visiting classes:
- Sign up in advance to visit a class. Registration closes 1 day before the open class date.
- Faculty members (full-time, part-time, adjunct) interested in collaboration, learning new ways of teaching, discussing challenges, and sharing experiences are invited. You are encouraged to visit classes outside of your department/program. The Open Class Visit is not for evaluating or critiquing the instructor.
- Visit open classes during the designated dates. You will receive an email confirmation of the class time and location.
- During your visit, please take care to minimize disruption to the learning environment. Engage in the discussion and activities only if invited by the host instructor. Learn something new from the lesson and take note of interesting teaching approaches.
For all faculty participants:
- Attend a session to discuss and reflect on the Open Class experience for faculty who opened their classes and those who visited.
The Open Classroom Celebration program is sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) at the University of Southern Indiana. It is based on programs at Vanderbilt University, Yale University, and Northern Illinois University.