Open Class Connections: 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?
The Open Class Connections: Faculty Visiting Faculty initiative provides faculty members with opportunities to connect with colleagues by opening their classes and visiting in-person or online synchronous classes for one's own reflection and learning.
The purpose is to promote collaboration, learn from colleagues, explore effective ways of teaching and engaging students, discuss challenges, and share experiences. Faculty and instructional staff are invited to participate in Open Class Connections as part of CETL's support for "making teaching and learning visible."
Please note that this program is not intended for gathering feedback about your teaching; please contact CETL to learn formative feedback programs such as the FACT and class observations.
- Sign up to open your class to visitors by October 14
- See the Key Dates below for links to sign up to open your class or visit a class
Fall 2025 Open Class Visits
- By October 14: Sign up to open your class
- October 15: Open Class Visit schedule announced
- October 15-30: Sign up to visit a class
Note: Sign-ups will close 1 day before the open class date, and each class has capacity limits. - October 27-31: Open Class Connections week
The purpose of the Open Class Connections 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.