Exploratory Teaching Groups (ETGs) provide faculty and instructors a collaborative framework to explore and discuss ideas, issues, and challenges in their teaching, with the goal of developing new practices, resources, or other educational interventions. The following ETGs will be open to participation from faculty & instructors at the University of Chicago.
We invite you to explore their projects below and fill out this interest form to get involved.
Facilitated by Selma Yildirim, Associate Instructional Professor, Mathematics and Michael Hernandez, Instructional Designer, Academic Technology Services
Open to all faculty & instructors
This ETG aims to bridge instructor and student understanding about the appropriate use of AI tools in the learning process and the establishment of norms in the classroom community. This ETG’s participants will engage with current research in order to learn about how technology changes human behavior and influences thinking, consider factors affecting Gen AI tools that impact their teaching, develop ways of using AI in their classrooms that encourage learning and build positive thinking practices, and contribute to resources that are helpful to other educators.
Get Involved: This ETG’s first event will take place on Thursday, October 16 from 1:30pm-2:45pm in Wieboldt 310 D/E or on Zoom.
Facilitated by Britni Ratliff, Senior Instructional Professor and Associate Master, Physical Sciences Collegiate Division, and Director of STEM Pedagogy for the Physical Sciences Division and Zsuzsanna Szaniszlo, Senior Instructional Professor, Neubauer Phoenix STEM Director
Open to faculty and instructors in STEM disciplines
Participants in this ETG will learn about the motivating pedagogies, design, and implementation of existing Collaborative Learning activities in PSD and BSD, and will engage in discussions regarding the adaptation of these practices to their own teaching across the disciplines. We plan to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities regarding departmental and individual adaptations, and available institutional support and resources.
Facilitated by Agnes Malinowska, Assistant Instructional Professor, Master of Arts Program in the Humanities and Ella Wilhoit, Associate Instructional Professor, Master of Arts Program in Social Sciences
Open to faculty and instructors with advising and mentoring duties in MAPSS, MAPH and CIR
This ETG centers around a pedagogical exploration of the unique challenges and affordances of mentorship and advising in one-year MA programs. We root our inquiry in a discussion of Maria Lamonaca Wisdom’s How to Mentor Anyone in Academia (Princeton UP, 2025). Using the reading as a point of departure, we will work to cultivate reflection about advising practices and goals for addressing the mentoring needs of MA students. The ETG’s primary year-long goal is to facilitate an exploratory space for eliciting shared strategies for successful and sustainable mentorship in the one-year MA in relation to existing scholarship on mentorship.
Get Involved: This ETG’s fall meetings will take place on October 30 and November 13, 2:30PM - 3:50PM in Wieboldt 310 D/E.
Facilitated by Matt Smith, Senior Instructional Professor and Director of the French Language Program, Romance Languages and Literatures and Rebecca Petrush, Instructional Professor of French, Romance Languages and Literatures
Open to all language faculty and instructors
Our ETG explores the multiliteracies framework in language teaching, an approach that uses humanistic tools like close reading, critical thinking, and cultural analysis in the language classroom. We'll use Kate Paesani and Mandy Menke’s Literacies in Language Education as a starting point for cross-language conversations on implementing multiliteracies approaches in the classroom. Using this approach will enhance students’ overall learning while also serving the university’s teaching mission at a time when defending the value of the humanities is more crucial than ever.
Get Involved: This ETG’s Autumn meetings will take place on Monday, October 20 and Monday, November 10, 1:30PM-2:20PM.
Facilitated by Abbie Reardon, Executive Director of the Writing Program and Senior Instructional Professor, The College
Open to Humanities Core and ICA faculty and instructors
This ETG addresses the pedagogical need to support instructors as the College phases in WRIT 10100, “Inquiry, Conversation, Argument” (ICA), as the new Core writing requirement. As this curricular change is implemented over the next three years, many instructors—in the HUMA Core, especially—will encounter new challenges related to effective writing instruction, assessment, and integration of writing pedagogy across their sequences. Our group provides a collaborative, supportive forum where faculty and instructors can share strategies, discuss concerns, and develop innovative teaching practices related to teaching and learning with writing in the Core. By the end of the academic year, our ETG will have empowered instructors to more confidently and effectively teach writing within the new Core framework.
Facilitated by Bel Olid, Assistant Instructional Professor in Catalan and Spanish, Romance Languages and Literatures
Open to all faculty, instructors, and graduate student instructors
There is a need on campus for a dedicated space for faculty to build a deeper, more critical understanding of queer pedagogy, a framework that challenges the nature of knowledge, power, and learning. This ETG serves as a meeting point for a cross-disciplinary group of instructors to engage with the core theories that inform this work, as well as a low-stakes entry point for faculty interested in transformative pedagogy. Participants will finish the year with a robust theoretical vocabulary and a supportive peer network, which will empower members to approach their pedagogy with greater critical awareness in the future and enhance their teaching practices.
Get Involved: This ETG’s first event will take place on October 24, 11:30am-12:20pm, in Wieboldt 310 D/E.
Facilitated by Borja Sotomayor, Senior Instructional Professor, Computer Science and Valerie Levan, Senior Instructional Professor, Humanities Collegiate Division
Open to all faculty and instructors
Using Specifications Grading, an alternative to traditional grading, can improve our teaching experience and relieve students’ anxiety about grades. Incorporating it into a well-designed course requires continual reflection and revision, and this ETG provides the opportunity for talking through those challenges. We provide a space for instructors to workshop how to incorporate specifications grading into their teaching, create public-facing materials that can be used by other instructors, assess the effectiveness of specifications grading in our classes, and gather data on how specifications grading affects students’ reliance on AI and their attitudes toward academic honesty.
Facilitated by Nicolas Portugal, Assistant Instructional Professor in French, Romance Languages and Literatures and Verónica Moraga, Associate Instructional Professor in Spanish, Romance Languages and Literatures
Open to all language faculty and instructors
This ETG addresses the need for more structured opportunities for peer observation and reflective teaching across language programs. By facilitating cross-language classroom visits and guided discussions, the project encourages the exchange of pedagogical strategies, strengthens community among language instructors, and supports professional growth. Over the year, we aim to build a culture of collaborative reflection that not only enhances individual teaching practices but also helps identify and share effective approaches that can inform broader classroom instruction across departments.
Facilitated by Tessa Huttenlocher, Assistant Instructional Professor, Sociology; Diana Schwartz Francisco, Assistant Instructional Professor, History; and Patricia Heidotting Conley, Associate Senior Instructional Professor, Political Science
Open to instructors in the Humanities and Social Sciences who teach undergraduate research capstone courses or mentor Master's students working on their theses
Thesis and research capstone seminars are often students’ apex experiences in a program of study. However, there is little support for faculty and instructors who support students as they write their theses. In this ETG, we propose to conduct a review of existing pedagogical knowledge on thesis/capstone seminars and convene a group of instructors teaching these courses to synthesize these insights with concrete implications for course design and teaching practice improvement. This ETG engages the pedagogical literature on the challenges facing instructors of thesis and research capstone seminars and applies it to our own experiences with a look toward improving students’ experiences with these capstone experiences.