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Click here to visit the Center for Teaching and Learning

Essentially, teachers never stop being students. Even at the university level, there are classes or events available to upgrade or refresh professors’ skill set.

Sacramento State’s Center for Teaching and Learning is a division of the academic Affairs Department that holds lectures and workshops with this aim in mind.

The next strategic workshop ?” called brown bag discussion because, originally, attendees would bring their lunch to the affair ?” will take place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. on Thursday in the University Union Lobby Suite.

Tom Angelo, director of the University Teaching Development Center at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, will present a lecture entitled “Seven Levers for Higher Learning: Research-based Guidelines for Improving Teaching, Assessment and Learning.”

Kimo Ah Yun, an associate at the center, said Angelo creates a lively atmosphere that gets many audience members involved.

“Technically, it’s a lecture, but it’s like a workshop because, in addition to delivering a speech Dr. Angelo’s presentation is very interactive,” Ah Yun said.

Angelo is a much-published author, with three books and many articles on his resume. He graduated from Sac State with a degree in government before obtaining his doctorate from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, according to a prepared statement from the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Ah Yun said that brown bag events are scheduled about every six weeks with the intent of providing interested faculty with an opportunity to attain or maintain “teaching excellence.”

“We address teaching issues that faculty want to work through,” Ah Yun said.”For example, faculty wanted to know how to use activities in class without it becoming a free-for-all; so we put together a workshop about integrating the activities and spacing them out so they didn’t become a disruption,”

In addition to the group lectures and workshops, often suggested by faculty, the Center for Teaching and Learning works with faculty on a one-on-one basis to improve teaching techniques when requested, Ah Yun said.

Norm Erickson can be reached at [email protected]