In late-May, Meredith Brown (PhD student) completed the 2019 Johns Hopkins Teaching Institute offered by the John Hopkins Teaching Academy and held at the Homewood campus in Baltimore, MD. This is the second year a PhD student from our department attended the three-day program for graduate students and postdocs aimed at providing future faculty with the skills to hone their classroom teaching and adopt a “teaching as scholarship” mentality. Over the course of the three days, participants learn how to incorporate active learning and ongoing assessment into their courses, get peer-feedback on instruction materials, and test teaching methods by teaching their own “teachable tidbit” to other participants. The Teaching Institute is open to a limited number of participants from non-Hopkins institutions that are part of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) Network.

Of the eighty total participants, Meredith secured one of the ten spots open to CIRTL Network institutions across the country. In her “teachable tidbit”, she and her team (Sabina Henneberg and Chris Holder both from Johns Hopkins) created a game to simulate intergovernmental coordination and strategic planning to avert global disaster.

About her experience, Meredith had this to say:

“The Teaching Institute was an incredible experience. The three days were packed with valuable information and opportunities to put lessons into practice and get immediate feedback. I highly recommend this workshop to other PhD students and postdocs who are interested in improving their teaching and communication skills. Spending three days developing my teaching skills, expanding my arsenal of tools and activities, getting feedback on my course materials and teaching portfolio, and meeting other graduate students and researchers from all over the country has been an invaluable professional development opportunity. And on top of all that, it was a lot of fun!”