The Teaching Collaboratory (or CoLab for short) provides BMCC faculty from across disciplines with opportunities to explore teaching and learning in collaborative and supportive ways. The CoLab consists of three interrelated programs: Peer Teaching Consultations, the Teaching Fellows program, and the SoTL Fellows program.
In the Peer Teaching Consultations program, full-time and adjunct faculty can invite a classroom visit from a consulting teacher trained in nonjudgmental reflection and feedback. The pair will then meet to talk about the visit and about teaching and learning more broadly.
In the Teaching Fellows program, participants work in small cross-disciplinary groups, including one senior faculty member who facilitates group activities. Group members observe one another’s classes and exchange descriptive, non-judgmental feedback in order to enhance awareness of their teaching and their students’ learning. Building on these insights, participants experiment with small changes in their teaching to better meet the diverse needs of their students. At the end of the program, teaching fellows have the option of continuing in the SoTL Fellows program.
In the SoTL Fellows program, participants engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) through classroom research based on their own teaching. SoTL fellows meet regularly in small groups, becoming members of a community of faculty engaged in classroom research.
