30 Years of FIRST

March 28, 2025

City Campus Union

The Center for Transformative Teaching (CTT) will host a special symposium celebrating 30 years of the Faculty-led Inquiry into Reflective and Scholarly Teaching (FIRST) program (formerly named the Peer Review of Teaching Project), March 28th from 9 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. at the City Campus Union. Join founders and current leaders as well as current administrators and participants to learn how FIRST can make a real impact on student success. The symposium is designed both as a celebration of FIRST and an opportunity to learn the practical benefits of the program for potential participants.

9:00	Introduction (Auditorium). Executive Vice Chancellor Mark Button will introduce the day's event.
9:10	Keynote (Auditorium) History of the program. The founders and developers of the Peer Review of Teaching Project (PRTP) program, Dan Bernstein, Amy Goodburn, and Paul Savory discuss the origins of the program, its expansion, and its success. Facilitated by Nick Monk. To be followed by a brief description of the current status of the FIRST program with its co-leaders, Jody Kellas and Eve Brank.
10:10	Break
10:30	Making the Case for the program. (Auditorium). FIRST Project co-directors, Jody Koenig Kellas and Eve Brank will facilitate a panel discussion among alumni of the Peer Review of Teaching Project/FIRST to learn how they have “made the case” for the impact of participation in FIRST on tenure/promotion, curricular changes, and teaching awards, followed by an invitation to hear from alumni in the audience on the ways in which FIRST has had a lasting impact on their careers.
11:15	Buffet Lunch with Poster Session (Ballroom).
12:10	Workshop Breakout Sessions. (Heritage and Regency Suites). Backward Design (Ajai Ammachathram, Yulia Levchenko): In this hands-on session, participants will focus on aligning learning objectives, assessments, and teaching activities. Working with peers and facilitators, participants will practice the backward design process by selecting a key learning outcome and systematically planning how to teach and assess it effectively. Student Learning as Data (Renee McFee, Amy Ort): This workshop guides participants through framing their teaching as a research project by developing specific questions about student learning in their courses. Participants will craft research questions and hypotheses about student learning, identify appropriate data collection methods, and determine relevant evidence they could gather to investigate their questions systematically. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Judith Turk, Ash Mitchell): In this introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), participants will explore how to transform their teaching questions into rigorous research projects that contribute to pedagogical knowledge in their field. Through structured brainstorming activities, participants will begin developing their own SoTL project ideas while learning about key principles of educational research design and implementation.
12:55	Speed sessions. 5-minute sessions from previous participants.
1:40	Closing remarks.