As academic year ends, faculty prep for what’s next

Just as the 2024-25 academic year concluded, Penn College faculty jumped into the 2025 Summer Teaching Institute, held May 19-20. Conducted shortly after the end of each academic year, the Summer Teaching Institute helps lay a productive foundation for an engaging return to instruction in the fall semester.

This year’s professional development featured keynote speaker Christina Katopodis, the Mellon senior research associate at the City University of New York’s Humanities Alliance. She is coauthor of the award-winning book, “The New College Classroom,” and founder of Engaged & Ready, a project that empowers faculty with inclusive and effective active learning tools.

Katopodis presented “The Future is Co-Created: Active Learning Methods and Mindsets,” sharing what the latest science of learning reveals about inclusive, collaborative learning. She shared teaching strategies that faculty can adapt effectively in any field and activities that global educators are using successfully to ensure their students’ success.

The full-day session on May 19 included a series of breakout sessions, providing attendees opportunities for direct application and workshopping of practical teaching tools, assessment strategies or equitable structures to implement immediately into their course design.

The half-day session on May 20 featured a presentation by Andrea M. Campbell, assistant dean of curriculum and instruction/interim dean of business, arts and sciences: “Active Learning in Action: Collaborative Classroom Activity Workshop.” Participants engaged in collaborative brainstorming sessions, considered instructional design learning philosophies and fostered collaboration across disciplines. 

For a truly collaborative experience, Penn College invited Lycoming College faculty to join the 2025 Summer Teaching Institute.