Postdocs rapidly adapted to an effective remote teaching approach in summer 2020 due to COVID-19.
"The opportunity to teach as part of the UP-CAT program was a pivotal moment for me. It allowed me to explore an interest in teaching and take ownership of it. It helped to solidify and grow that interest into so much more. Having the chance to give a lecture is one thing, but working as a team with like-minded peers to design a course curriculum, implementing backward design and team-based learning approaches, and following the students on their journey, is absolutely a whole new level. It has redefined my career goals. I encourage anyone with an interest in teaching to take advantage of this opportunity."
-Sarah Anderson
“When we approached Janet Lindsley about developing the program that is now UP-CAT, all I knew was that I wanted to gain experience in developing a course from start to finish, and that I didn’t want to lecture. I had NO idea HOW to do either of those things. Enter Janet! I learned so much about backwards design, active, student-centered learning pedagogies, and much more, all while gaining real-time experience. UP-CAT gave me an abundance of skills that I will use to make my future classroom a more equitable, engaging, and effective learning environment and I cannot sing its praises loudly enough.”
-Sara Nowinski
“This training program allows postdocs to learn the modern “team-based-learning (TBL)” teaching technique in practice. Compared to the traditional lecture-based teaching method, TBL allows more student engagement and encourages problem solving. Through teaching this class, I have gained a lot of skills in designing reverse classroom courses, moderating student group learning, team working, and tailoring for individual student needs. This program has and will continue to propel me on my way to a more successful educator.”
-Gary Zhao
“This CAT definitely UP’ed my professional life!
Learning backwards design is just opening your eyes about what you might have done wrong in your presentations, posters and even day to day communications. Ask yourself first: What would I like my audience to be able to do/ know/ learn when I am done. How do I get them there and what background do they need to be able to get there? Applying this concept in this course for curriculum design will drive this concept home for you. You will be able to apply it throughout your professional life and even improve your personal interactions. Maybe you even fall in love with teaching, just as I did? Great! No matter what… you will learn skills for life, make new friends and will be guided by an incredible passionate mentor! UPCAT changed my life!”
-Esther Nuebel
"Participating in the UP-CAT program was an extremely valuable experience for me. Designing a course from scratch with Janet's mentorship has made me more confident in my ability to develop an effective college level course. I not only learned about and applied backward curriculum design, I also got to explore a course topic that's outside my research expertise through collaboration with a team of postdocs. Figuring out what the best pre-class learning materials and in-class activities were for the students was a fun challenge, and I was able to practice various teaching techniques. Seeing the students progress from understanding the concepts and findings in research papers to being able to propose experiments for future research was especially rewarding. The UP-CAT program gave me an opportunity to explore and confirm my passion in teaching and made me more certain about my career path."
-Wei-Chun Wang