Teaching + Learning Lab

IAP 2026 Course (RE)Design Institute
2025-11-07 08:00 - 2025-12-21 23:59 (America/New_York)
Applications are Open!

We are pleased to announce the return of the winter Course (Re)Design Institute series for MIT Faculty and Lecturers over December 2025 and IAP 2026!

This hands-on, interactive workshop series leverages principles of course design and the science of learning to support effective, efficient course (re)design. Whether you are building a course from the ground up or refining an existing one, you will have the opportunity to explore evidence-based teaching and course design strategies to energize and strengthen student learning. Together, we will share and apply practical tools and approaches to create engaging, rigorous, and inclusive learning experiences. The workshop series provides dedicated time, structured activities, and a supportive community that can help you avoid the “spinning wheels” phase that often comes with (re)designing alone.

Each 2-hour session builds on the last, and attending the full series helps deepen connections and ideas within our growing community of practice. We realize there are many demands on your time and varied timelines for course design. To that end, we are offering flexible options for engagement with:

Two opportunities to take Workshop 1 (one in December for an early start and one in January; attendance at one of these workshops is sufficient)

An optional third workshop with multiple pathways for what you’d like to explore

We will wrap up each session with a light lunch and informal conversation, an opportunity to share insights, questions, and good company.

Workshop Schedule (2-hour sessions)

Time & Location: 10:30-12:30 followed by a light lunch, TLL Workshop Room E19-607

Thursday, 1/06 – Workshop 1: Course Design for Relevance and Rigor

Thursday, 1/8 – Workshop 2: Authentic + Aligned Assessments

Tuesday, 1/13 – Workshop 3: Active Learning

Thursday, 1/15 – Workshop 4 (Optional): GenAI-aware Assessments

Application deadline: Sunday, December 21. Successful applicants will be notified on a rolling basis.

Compass: An Experiment in Collaboration
2025-11-13 15:00 - 16:00
Lily Tsai, Ford Professor of Political ScienceAdam Albright, Professor of LinguisticsEmily Richmond Pollock, Associate Professor of Music.Leeland Fredlund, Senior Research Support Associate – Compass Course

Compass: An Experiment in Collaboration

Description

Last spring, the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) launched the pilot of its new multidisciplinary offering, 21.01 Compass Course: Love, Death, and Taxes: How to Think–and Talk to Others–About Being Human. The course is designed to expose students with the tools of the humanities and social sciences to consider persistent moral and social questions central to the human experience, ultimately guiding them in shaping the kind of humans they want to be and the society they wish to help create. Compass is the result of a multi-year collaboration involving over 30 faculty from 19 departments, led by a core SHASS team and a student advisory board. Members of the Compass team, including Lily Tsai, Adam Albright, Emily Richmond Pollock, and Leela Fredlund, will discuss the challenges and rewards of large collaborations. They will show how collaborative design resulted in a Compass pedagogy that highlights the unexpected results of multidisciplinary conversations and fosters faculty vulnerability through the teaching of unfamiliar topics, transforming the class into a true collaboration between faculty and students.

All are welcome. Registration is required.

About the Speakers

Lily L. Tsai is the Director and Founder of the MIT Governance Lab (MIT GOV/LAB) and the Ford Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as the former Chair of the MIT Faculty. Her research focuses on accountability, governance, and political participation in developing contexts, particularly in Asia and Africa. In 2014, she founded MIT GOV/LAB, a group of social and behavioral scientists and design researchers who develop and test innovations in citizen engagement and government responsiveness. By focusing on how and why citizens become active in engaging their governments, Tsai aims to bridge researcher and practitioner communities by developing learning collaborations that can respond to governance challenges using empirical evidence in real time. Tsai has written two books, When People Want Punishment: Retributive Justice and the Puzzle of Authoritarian Popularity, and Accountability Without Democracy: Solidarity Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China, as well as articles in The American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, Comparative Politics, and World Development.

Emily Richmond Pollock is an Associate Professor of Music. Emily’s research focuses particularly on conservatism, the historicization of modernist musical value, operatic institutions, and the relationship between modern musical style and convention. Emily joined Music and Theater Arts in 2012 and regularly teaches 21M.011 Introduction to Western Music and courses on opera, the twentieth century, and the symphonic repertoire, as well as the Advanced Seminar for music majors. She is currently the music major advisor and has served in the past as a Burchard Faculty Fellow and as an advisor to first-years and music concentrators. She remains an active amateur oboist, performing with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra and the Mercury Orchestra.

Adam Albright received his BA in linguistics from Cornell University in 1996 and his Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA in 2002. He was a Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 2002-2004, and is currently a Professor at MIT. His research interests include phonology, morphology, and learnability, with an emphasis on using computational modeling and experimental techniques to investigate issues in phonological theory. Other interests include: Yiddish phonology and morphology; Lakhota phonology and morphology (and many other topics in Lakhota); and the proper treatment of historical change within Optimality Theory.

Application Period for the IAP 2026 Subject Design Track
2025-12-01 12:00 - 2025-12-07 23:59
About the Program

The Subject Design Track is a sequence of three interactive 2-hour workshops focused on course design. Participants will learn to build a course by first identifying goals and then organizing assignments and content to align with these goals. Over the course of the program, participants will develop a syllabus for a course of their choice with feedback from the instructor. All workshops will take place on Zoom.

Visit our page on Grad Teaching Development Tracks to learn more.

Workshop TitleIntended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)Date & TimeDefine Your Goals and ScopeDescribe the elements of the backward design process.Identify and articulate learning outcomes for a course you wish to teach.Identify evidence of a supportive learning environment in existing syllabi.Thu, Jan 15, 2:00 – 4:00 pm (ET)Plan Your AssessmentsOutline a unit from the course you wish to teach, including unit-level learning outcomes that align with course-level outcomes and a narrative description of the unit.Identify an appropriate summative assessment method that aligns with discipline priorities and the intended learning outcomes of the unit.Design assessments that support belonging and equity. Outline a unit from the course you wish to teach, including unit-level learning outcomes that align with course-level outcomes and a narrative description of the unit.Thu, Jan 22, 2:00 – 4:00 pm (ET)Draft Your SyllabusDescribe how a student-centered syllabus differs from a content-centered syllabus.Articulate course policies that align with learning outcomes and teaching philosophy.Write a student-centered syllabus based on components developed over the course of the Subject Design TrackThu, Jan 29, 2:00 – 4:00 pm (ET)FacilitatorBen Hansberry, Associate Director for Graduate Student Teaching, Teaching + Learning Lab

How to Apply

The application window will be open from 12:00 noon Monday, December 1, through 11:59 pm Sunday, December 7. Participants from previous workshop tracks are given priority. The remaining applications will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. Applications must be received by the deadline to be considered.

Please note: The apply button will not work until the application window opens.

Apply

Application Period for the Spring 2026 Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program
2025-12-01 12:00 - 2025-12-19 23:59
About the Program

The Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program (KTCP) is an interactive workshop series intended for late-program graduate students and postdocs interested in academic careers or developing skills to support their teaching at MIT.

Application

The application includes these two short-answer questions. You may wish to draft your answers (1500 character limit for each) before beginning your application.

Describe your teaching responsibilities in the next two semesters (If applicable).

What are two teaching practices or skills you hope to learn by completing this program?

Priority will be given to applicants who are in their final year of graduate or postdoctoral studies.

The application window will be open from 12:00 noon, Monday, December 1, through 11:59 pm, Friday, December 19.

For more information about the program and frequently asked questions, please visit the KTCP page. If you have additional questions or encounter difficulty with the application, please contact Dan Nocivelli.

Please note: The button is not active until the application opens.

APPLY

Departmental Action Teams (DATs) Info Session
2026-01-16 11:00 - 12:00
Departmental Action Teams (DATs) support broad-scale and sustainable improvements in undergraduate education through either curriculum revision (what is taught) or pedagogical changes (how it is taught). This model is of particular interest to the selection committee for the Alex and Brit d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education.

In this webinar, Drs. Ruthann Thomas and Raechel Soicher will provide a brief overview of the goals, structure, and process for creating and sustaining Departmental Action Teams (DATs) to identify and implement curricular and/or pedagogical changes that improve undergraduate education. There will be ample time to ask questions and discuss potential proposals.

Additional information on the Departmental Action Team is available at https://tll.mit.edu/departmental-action-teams/. Reach out to tll-dat@mit.edu with any questions.

IAP 2026 Teaching Days
2026-01-26 08:00 - 2026-01-30 19:00
Registration is now open!

IAP 2026 Teaching Days: Monday, January 26 through Friday, January 30

Before the start of each semester, TLL offers a series of workshops for TAs and teacher trainees to help them prepare for the roles and responsibilities of teaching at MIT. Topics include giving feedback, presenting a class session, and facilitating office hours, among other practical subjects related to teaching. Please visit our Teaching Days page to view the full schedule and detailed descriptions of the workshops.
