Starting the Spring Semester with Incremental Change
Welcome to spring semester! I hope your winter break offered some genuine rest. As we step into this new term, I've been thinking about the power of small changes—not dramatic reinventions or overwhelming overhauls, but modest adjustments that make our daily work more sustainable and our teaching more responsive to what our students actually need.
This semester, you'll notice some shifts in our programming at CAT+FD. These aren't radical departures; they're incremental improvements designed to meet faculty where they are. And that same principle applies to teaching practice more broadly: you don't need to rebuild your courses from scratch or adopt entirely new pedagogies to make a meaningful difference. Sometimes the most effective change is adjusting one assignment, rethinking how you use the first five minutes of class, or finding a single new way to check in with struggling students.
What "Think Small" Looks Like at CAT+FD
Here's what we're trying this semester:
Coffee & Chat Mondays continue as our low-barrier entry point. Faculty can spend time with our staff for refreshments and conversation every Monday morning. No agenda, no registration, just connection.
CAT Talk Tuesdays are our experiment in brief, focused online presentations: 20 minutes, one key concept, delivered live but recorded for asynchronous access. This month we're covering "Attendance & Participation" and "Classroom AI Policies," the teaching questions that land in our inbox most often. We're not trying to provide comprehensive coverage; we're trying to give faculty quick, research-grounded answers when they need them.
Wellness Wednesdays consolidate our walking club and contemplative practice into one memorable pattern. Same offerings, just easier to remember when they happen.
We're also maintaining our drop-in formats for those pre-semester challenges. Faculty can stop by our Brightspace and Simple Syllabus drop-ins when they need help, rather than committing to a session weeks in advance that may or may not align with when they actually hit a roadblock.
None of these changes required significant new resources. Most emerged from listening to what faculty told us about when and how they could actually engage with professional development.
The Invitation
So as you plan your own semester, I want to encourage you to think small. What's one thing you could adjust that would make your teaching feel more aligned with your values? What's one practice you could try that might lighten your load rather than add to it?
You don't need to rebuild everything. You don't need to adopt the latest pedagogy or match the innovation happening in someone else's classroom. Sometimes the most effective change is the modest adjustment that makes tomorrow's teaching a little more sustainable than today's.
Pick one thing. Try it. See what happens.
That's how sustainable improvement actually happens.
_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}