Community of Practice: Joy, Play, and Belonging in the Classroom

Description

This Community of Practice invites faculty to explore what it means to build classrooms where students feel human, seen, and genuinely included. Participants will engage in reflective dialogue with colleagues across campus, examining how joy, play, dignity, and belonging show up — or fail to show up — in higher education classrooms.

Together, the group will co-author a toolkit for Cortland instructors, translating shared discussion into practical strategies that any faculty member can bring into their own teaching.

Professional Development Objectives

Through facilitated sessions and peer engagement, participants will explore:

• Intentional Play: What intentional play looks like in higher education, how to use it well, and why play can't simply be reduced to "gamifying" a course.
• Intellectual Respect: What intellectual respect is, and how instructors can cultivate it in their classrooms.
• Authenticity & Intersectionality: The role of the self in learning, and how instructors can support students in existing as they are.
• Dignity-Affirming Classroom Facilitation: Why honoring the human in higher education is harder than it looks, and how to balance grace and compassion with accountability.
• Belonging & Inclusion: For whom, to what ends, and under what conditions — drawing on a social model of disability to examine whose participation and learning is enabled or disabled in the classroom.

Deliverable

• Co-Authored Toolkit: A shared toolkit for Cortland instructors on joy, play, and belonging in the classroom, featured on the Center for Teaching and Learning website with full citation to all contributors.
• A hosted session at the May 2027 Teaching & Learning Conference hosted by the CTL.

Participation Requirement

Participants must be able to attend all 5 in-person sessions held throughout the 2026–2027 academic year. Meeting times will be determined based on participant availability, as indicated in the application. A stipend of $500 is provided for participation in the 5 sessions.