FACULTY & INSTRUCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional development workshops that empower college educators with purposeful, collaborative, actionable learning experiences for the classroom.
Whether you're leading a course, a department, or a teaching initiative, we’ll help you build on what’s working and empower students to lead, learn, and thrive in and beyond the classroom.
Led by experts with decades of teaching and leadership experience in higher education, our workshops empower educators to develop instructional strategies, collaborate with peers, and create plans they can immediately implement into the curriculum and classroom learning experience.
Let’s get to work.
Discover our single session and multi-session workshops.
Single Session Workshops
Designing a Career-Connected Syllabus for Undergraduate Learners
Infuse career development into your curriculum and make career skill-building transparent by mapping course learning to career competencies and integrating career-relevant language in your syllabus.
Time
90 minutes
Who Should Attend?
Teaching Faculty
Teaching Coaches & Mentors
Other Academic Staff
Description
Students gain career-relevant skills in your course—do they know it?
In this hands-on workshop, you'll explore how small shifts in your syllabus language and structure can make a big difference in helping students recognize and articulate the transferable competencies they're building in your undergraduate courses.
Through guided mapping and strategic wording, you’ll align course objectives, key learning experiences, and assessments with career readiness competencies—without overhauling your curriculum.
You'll walk away with clear strategies, sample language, and a revised syllabus section that puts career skills front and center for your students.
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will:
Explain how increasing transparency in course materials supports student awareness of transferable career competencies.
Identify where existing course learning outcomes, assignments, and activities already align with career readiness competencies.
Apply a visual mapping tool to connect course elements with specific career competencies.
Revise syllabus language to make career skill development more explicit and accessible to students.
Explore other strategies for reinforcing career readiness messaging throughout the course—not just in the syllabus.
Sample Agenda
10:30 – 10:40 AM | Framing the Why
Explore the power of transparency in syllabus design and how it helps students recognize and articulate the real-world value of course learning. Grounded in research on student motivation and career readiness.
10:40 – 11:00 AM | Career Competency Mapping: What’s Already There?
Through guided reflection and small-group discussion, identify where existing course objectives, activities, and assessments align with one or more career competencies. Participants will use a simple visual mapping template.
11:00 – 11:20 AM | Language that Connects
Review real examples of syllabus language that clearly names career skills. Practice rewriting or drafting a segment of your own syllabus (e.g., learning objectives, outcomes) using competency-connected language.
11:20 – 11:35 AM | From Syllabus to Student
Discuss ways to reinforce these connections throughout the course (not just on paper). Explore 2–3 strategies for reinforcing competency language in class discussions, assignment introductions, and student feedback.
11:35 – 11:55 AM | Make & Share: Peer Feedback Round
Participants share one updated syllabus segment or mapped course element and give/get feedback in small groups.
11:50 – 12:00 PM | Wrap Up & Next Steps
Recap key takeaways and brainstorm strategies to use the mapping tool and language bank in future course design.
Bring a Workshop to Your Campus!
(Western, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and Central Regions of NYS only).
Leverage Self-Assessment for Engagement & Career Readiness in the Classroom
Develop custom self-assessment tools to help students connect what they’re learning to who they’re becoming and their own future readiness.
Time
120 minutes
Who Should Attend?
Teaching Faculty & Instructors
Instructional Designers and Curriculum Developers
Centers for Teaching & Learning Directors/Staff
Description
Helping students recognize the real-world relevance of their learning doesn’t happen by accident—it starts with intentional reflection and continues throughout the term.
In this interactive workshop, you’ll explore strategies to embed student self-assessment and reflection into your course as a tool for developing metacognitive awareness, motivation, and future-ready mindsets and skills.
Working with a customizable Student Self-Assessment Toolkit developed by B Optimal, you’ll identify key reflection points across your course, select from a bank of practical tools and prompts, and begin drafting student-facing messaging that makes learning visible and valuable.
You'll leave with a personalized toolkit you can begin using right away to help students connect what they’re learning to who they’re becoming.
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will:
Understand how student self-assessment and reflection support learning, engagement, and career readiness.
Identify key points in a course where structured reflection can serve as meaningful, formative learning moments.
Explore and customize tools from the Student Self-Assessment Toolkit.
Develop an action plan to implement their customized toolkit.
Sample Agenda
10:30 – 10:45 AM | Framing the Why
Explore how reflection supports learning that lasts—building metacognitive skills and helping students make connections between coursework and future-ready career skills and mindsets.
10:45 – 11:00 AM | Toolkit Walkthrough
Get to know the Student Self-Assessment Toolkit, including a retrospective question bank, interactive reflection strategies, and entrance and exit tickets.
11:00 – 11:25 AM | Map Your Milestones
Focus on one course. Identify 3–4 key reflection points across the term where students can pause, assess progress, and link their learning to broader goals.
11:25 – 11:35 AM | Break
11:35 – 12:15 PM | Build & Customize Your Toolkit
Select and adapt tools that align with your teaching goals and student needs. Draft prompts, activity structures, and formats that fit your course.
12:15 – 12:30 PM | Wrap-Up & Implementation Planning
Finalize your personalized toolkit. Identify where you’ll begin this term, and explore ways to expand its use in future courses and instructional touchpoints.
Bring a Workshop to Your Campus!
(Western, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and Central Regions of NYS only).
Activate Curiosity & Build Career Readiness with IBL Strategies
Practical inquiry-based learning (IBL) strategies to foster student engagement, learning & future readiness in your classroom.
Time
120 minutes
Who Should Attend?
Teaching Faculty - Higher Education
Teaching Mentors & Coaches - Higher Education
Description
Curiosity is one of the most powerful drivers of learning—and one of the clearest links between the classroom and future readiness.
In this hands-on session, you’ll explore flexible inquiry-based learning (IBL) strategies designed to spark engagement, deepen learning, and build transferable skills like critical thinking, communication, and self-direction. You'll experience selected strategies in action, identify where they fit in your own teaching, and leave with a practical plan to implement them right away.
Whether you’re new to IBL or looking to refresh your approach, this session will equip you with adaptable tools you can use across courses and disciplines—without redesigning your entire course.
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will:
Understand how inquiry-based learning (IBL) strategies support both academic learning, career readiness, and other mindsets and skills students need to be future-ready.
Explore and experience select strategies from the IBL Strategies Choice Board.
Identify opportunities to integrate inquiry-based techniques into their own teaching practices.
Begin adapting one or more strategies for an upcoming assignment, lesson, or activity.
Develop an action plan to implement and reflect on the use of IBL in their course.
Sample Agenda
10:30 – 10:45 AM | Setting the Stage
Get oriented to the goals of the session and explore how inquiry-based learning (IBL) can spark deeper engagement and support future-ready skill development across disciplines.
10:45 – 11:00 AM | Exploring the IBL Strategies Choice Board
Discover 12 flexible, research-informed teaching strategies designed to build student curiosity, ownership, and transferable career competencies—without overhauling your course.
11:00 – 11:30 AM | Experience the Strategies in Action
Take part in interactive activities using select strategies from the board. See how they work, reflect on their potential, and connect them to key student learning goals.
11:30 – 11:40 AM | Break
11:40 – 12:00 PM | Applying Strategies to Your Course
Identify an upcoming course topic, assignment, or lesson where an IBL technique could add depth, spark curiosity, or build student autonomy. Begin adapting it on the spot.
12:00 – 12:20 AM | Planning for Integration
Develop a practical, short-term plan to test one or more strategies in your course this term. Consider timing, scaffolding, and how you’ll introduce the approach to students.
12:20 – 12:30 PM | Experience the Strategies in Action
Reflect on how these strategies can enhance not only student learning—but also your own teaching practice.
Bring a Workshop to Your Campus!
(Western, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and Central Regions of NYS only).
Small Shifts, Big Impact: Strategies for Career-Connected Coursework
High-impact, small-shift ways to make future-ready career skills and their development more visible, valuable, and verbal in course-embedded projects and assignments.
Time
90 minutes
Who Should Attend?
Teaching Faculty - Higher Education
Teaching Mentors & Coaches - Higher Education
Description
Want to help your students connect what they’re learning to the skills and practices that empower future success—whatever career paths they take?
In this hands-on session, you’ll explore practical, low-lift strategies for making future-ready career skills visible in your assignments, discussions, and feedback.
Walk away with adaptable ideas you can use right away to help students recognize, reflect on, and communicate the value of their learning. You’ll gain practical strategies you can apply across your course to make future-ready career connections more visible, relevant, and lasting.
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will:
Understand career readiness competency frameworks and how this connects to assignment design.
Practice identifying competencies embedded in student assignments.
Adapt an existing assignment or project to make career competencies and their connections more explicit.
Explore opportunities to make these connections visible, valuable, and verbal for students throughout the assignment cycle.
Craft syllabus-ready language that communicates how the assignment supports future-ready skill development.
Sample Agenda
10:30 – 10:40 AM | Setting the Stage
Get oriented to the goals of the session and begin thinking about how your assignments support student development beyond content mastery.
10:40 – 10:55 AM | Exploring the Career Readiness Framework
Learn how the NACE competencies connect to academic work, and why making these links explicit matters for your students' future success.
10:55 – 11:10 AM | Analyzing Assignments Through a New Lens
Review examples and practice identifying career readiness competencies embedded in academic assignments.
11:10 – 11:25 AM | Redesign in Action
Begin applying what you've learned by refining one of your own assignments to more clearly support and communicate future-ready learning outcomes.
11:25 – 11:35 AM | Break
11:35 – 11:50 AM | Making Career Readiness Visible to Students
Explore strategies for reinforcing competency development across the assignment lifecycle—from the syllabus to classroom conversations.
11:50 – 12:00 PM | Planning for Impact
Wrap up by identifying next steps for your own course and how to apply what you've learned to future assignments and teaching practices.
Bring a Workshop to Your Campus!
(Western, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and Central Regions of NYS only).
CREATE A CUSTOM READY-TO-USE PLAYBOOK!
Build a Playbook for Your Course: A 5-Session Workshop
Translating Social Science Learning into Future Readiness
A 5-session faculty development workshop designed for social science educators who want to empower students to connect classroom learning to their future success.
Walk away with practical tools, shared language, and renewed confidence that you’re preparing students for what’s next and empowering them to connect your course to their future.
Who Should Attend?
Social Science Faculty & Instructors
Academic Department Leaders
Program Directors
Centers for Teaching & Learning Leaders Teaching Mentors & Coaches
General Education Faculty
Other Academic Leadership
Make Learning Visible, Valuable, and Future-Ready
STARR
with the
Storytelling Suite
TM
The STARR Storytelling Suite™ from B Optimal helps students reflect on what they’ve done, recognize the skills they’ve gained, and share clear, transferable stories for interviews, resumes, and real-world growth.
Flexible tools, behavior-based frameworks, and simple prompts — ready to use in the classroom, advising, or coaching.