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| A group of 20 colleagues came together to explore strategies for teaching our current students to embrace the methods and challenges of scholarly research. Amanda Folk (Director of the Library), in collaboration with Regina Martin (Director of the Writing Program), led us in a discussion of the Framework for Literacy for Higher Education. We began with some brainstorming about the steps in the research process that tend to cause “bottlenecking” for our students. |
CfLT Newsletter
The posts below are from the CfLT newsletter which includes curated, research-based digital resources to support ongoing faculty development and pedagogical engagement. As of August 2025, CfLT Director Karen Spierling oversees the content. Posts from July 2020-May 2025 were compiled by previous Director Lew Ludwig.
Just One Thing
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| A long time ago now, in “City Slickers,” Jack Palance sat on a horse, balanced a droopy cigarette between his lips, and told Billy Crystal that the secret to life is “just one thing.”
We could build a whole course around the question of whether Jack Palance was right–is the secret to life focusing on one single, most important thing? (I’m |
AI-Resistant Assessments
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| “The assessment challenge AI has created is real. But in many ways, it’s also an overdue invitation to rethink how we measure learning.” Med Kharbach’s exceptionally clear and concise, 20-page “AI Resistant Assessments: A Practical Guide for Teachers” resonates with many of our campus conversations about course and assignment design in an AI era. He provides eight examples of types of assignments you might try, some brief reflection on issues to consider, and a focused set of practical tips on how to implement changes and why it matters. |
Advising Students Through Challenges
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Our first set of advising conversations for the semester provided time to share, reflect, and brainstorm with colleagues about useful strategies and goals in challenging advising conversations, ranging from getting students to make time for considering options in their class decisions to responding in the moment to trauma-informed revelations. A few key takeaways:
- Stopping to ask students about the outcome they want from a meeting helps you in terms of decision-making and time management.
Bringing the Energy to Our Student’ Reading
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| In this age of information overload, teaching can sometimes feel like a perpetual struggle to adapt to trends and changes without letting go of our own core pedagogical commitments and the value of our own experiences. A great example of this is the challenge of engaging students in reading when all the headlines and sound bytes tell us this is a losing battle. |
Slides and Transcript from Affordable Content Panel
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| If you would like to see the information that was shared at the Affordable Content Panel on January 22nd, click here to see the slides which also include a summarized transcript of what the panelists shared. Chloe Armstrong talked about her OhioLink Course redesign grant. Ashwin Lall shared about his experience publishing an affordable textbook. Rebecca Homan spoke on creating in-house materials. |
Cultivating Curiosity in the Classroom
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| We had a lively discussion last week for our Teaching Matters on “Cultivating Curiosity in the Classroom” as one of the foundations of our teaching practice. Four big themes that emerged were: getting to know your students, providing opportunities for student choice, encouraging risk-taking, and following through consistently. Strategies for engaging students included surveying them early in the semester to gauge their specific interests and allowing students to choose a “hot” or “cool” topic, concept, or person for one week of instruction or to present on. |
Setting Up Automatic System and Software Updates
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| Software updates are like oil changes for your car: critical maintenance to keep your digital systems running in an optimal state. We all know how easy it can be to put off system updates–they take up valuable computer time and can be snoozed with a single click. However, it’s important to keep up with updates for Google Chrome, your downloaded apps and software, and your operating system as updates often include bug fixes, performance and stability improvements, and patches that fix security vulnerabilities. |
AI is Good at Form, Bad at Content
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| Learning how to write involves learning how form and content work together in a piece of writing. Below is an activity that is good for helping students analyze the relationship between form and content and has the added benefit of demonstrating some limitations and possibilities of using LLMs as a writing aid.
LLMs are very good at producing the formal aspects of a writing task. |
Back to Basics
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| Last week, during Tea with Techs time, I had a great conversation with Trent Edmunds and Robert Butts about podcasts–podcasts as student projects, and podcasts more generally in the world. I didn’t go into the conversation with any particular question in mind–I didn’t have a podcast problem to fix this semester, and I wasn’t requesting immediate ETS support. |