Tech: Open Educational Resources- Internet Archive

Are you (or your students) interested in free books, movies, and more? Internet Archive is a non-profit library that hosts 38 million books, 11 million videos, and over 2 million TV shows in addition to concert recordings, audio files, and other media. From textbooks to novels to children’s books, the collection has something for everyone. Some items are available indefinitely, while others can be checked out for a few hours or a couple weeks.

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Teaching: How are classroom discussions going?

How are class discussions going? As we enter the second half of the semester, there is a chance discussions have fallen into a routine. Both you and your students are feeling the pressures of the semester, and it is hard to keep that spark alive. This article by Joe Bookman offers some advice for making your classroom discussions more inclusive.

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Tidbit: Revitalizing the Later Years in Academe

I recently had a birthday. Maybe I am getting wistful, but this Inside Higher Ed article by Kenneth McNay had some solid advice for those of us who have been here a while. In particular, it made me think about how I can explore innovation and risk-taking, that I should try to facilitate knowledge sharing, and finally, to redefine my research productivity metrics to encourage me to explore those high-risk, innovative areas.

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Teaching and AI: Why Professors are Polarized on AI

It is safe to say I have tumbled way down the AI rabbit hole. Since January, I have developed and led 15 workshops locally, regionally, and nationally. However, I still don’t know where our faculty at Denison stands concerning AI.

To be clear, the CfLT and ETS have run a series of workshops around AI. The attendees were very engaged but few in number.

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Teaching: From the teaching archive- Midterm Course Evaluations

As we near the halfway mark, consider getting mid-semester feedback from your students. Mid-semester evaluations:

  1. If necessary, provide a chance to correct student misconceptions or make changes to the course schedule, activities, etc.
  2. Allow students to reflect on their expectations, efforts, and learning.
  3. Let students know you care about their input.

Here are some sample mid-semester evaluations you can use or adapt for your course:

  • This check-off format from Seattle University makes it easy for your students to provide specific feedback and some open-ended questions.

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Tech: A picture tells a thousand words- unique images for your course

Tech: A picture tells a thousand words- unique images for your course

There are several ways to make your course stand our for students. One way is to add images that relate to your course topic. You can change the image on your home page by going to “Pages” under the main menu. Once there, you can scroll down the photo icon to upload an image from your computer.

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Tidbit: A note from Megan Threlkeld on AI in her W101

Like many of us, I spent a lot of time over the summer reading and thinking about generative AI chatbots and what they might mean for my teaching, especially since most of my courses involve a lot of writing. Could ChatGPT answer my prompts? Did my assignments encourage students to put in thought and effort, or was I making it easy for them to farm out their work to a bot?

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Tech: Utilizing the Canvas Calendar

Students gave us positive feedback on the Canvas calendar last spring! As an instructor, you are able to add events that will appear on your students’ calendars and “to do” lists. This is a great way to communicate and remind students of important events and deadlines! These guides will quickly walk you through adding an event and adding an assignment on your course calendars. 

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