The posts below are from a bi-weekly digest that encapsulates a range of evidence-based best practices and cutting-edge insights on innovative teaching strategies, effective use of technology, student engagement techniques, and effective assessment, to name a few. The content, diligently curated or crafted by the director Dr. Lew Ludwig, is grounded in robust research and drawn from a wide array of innovative articles, books, and online resources. The goal is to support timely, ongoing faculty development with the most current and impactful knowledge in the field.
As we head into the fifth week of the semester, the grading has started in earnest. Are you happy with your grading process? A group of Denison faculty created a Faculty Learning Community – Alt-Grading – to consider different approaches to grading. In part, they are exploring the many facets of the term “ungrading,” which aims to focus more on the learning process and less on points.
Teachers can cultivate an academic mindset that promotes student motivation toward deep learning and resilience in the face of setbacks and challenges. Student mental mindset refers to the attitudes and beliefs that the student has about the course. This short article by our friend, Stephen Chew, outlines four essential student beliefs for a productive academic mindset that we can help build in our students.
Still wondering how to leverage the best parts of Canvas for your classes? Modules are a great way to present materials to your students. They are flexible, and you can set them up however you like. For some basics on modules, take a look at the Canvas instructor guides section on modules. Prefer a video? Here’s one that has an overview of modules.
With all the formalities of the first few weeks behind us, hopefully, your classes have settled into a routine of productive learning. How is the reading going? Often we get frustrated that students are not doing the reading we assign; reading that is critical to course discussion and understanding. The short articles Why Students Won’t Read—and What to Do about It by Chris Hakala and Want Students to Do the Reading?
I already had my first day of anxiety dream – teaching a new class in my high school classroom, notes were incomplete, and Dr. Matt Neal was there to observe me!
No matter how many times we’ve taught, we all experience some angst about that first class. To help me focus, I always reflect on Lang’s How to Teach a Good First Day of Class which lays out four fundamental principles to follow:
So whether this is your first semester at Denison or your fifteenth, give this easy-to-scan article a look for some final tips before your first class.
Canvas has so many resources to support instructors that it can be overwhelming what to choose. To make this much less daunting, ETS has curated a short list of video favorites, giving you a good start for using Canvas. Most are well under 5 mins long, and you can easily select to view only the topics that are of interest to you.
As we put the finishing touches on our syllabi, here is a quick list of things to consider to make your syllabus more inclusive from this short handout from the STEM Inclusive Excellence Collective at UNC:
Please follow the handout link for a brief explanation of each.
Whether you’ve had your first day of class or not, I always struggle with what to do with the syllabus this time of year. I want the students to use it, but I don’t want to spend valuable class time reading it to them. Find concrete ideas for how to engage students in your syllabus with the Higher Ed article, Starting off right with the syllabus.
If you accidentally delete an item from Canvas or change your mind about deleting it, all is not lost. Go to your course’s home page, and at the end of the URL, type “/undelete.” It will look like this:
https://courses.denison.edu/courses/5258/undelete
Each course has a unique number. In the example URL above, the course “Cheryl Johnson Sandbox” has the unique number “5258”.
Are you interested in incorporating inclusive teaching practices but unsure where to start? Want to see some examples of inclusive teaching practices in action? Please look at the Inclusive Teaching Visualization Project website, developed by Dr. Addy and her collaborators. View examples in a social science lecture course, STEM laboratory course, or a first-year seminar.
