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 look at the semester ahead, now is an excellent time to reflect on our syllabus and other materials – do they set an inclusive tone? This article from the Teaching Professor provides an easy-to-read list of suggestions to make your materials do just that.
It is also a good time to revisit this TTT piece from Kaly Thayer, our Coordinator for Multilingual Learning, with tips on ensuring our grading and expectations do not privilege one group of students over another.
Whether you’re a fan of Apple’s hit series or not, the fictional character Ted Lasso has some words of wisdom for those teaching for the first semester or thirtieth. Check out this short piece from The Teaching Professor, What Ted Lasso taught me about my first semester of teaching.
On Saturday, December 4, the Ohio Five CODEX team, in collaboration with Denison ETS and the Library, hosted a workshop on computational text analysis and using a tool call Voyant. Most of the faculty participating in the workshop left with ideas on how they can use this digital tool to have students conduct distance reading on their texts.
As we sit down to grade that last stack of papers, did our students learn from subsequent assignments? That is, did students look at the graded work you returned and take the comments and suggestions to heart? In my experience, they more often look at the grade at the top, then move on.
In this concise piece from Faculty Focus, Julia Colella provides a self-reflection rubric she requires of her students after an essay assignment is returned.
As we head into final exams, several recent articles have reflected on the nature and need for the traditional final. In this Chronicle piece, Kevin Gannon – the tattooed professor – reflects on the nature of final exams and whether they serve the purpose we intend. In Exams Reimagined by Beckie Supiano, she shares examples of how professors are reimaging their exams.
Whether you’re a fan of Apple’s hit series or not, the fictional character Ted Lasso has some words of wisdom for those teaching for the first semester or thirtieth. Check out this short piece from The Teaching Professor, What Ted Lasso taught me about my first semester of teaching.
As due dates for those scaffolded writing projects come due, many of us are holding writing conferences with our students. This article by Paul Hanstedt in
The Teaching Professor provides his fresh approach to this process that get his student actively engaged in the conference. He requires students to take out a notebook and make three lists:
He found that thee conferences were less work, students paid greater attention, and the papers got better.
Ever want to communicate a quick idea or demonstration to your students outside of class, but an email format was cumbersome? Have access to a tablet, such as an iPad? Consider making a quick tablet capture voice-over video. Unlike a talking-head video made in something like Loom, with an iPad connected to a desktop you can create a quick voice-over video to:
This excellent website from the University of Pittsburgh instructs how to create video capture on a variety of tablets and systems.
It’s that time of year. Course evaluations are an important feedback tool that can help inform our course design. Historically, providing a set time during class provides the highest response rate. As such, if there is something I want specific feedback on, I will have a brief conversation with the class the week before. For example:
This semester, we tried <blank> which was something new for the course.
At a recent meeting with colleagues, the discussion of student workload came up. Specifically, many of us are using the best practice of creating low-stakes assignments to keep our students engaged. But if we all do this, are we overloading students?
An important distinction came up in our conversation: low stakes vs. low workload. Some interpret low stakes assignments as counting for a small percent of one’s grade.
