Have you seen videos or heard from other Denison faculty members about Jamboard, but are still unsure if it’s for you? ETS has this new blog post that explores why and how to use Jamboard with your classes. It also includes a video series titled “Easy, sticky, engaging learning with Google Jamboard” by Matt Miller from Ditch that Textbook that is worth watching.
Teaching, Tech, and Tidbits Digest
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.
Teaching – Midterm Course Feedback
Nearing the half-way point, time to get some feedback from students on how our classes are going. Here are three templates to consider (feel free to edit as your own):
- This form from Dr. Annabel Edwards, Chemistry, that we shared last year. Uses a number of Likert scales.
- A newer form from Annabel based on some suggestions for The Chronicle.
Faculty Development Resources
The Center for Learning and Teaching can provide resources and information to support faculty development programs and faculty, administrators, and governance groups that address learning and teaching.
Classroom Teaching Observation and Formative Evaluation of Teaching
Early Career Faculty Learning
This seminar is designed for all first-year or new faculty. The goals are to build community and engagement among new faculty, provide substantive discussions about processes of learning and teaching, and generate collaborative support regarding teaching practices that best suit each individual’s courses, discipline, and goals.
Teaching and Learning Resources
A renewed interest in research on learning and teaching has greatly expanded the range of scholarship and resources that are focused on the intersection of learning, teaching, and pedagogy in higher education. Resources for a variety of topics are linked below and in the navigation menu.
In addition, faculty as well as colleagues in other offices and programs can contact me for help in identifying specific resources and scholarship on learning and teaching for their use including, for example, issues that address faculty development, academic advising, teaching and course evaluations, curriculum assessment, and measures of student academic achievement.
Pedagogy Practice Projects
Pedagogical Practice Projects (PPP) is a faculty development initiative supported by Denison’s Center for Learning and Teaching. PPP offer full-time faculty the opportunity to design, implement, and evaluate a new innovative pedagogy for a course that will be taught in the academic year. These projects will generate pedagogical innovations and significant teaching changes that deepen student learning and skills, enhance teaching effectiveness, and create alternative teaching or curricular approaches that contribute to Denison’s mission.
Post-Tenure Faculty Evaluation (Including Self-Reflection)
(1) The Idea Paper (Cashin) is a good article to read first as it provides a thorough overview of the faculty review process, in general. (Recommended)
Smith’s article (Peer Collaboration: Improving Teaching through Comprehensive Peer Review) focuses on the role of peer review in formative evaluation of teaching and provides an excellent overview of the rationale, components and procedures, and challenges and opportunities of peer review (and contrasts formative versus summative evaluation).
Teaching – Vaccinate Against Cheating With Authentic Assessment
As we enter week five of the semester, many of us are thinking about assessments like tests and quizzes. Remote instruction has made us rethink the purpose and use of tests, and whether we are “testing” the right things.
The graphic above demonstrates the notion of authentic assessment, which is
“Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively.
Tech – Student Presentations, Pandemic Style
With the semester underway, many students have been working on a variety of traditional projects that require modifications in order to be possible during these strange times. One of those types of traditional projects is the classic student presentation. See this ETS blog post for resources on approaching student presentations. It includes a video TechTip on Student Virtual Presentations, another video Introducing Denison’s One Button Studio, which is located in the library, and other resources that ETS has available for faculty members trying to adapt student presentation projects.
Teaching – Peer Grading and the Testing Effect
How to improve student performance on tests? This was a tough nut to crack for Dr. Ayana Hinton. After reading Make it stick: the science of successful learning, she tried something called the testing effect – a technique shown to increase long term retention. When that did result in the gains she wanted, she included peer grading.