Hopefully the winter break provided time for you to unwind and recharge. As we enter a new semester with its challenges, here are eight quick things you can do as you put the finishing touches on your classes to make the semester more manageable.
Tidbit – TTT
Something that may be of interest
Tidbit – Rubik’s Cube Challenge Update
Thanks to everyone at Denison and Furman for taking part in the Rubik’s Cube Challenge: An Expert Blindspot Learning Adventure! We had over 30 participants. Happy to report that 11 Denison faculty can now successfully solve the cube, several in under 2 minutes! But the real learning was understanding what it is like to be a novice learning, and how this experience will help inform our teaching and address our expert blindspots.
Tidbit – Black History Event Calendar
Tidbit – How to Look “Professorial” On Zoom
A recent Chronicle article suggested tips for looking “like a professor” on Zoom. Watch Dr. Andrew Ishak, of Santa Clara University, push back on this nonsensical notion in this humorous video.
Tidbit – Helping Students Finishing Strong
In our recent faculty meeting, we were encouraged to help out students finish strong. What can we do in the next few weeks to help our students successfully cross the finish line? This bulleted article from Faculty Focus tackles six scenarios you may be experiencing in your classes including:
- There are several students who have multiple missing assignments, despite the fact that you send frequent reminders and have increased communication in your class.
Tidbit – Avoiding Faculty Burnout
2020 has been a challenging year. Four helpful tips in this Chronicle article to help avoid burnout.
Tidbit – Reading the Zoom Room With Zoom Polls
Many of us are used to “reading our classroom” – getting a pulse of where our learning community is. We quickly track our students’ understanding of an idea or topic by their body language and facial expressions, or questions asked.This semester, with masked students in the hybrid setting and remote students a small image on our screen, we cannot get a clear sense of our students’ comprehension.
Tidbit – Halfway there – time to consider a course correction?
We’ve made it past the halfway mark! As we reflect on the first half of the semester, now is a good time to pull out the syllabus to check what is working and what might need tweaking. This article from The Chronicle shows how the mid semester course correction is a useful and productive exercise.
Tidbit – send us those tips
As we begin the second half of the semester, I am amazed at the many useful pieces of advice I’ve received from faculty:
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- using your iPhone as a lapel mic
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- how YouTube will automatically divide your videos into chapters if you give time intervals in description
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- having students sign into chat to take attendance, etc.
Have some tips of you own that you would like to share?
Tidbit – share your story
Tell Us [The Chronicle] What It’s Like Teaching During the Pandemic: The fall semester is underway on most campuses. So, how is it going? Whether you are teaching in person, in hybrid form, or fully online, we would like to hear your stories. Were you prepared for what you’re handling now? If not, what has been unexpected?