Online Learning “Being There” in Online Courses By intentionally monitoring how you project social presence, you can enhance the sense of community in your online course.
Online Learning A Roadmap for Online Course Development Putting a course online challenges educators to transform content, activities, and their approach to interacting with students.
Foundations of Learning Active Learning Methods "The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn." - Herbert A. Simon
Teaching Strategies Active Learning Outputs Active learning techniques that create an output or artifact can provide concrete evidence of your students' thinking. (One post of a three-part series.)
Teaching Strategies Active Learning with Student Groups Students working in groups is a common method to increase engagement and activate learning. (One post of a three-part series.)
Teaching Strategies Active Question and Answer Techniques Some simple structures you can use on-the-fly to engage all your learners.
Teaching Strategies Adapting the Faculty Peer Review Process to Your Context Establish goals for the observation and provide useful background information for the observer.
Experiential Learning Before the Semester To communicate the importance of linking their past experiential learning activities to your course, include an explicit learning outcome about it on your syllabus.
Foundations of Learning Building Knowledge Through Transfer Taking the time to connect knowledge as it is learned to both past and potential future contexts, substantially increases the likelihood of transfer (Engle et al., 2012).
Diversity and Inclusion Checking and Addressing Our Implicit Biases Implicit biases can cause educators to unintentionally alter the way they interact with learners.
Teaching Strategies Course Learning Outcomes Learning outcomes identify the specific knowledge and skills that one should be able to do at the end of the course.
Diversity and Inclusion Creating a Course Climate that Enhances Learning Even in the most content-focused course, climate plays a dramatic role in what, how much, and how effectively our students are able to learn.
Foundations of Learning Critical Thinking Instruction A critical-thinking attitude and specific skills are as important as the ability to transfer learning among contexts and continually re-consider how one is thinking about a given problem.
Diversity and Inclusion Culturally Inclusive Teaching Strategies We are all shaped by our pasts—our backgrounds inevitably influence what we bring to the moment, how we experience it, and what we can learn from it as individuals.
Teaching Strategies Deepen Conceptual Understanding Through Writing-to-Learn Informal writing-to-learn activities can support student learning in powerful, process-focused ways.
Teaching Strategies Developing Rubrics A rubric communicates expectations for quality. It can be used to introduce, provide feedback on, and grade assignments.
Experiential Learning Early Semester Opportunities Linking your course to growth students have done in professional contexts can help them understand your course as a professional setting.
Teaching Strategies Early/Midterm Course Evaluation Gathering feedback by the middle of the term from students can be a valuable tool.
Diversity and Inclusion Educator Spotlight: Crissy McMartin-Miller To avoid burnout among instructors and to benefit our students, being strategic and scaling back the feedback can be liberating.
Spotlights Educator Spotlight: John Bleakney Co-op Coordinator John Bleakney (COE) discusses creating a safe and open classroom climate.
Online Learning Educator Spotlight: Laurie Nardone An interview with educator Laurie Nardone about her hybrid interdisciplinary Advanced Writing in the Disciplines course.
Spotlights Educator Spotlight: Lorna Hayward Professor Hayward (Bouvé) discusses service-learning and other ways she engages her students to think holistically.
Teaching Strategies Effective In-Class Demonstrations While we value in-class demonstrations for the vividness of the experience, they can add nothing instructionally unless we ask students to predict the outcome first.
Foundations of Learning Engaging in Self-Care Practices During Midterms Studies have shown that academic stress is negatively associated with academic performance (Akgun & Ciarrochi, 2003). Self-care practices such as sleep hygiene and social support are associated with reduction in perceived stress (Myers et al., 2012).
Foundations of Learning Engaging with Exemplars As experts, we can forget how difficult learning our material for the first time can be, and how many of the foundational aspects of our expertise are in fact not obvious to the novice.
Experiential Learning Exams Since most of us hope that our students will carry their learning out into other contexts, our exam questions can and should reflect this value.
Foundations of Learning Facilitating Discussions Regardless of the size or format, certain factors can influence the extent to which a discussion “works” to deepen learning.
Online Learning Faculty Discuss Online Teaching – Pt. 3 When designing an online course, practical advice from those with experience can be invaluable.
Online Learning Faculty Discuss Online Teaching – Pt. 1 When designing an online course, practical advice from those with experience can be invaluable.
Online Learning Faculty Discuss Online Teaching – Pt. 2 When designing an online course, practical advice from those with experience can be invaluable.
Teaching Strategies Faculty Peer Observation and Feedback Teaching is a complex activity, so peer observation and feedback processes must accommodate this complexity to be of greatest service to those who participate.
Foundations of Learning Flipped Course Design Flipping the class moves passive learning outside of the classroom to make time in class for structured application.
Diversity and Inclusion Fostering Belonging Supporting students’ sense of belonging positively impacts their academic success and overall well-being.
Teaching Strategies Fostering Intellectual Agility through Mindfulness in the Classroom Mindfulness activities can strengthen students' habits of attention, equipping them for the hard work of learning transfer.
Foundations of Learning Giving Learners Effective Feedback Good feedback helps your learners get closer to achieving the goals you have for them, and can also bring more meaning to your relationship with them as an educator.
Teaching Strategies Giving Your Students the “Big Picture” Many educators are now discovering the many-faceted value of a “Course Graphic.”
Spotlights Graduate Spotlight: Aeshna Badruzzaman Doctoral Candidate Aeshna Badruzzaman (CSSH) discusses her experience as a Graduate Student Liaison and Future Faculty Program participant.
Foundations of Learning Group Discussion Activity Design Basic principles can help you design powerfully-effective group discussion activities in any discipline.
Online Learning Hybrid Course Design Hybrid classes have a greater emphasis on out-of-class resources and interactions.
Experiential Learning In-Class Activities Investigating the many ways your concepts can appear across Co-op contexts can reveal the common meaning below their differing surface features.
Foundations of Learning Integrating Reflection Reflection enables students to connect theory to practice and generates the breakthrough moments that bring learning to the next level.
Experiential Learning Introduction to Experiential Learning We have some kind of concrete experience, about which we reflect and make some new understanding, then act upon that new understanding.
Experiential Learning Late Semester Opportunities Help learning stick with students beyond final exams or end-of-semester projects by building in synthesis activities that look to the future.
Foundations of Learning Learner-Centered Syllabus As a first artifact of the teacher-student relationship, the syllabus is a physical manifestation of how you view your students, your course and discipline--and what they can expect from their time with you.
Diversity and Inclusion Learning Across Cultures As educators, our prior experience as learners shapes our perception of what constitutes “good” teaching.
Experiential Learning Leveraging Students’ Prior Experiential Learning Helping students to reflect upon, share, and use what they have learned through experiential learning offers us significant benefits as teachers.
Foundations of Learning Make Prior Learning Visible with Concept Maps Asking learners depict their understandings can help support the construction of meaning, and create a space for learners to reflect upon what they actually know.
Foundations of Learning Making Meaning Out of Failure “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
Foundations of Learning Motivating Online Students What motivates students? This question is particularly important to consider when facilitating an online course, as self-directed learning is key to student success in this format.
Online Learning Not All Interactivity Is Created Equal How do we make interactivity meaningful for learning?
