UAF CTL Staff

UAF CTL Staff

Connecting with your field

You are an ambassador for your discipline. Imagine that you can put aside every external constraint when teaching your class: school and departmental requirements, considerations of technology, classroom seating, student prior knowledge and your own busy schedule. Forget. All. About. That.

Four questions about FERPA

FERPA, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, addresses education records and a student’s right to those records and to whom else sees them. As an instructor or faculty at UAF, you have a responsibility to adhere to the requirements set out by the Act. By being aware of a few key requirements, you can adhere to the act without too much effort.

Simple semester checklist

Now, here we are at the beginning of the new semester. How time flies! In expectation of this new semester, this week’s Teaching Tip includes a handful of items to check off your list as you prepare your courses for the first day of class.

Easy file conversions

Free Online Tools: Digital files come into our lives from many directions: colleagues, students, friends, etc. Everyone has their preferred method of file creation, and the end product may not be a file type we want or are able to read or use. And while some files are pretty easy to convert on our own (.doc to .pdf, for example), there are other types of files for which it’s easier to use an online conversion tool.

Manage tasks, not time

Whether you’re designing an all new course or revising and preparing an existing course for a new semester, it’s a lot of work. And work equals time, right? Yes, but that we’re not all necessarily organizing our to-do lists in the most useful way.

Online education – part 2

Last week we discussed the gold standard of online learning experience design: Your course is complete prior to students ever sitting in their virtual seats. Your intended outcomes are firmly in your sights and you can now devote time during the semester to feedback, assessment, and mentoring. Your solid design and your consistent presence work together to achieve everyone’s educational dreams.

Online education part – 1

One of the most common questions I hear is, “how much time is it going to take to develop my online course?' This question reminds me of similar questions such as, “How long does it take to build a house?' and “How long does it take to make dinner?' The answers to these, of course, are, “it depends.'

OBTC 2015: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference

Dr. Nicole Cundiff and Janene McMahan travelled to the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference 2015 in La Verne, California. The session, Building Collaborative Community Development Tools, was met with interest with one faculty member wanting Nicole to consider another target audience, non-profits and the boards of nonprofit organizations, for this app. The session description was: A collaborative application […]

Blackboard hints & tricks

If you’re a longtime Windows user, you might be wishing for a visual folder structure view of your course. You may be more familiar with a “tree' structure where you see folders with a “+' sign indicating something in the folder. When you click on the folder icon that is right above the course name, a new window will open that allows you to navigate quickly to a nested tree structure where titles are links. This option is also available for students.

Course revisions

Course development is an ever-evolving process. We tweak and adjust for many reasons. Maybe we decide an activity didn’t quite work the way we intended, or we discover new content to share with students. Early planning can make the revision process more efficient and less stressful.

Student resistance

You read an article, hear a story or see a show that inspires you to work a new type of assignment or exercise into your course. You decide on an idea. It sounds interesting and you think your students will respond well to it. You spend hours researching and outlining your new exercise. You anticipate its implementation with excitement and hope. The day comes. And then...

Screencasting

Got a minute? That’s how long it takes to set up Screencastify if the Chrome web browser is installed on your computer. As an instructor, you are the content expert. Sometimes it is hard to explain a concept. If you could just show your students what you mean it would be so easy! Using Screencastify is one more way you can do that.