As you prepare your syllabus for Summer or Fall semesters, why not give it a thorough critical look-through to make sure it looks great, functions well, that it meets all UAF requirements, and, for CTL-supported courses, that it has all of the components helpful for the online student that are included in the syllabus template your instructional designer provides.
Having an institutional Learning Management System (LMS) has both advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages are that class and student data is automatically created based on the institution’s registration system, students gain familiarity with the LMS’ structure and navigation, there is an online gradebook for teachers and students, and more.
Using Augmented Reality as a framework for learning activities can be an exciting way to engage students in drawing real-world connections with class content. In this Teaching Tip Live, we will be discussing how faculty at UAF are using Augmented…
As we emerge from the caverns of winter and slip from the madness of March into bright, warm April and true spring, maybe it is safe to take a moment and ask ourselves why we do it. Given our current budget challenges, it is perhaps even essential we ask the question. What is our source of inspiration? What is the real reason we teach?
If you mention group projects to students you will most likely receive negative feedback on the prospect of having to work with peers on a project that affects individual grades. Group work is beneficial because it mirrors workplace and career environments.
If your students are using Google Docs for any portion of their assignments, you can teach them how to provide peer feedback verbally using the Google Docs Add-on Kaizena Mini. You can also use this product yourself to guide your student through changes you would like to see in their written work.
Many classes have an exam scheduled around the middle of the term. Having a review session before an exam can be a good way to reinforce the main ideas that you’re trying to get across to your students. Although cramming for exams does not promote good practices for long-term learning, studies do show that having some kind of review before an exam can improve test scores.
Many instructors spent frenzied final hours before launch wrestling content into Blackboard. One frequent source of challenge is that nearly all of us develop our lectures, notes and syllabi in Microsoft Word and when we transfer these materials online, we unwittingly wander into a decades old battleground. We innocently expect that we should be able to copy and paste from our Word document directly into Blackboard. But the potential layers of complexity and conflict can be more than frustrating.
I’d advise everyone who uses Blackboard’s Grade Center to embed this tip–or a link to this WordPress post supporting it–in your “Getting Started' folder. It’s perfect for the student to understand how to see your feedback.
Today’s Teaching Tip, our 142nd, also commemorates UAF CTL’s third year of publishing weekly tips with only the occasional break for the holidays. It feels fitting to celebrate by sharing some of the interesting work being done by the outstanding educators we’ve had the privilege of working with.
Giving constructive feedback to help improve someone’s work isn’t always easy. Comments like, “I really liked it' or “I didn’t get it' doesn’t help the originator make improvements. As the instructor, you should be modeling constructive feedback when you are reviewing student work so students have an example to follow.
A person’s first exposure to an academic course can be daunting. As an instructor, this will be you the first time you teach it. It will be your students on their first day of class. A glance at the course calendar will not help. In typical fashion, the weeks of the semester roll on with huge amounts of reading and epic level assignments.
