Disclaimer: Unless specifically defined, I use the word classroom to refer to any group learning space, digital or physical. I’m sitting in the back of my first face-to-face class in 2 years. My glasses fog up from my mask and…
How do you have productive classroom conversations, especially on contentious topics, in the age of burnout and social media echo chambers? In response to this challenge, some educators are looking to nonviolent communication, a framework for open and honest dialogue…
[This article is an update on a 2019 Teaching Tip by Janene McMahan. People at the University of Alaska have been using Grackle for over 3 years now, but the interface has changed a bit since the original article was…
The idea of the non-disposable or reusable assignment has been around for a while. The last couple years may have brought new practices and strategy to your teaching and new thoughts about assessment strategies. Perhaps some of those thoughts revolve…
Auto-generated captions use a speech-to-text engine to transcribe audio. They have greatly improved over the past few years and are usually 90-95% accurate given clear audio quality, a Standard American English accent, and one speaker speaking at a time. However,…
One of the reasons that asynchronous courses and online degree programs are so popular with students at UAF is the flexibility afforded. Compared with the national average, UAF has older students, many of whom balance family and job responsibilities with…
Remember the night before Christmas? You’re excited. You’re exhausted. Right now many of your students are simply tired. Check in with them, please. Michelle Pacansky-Brock suggests you “find a way to connect with your students…show them that the life you…
It’s not too late to join in the conversations and activities happening for Open Education Week (OEWeek) on March 7-11. In this Teaching Tip, we present some of the highlights from OEWeek and how to get involved. Open education is…
Instructors can feel isolated in their efforts to support students and their success throughout the semester. This is especially true when they have multiple students who are not responding to their outreach about concerns like low engagement, not attending class,…
Based on the current state of affairs, my dog is my closest friend; I don’t remember the smell of erasing a whiteboard; I’m in a loop of self-discovery and loss, and I’m wondering: is my introspection just me crawling into…
You’ve finished marking exams, final grades are submitted, and the semester is done. For many instructors, this is the point at which there’s a moment to reflect on the class, open up course evaluations, and learn what the students thought…
By now, you may have heard of students utilizing CircleIn, the new NSF-backed, digital studying platform that UAF has been offering over the past year. CircleIn is a peer-to-peer learning app that is available to all students and their courses…