Tag teaching for student success

Best practices, Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Faculty Perspectives: Open Educational Resources

Envision a futuristic library space designed as a whirlwind of information, where the top of the whirlwind opens into a breathtaking galaxy. This library combines the essence of science fiction with vibrant energy, with a dynamic, spiraling structure where streams of digital data and holographic images swirl around, ascending into a galaxy above. The base of the whirlwind is bustling with people of diverse appearances engaging with the information vortex, using tablets, interacting with holographic projections, and reading books floating in the energy stream. The scene is charged with colorful energy pulses, and the architecture supports this fluid motion with transparent materials and curved lines that enhance the sensation of movement and the flow of knowledge into the cosmos. This setting represents a bridge between the knowledge of humanity and the infinite possibilities of the universe, where learning is an immersive, visually striking experience.

Open Education Resources (OER) are freely accessible teaching and learning materials that are openly licensed, allowing faculty to legally and freely share, use, and modify educational content for their courses. At UAF, courses tagged as No or Low Cost (NoLo)…

Moss
February 9, 2024

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Ways to support your SSS students in/out of the classroom

An illustration of people helping each other over a landscape of books

Student Support Services (SSS), is a federally funded program for first-gen, low-income, and disabled students, which aims to increase academic achievement. Online and in-person students may face financial difficulties, need accommodations, and struggle with self-advocacy in the college environment.

UAF CTL Staff
April 20, 2023

Best practices, Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Supporting Students with Mental Health Challenges

An illustration of people cultivating a stylized brain as if it were a plant.

Campuses across the nation are seeing a rise in the frequency and intensity of mental health challenges among college students. This trend is apparent at UAF and many staff and faculty members are left wondering how to best support students experiencing mental health challenges. This teaching tip will describe how the UAF Student Health and Counseling Center (SHCC) can be utilized as a resource for helping students in need of mental health support.

UAF CTL Staff
April 4, 2023

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Supporting online learners: academics and beyond

an illustration of lightbulbs drawn in chalk on a chalk board

Online learners often face additional challenges to their education than those that are able to attend in-person. Student Support Services has been able to adapt their services in order to reach those students and provide academic resources and community building.

UAF CTL Staff
March 6, 2023

Best practices, Community Engagement, Teaching Tips, Uncategorized

Leveraging campus partnerships to reinforce help-seeking behaviors

Lauren Divine, right, a tutor with UAF's Student Support Services, works with Sante Lee-Sonkoh during a session in the SSS study lounge in the Gruening Building.

Faculty are a key conduit in a student’s academic path—connecting them to vital resources in the virtual and physical campus environment. Educators have an opportunity to model help-seeking behaviors that aid students from all backgrounds but significantly benefit students from traditionally underrepresented and under-resourced backgrounds.

UAF CTL Staff
February 7, 2023

Best practices, Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Mental health first aid

A watercolor sketch of a blue stylized human head with rainbow-colored confetti coming out off the top

As we continue through the winter season, the cold and dark becomes an ever-present factor in our daily mental health. The Student Health and Counseling Center (SHCC) has some helpful tips to keep in mind to prioritize our students’ wellbeing.…

UAF CTL Staff
November 28, 2022
2 Comments

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Embodying the disillusioned learner

A hand holding eyeglasses spotted with rain and held out with a road disappearing into the woods behind them.

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…

Nathan Feemster
September 26, 2022

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Create accessible content in Google Drive using Grackle Suite

[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…

Clara Noomah
June 21, 2022

Accessibility, Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Options for captioning course content

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,…

Clara Noomah
May 24, 2022

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Maintaining the asynchronous Experience when conducting synchronous activities

Hands typing on a bluetooth keyboard and convertible laptop while a web meeting is connected.

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…

Dan LaSota
April 7, 2022

Community Engagement, Teaching Tips

Demonstrate you care

A photo of a painted mural of colorful hands

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…

UAF CTL Staff
March 16, 2022

Community Engagement, Emerging ideas, Teaching Tips

Address burnout with grounding practices

Goldstream Husky Lodge at night in the winter with the aurora overhead

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…

Nathan Feemster
February 23, 2022