As the 2024 election approaches, many instructors and students are experiencing higher rates of stress, anxiety, and trauma symptoms. Stressful political events have the ability to impact student learning and create tension in the classroom community. This Teaching Tip offers practical strategies for teaching through the election season, including proactive planning and ideas for moments that may catch instructors off guard.
Meaningful and equal collaboration between students and instructors can be a transformative experience for both parties, but achieving that goal often seems elusive. This teaching tip explores the possibilities of pedagogical partnership programs as one tool to build successful partnerships in the context of the UAF Center for Teaching and Learning's LEAP program.
This teaching tip explores some details to consider when deciding which digital tools to use in your online class such as learning objectives, time, and opportunity. Knowledge is power in answering the question, "Good for us, or bad for us?"
Heidi Olson managed paper-based correspondence courses in the ’80s, supported UAF’s first online offerings in the late ’90s, and has handled thousands of online courses since. She retired last week. Read her reflections on these changes over time and advice on giving students the best possible learning experience.
Courses that were already being taught online were not immune to the rapid changes brought on by COVID-19. After all, online courses exist in the world of humans and that world was not normal.
Though I've long practiced the technique of Object-Based Teaching (OBT) in face-to-face and online classrooms alike, I'd never really looked into the scholarship behind it until recently. I'd also not really considered the pedagogical principles behind it, nor whether my pedagogy needed any scrutiny and modification. It turns out that there were some aspects of my practice I needed to modify.
I can't say that I've mastered the art of a balanced life, but I do have some tips for those new to teaching. These are some hard-won lessons I’ve gathered over the last two decades teaching at UAF.
Teaching is a practice. We can look to the world of music for advice on how we as teachers can improve our performance in a focused, concentrated and effective way.
Nov. 5-9, 2018, is celebrated as National Distance Learning Week. UAF instructors employ a variety of ways to not only include non-local students but to actually use their differing locations to enhance a course. These three classes, in particular, are strengthened by students outside of Fairbanks:
Teaching online since 2011, Janene McMahan has learned some things along the way. In this tip she shares three ideas for making the best use of your time: set expectations, set up your workspace for good flow, and prep a layout once then replicate it.
How do you guide your students not only through course material, but through navigating the university, their professional ambitions, a balance between personal and academic lives? This is the work of the teacher-as-mentor.
Integrating issues and authorities in the classroom is common in academia because of its ability to demonstrate theoretical and applicable knowledge. Often more interesting to students are breaking news topics, such as disasters, which can present difficulties including them into established lesson plans. However, in this Teaching Tip we’ll look at some solutions.
