by Deborah Keene, Department of Geological Sciences The Teaching Hub inspired me to start something similar for my own department. I teach GEO 101 every semester for the Department of Geological Sciences. The other faculty kindly share information and resources with one another, but I found that a departmental “teaching hub” could solve several problems […]
Read MoreThis post details the grading process described in “Scan and Deliver! Personalized Feedback in Large Classes.” We printed individual labels with each student’s name; on each label, the corresponding CWID was encoded in a Code 39 barcode. We used standard 1″ x 2 5/8″ addressing labels, 30 per page, for which MS Word has built-in templates. […]
Read Moreby Marco Bonizzoni and Diana Leung, Department of Chemistry Organic chemistry is a surprisingly visual discipline. Molecules, the fundamental entities of chemistry, exist as 3D objects whose shapes often profoundly influence their properties, so students must learn the visual language of the discipline, which attempts to convey the nature of these three-dimensional objects through two-dimensional drawings. […]
Read MoreThe Teaching Hub advisory board got together this fall to discuss course evaluation strategies. Faculty may wish to better determine whether or not to make changes in their courses that would help students learn more effectively. The conversation began quite humorously when we shared our experiences of the discursive comments section in the Student Opinions of Instruction […]
Read Moreby Michael J. Altman, Department of Religious Studies Games are fun. Quizzes are not. But games can make quizzes more fun. That’s what I have learned by experimenting with the Kahoot, an interactive learning game, in my REL 130: Religion, Politics, and Law course. I discovered Kahoot during the Teaching Professor Technology Conference a few […]
Read MoreI am going to write about measuring teaching effectiveness. There is a lot of buzz about metrics in higher education media, but not until the mind-meld app is released for iOS will teachers know what their students are thinking. One of the challenges of teaching a large-enrollment course is to regularly determine the level of students’ learning. […]
Read MoreSometimes there is a considerable difference between a professor’s evaluation of a course and those of the students. The divergence can work in either direction. Perhaps a “terrible” experience for the professor was “absolutely brilliant” for the students. Let’s be honest, however: the opposite situation is difficult news. What are the next steps when a professor […]
Read MoreFinal grades are due tomorrow! My colleague mentioned that eating cold cereal thrice daily was the norm over the weekend in order to minimize the time not spent writing comments on essays, verifying spreadsheet formulates, cross-checking assignments with rubrics, and all the other, sometimes mind-numbing tasks that arrive at the end of the term. And this is […]
Read MoreIn “Multiple Choices,” a post on the blog Practicum: Critical Theory, Religion, and Pedagogy, Russell McCutcheon ponders how multiple choice tests facilitate learning in large introductory courses: But what about the multiple choice tests? Well, like that definition assignment . . . it’s more about how they study for it and how they come to […]
Read Moreby Alecia Chatham, Department of Modern Languages and Classics In my online courses, I often post short, weekly quizzes that are graded immediately by Blackboard. There are a few different quiz types that I use for certain things. Key concept quizzes sometimes take students a little more time to figure out on their own, though they may only […]
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