Class Management – Teaching Hub

Using Discord + GitHub to Organize Small Group Active Learning

March 29, 2021

by Nathan Loewen, Faculty Technology Liaison & Department of Religious Studies Based on an interview and materials shared by Dr. Traci M. Nathans-Kelly, College of Engineering at Cornell University I recently spoke to Dr. Traci Nathans-Kelly, who is a partner teacher for Games Design courses at Cornell University, where they have used Discord for Spring 2020 and 2021. This was a unique challenge for these courses that rely heavily on in-person teams and live playtesting. Dr. Walker White is the instructor […]

16 Community-Building Ice-Breakers for Zoom

January 13, 2021

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Among the many objectives for the first day of class, for some teachers, is to create a sense of community. Many of the strategies used face-to-face may be adapted to the online environment. Here are some ice-breakers that have worked in the past. They may be adapted to Zoom, too! These ideas work for seminars as well as larger courses (e.g. using breakout rooms). Two truths and a lie is a classic. Ask […]

What to Do When Your Test Answers are Available Online: Create 1200-Question Test Banks!

January 27, 2020

by Deborah Keene, Associate Director, Blount Scholars Program How often do you check to see whether answers to your tests are available somewhere online? In the Department of Geological Sciences, several GEO 101 instructors decided that we needed to create our own test bank after we found several of our exams, with answers, online (e.g., Quizlet, StudyBlue, Koofers, CourseHero, StudySoup, etc.). Our goal was to be able to create tests that asked for the same core information in different ways each semester, thereby ensuring that one would need to […]

The Disappearing Student: How We Can Support Students Battling Depression and Anxiety

October 29, 2019

person sitting alone in a long, empty hallway

by Lauren S. Cardon, Department of English A familiar situation? Many of us have encountered students who follow a certain pattern: they begin the semester as full participants in the class, turning in assignments on time, and then all of a sudden disappear. They may trickle off — missing a class here and there first — or they may simply fall off the radar. Then, after missing most of the semester, they resurface, explain they’ve been struggling with something personal, […]

Guide to Managing Class Discussion in a Tense Atmosphere

March 25, 2019

by Cassander L. Smith and Lauren S. Cardon, Department of English On February 18, 2019, the Department of English hosted a one-day symposium, “Teaching with Tension,” that addressed the extent to which attitudes about race and political environments produce pedagogical challenges for professors in the humanities. The day’s discussion included the presentation of a document about managing class discussions. Thanks to the work and permission of Drs. Smith and Cardon, you have the opportunity to review this important guide. Every […]

Surprise! Experiential Learning Course Design Assists Academic Integrity

March 21, 2019

by Karen Hollingsworth Gardiner, College of Arts & Sciences I attended my first International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) conference in 2016. Fellow attendees repeatedly recommended James Lang’s Cheating Lessons (Harvard U P, 2013), which I found so eye-opening that the next year I applied for and became a Learning in Action Fellow. What’s the link? An explanation: Lang suggests that we “add one final element to our courses” to help students connect to our coursework in “authentic ways over […]

Visited the A&S Academic Integrity Website Lately?

February 20, 2019

by Karen Hollingsworth Gardiner, College of Arts and Sciences Did you know that the College of Arts and Sciences has an Academic Integrity Initiatives website? Did you know that it is teeming with helpful information and links on a variety of Academic Integrity issues for both faculty and students? If you haven’t visited academicintegrity.as.ua.edu, then you need to check it out. You may find exactly the information you or your students need related to academic integrity issues. Here’s a quick […]

Under Pressure: Four Ways to Enable Academic Integrity

January 24, 2019

by Alexandria Gholston, Department of English Imagine you are an Olympic athlete, and you are about to compete for your country. Imagine the pressure of having your family, friends, teammates, and your country all counting on you to represent them in front of the world. How would you handle such pressure? Would you fold, or would you embrace the moment and seize the opportunity to put all of your hard work on display? Athletes competing at the Olympics spend four […]

Living to See Another Day: Survival Through Academic Integrity

January 24, 2019

Happy young woman under a banner saying "Vive la vie"

by Khadeidra N. Billingsley, Department of English In Imperial China, from the 17th to the early 20th century, individuals who wanted to pursue a career in civil service were required to pass a series of rigorous exams. These tests were only offered every few years and the results could literally change people’s lives. It goes without saying (but I will say it), that the consequences associated with cheating on such a high-stakes examination were severe, including the possibility of the […]

Teaching Citations as Part of the Writing Process: Student Voices

January 17, 2019

by Lauren Fleming, Undergraduate English Major Why do students violate University academic integrity policies? As an English major, I began to wonder about the root of this campus-wide issue. I am often subject to the woes of my non-English-major-but-still-have-writing-assignments peers and have noticed one common denominator: interactions with quotations and citations. Often, a conversation might go like this: Friend: My professor gave me my assignment back and said the citations were wrong, but I am allowed fix them and give […]