Skip to content Where Legends Are Made

Tag: assessment

The Rise of ChatGPT Can Make Student Writing Better 

The 5-speed gearshift pattern, which may indicate the metaphor for "shifting gears."

by Amy Dayton and Amber Buck, English On campuses across the US, faculty, administrators, and students alike are talking about ChatGPT. If you haven’t heard, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that mimics human conversation and writing using predictive text. It can expound on almost any topic, from climate change to literary criticism. It can write emails, sonnets, stories, and brochures. It can suggest revisions to specific sentences and phrases (such as resume bullet points). And it can write academic […]

Read More from The Rise of ChatGPT Can Make Student Writing Better 

Remote Teaching, Difficult Topics, and the Cultivation of Political Judgment: Lessons From the Israel/Palestine Conflict

a red and a blue zipper running across each other

by Daniel J. Levine, Political Science and Religious Studies This post outlines a set of group assignments developed while teaching The Israel/Palestine Conflict (PSC 344) remotely in Fall 2020. I start by outlining the challenges that typically attend teaching on this topic. I then take up the circumstances faced when planning for it late last summer: the transition to remote teaching and an increasingly partisan political climate. Finally, I describe a set of assignments intended to address those challenges, assessing […]

Read More from Remote Teaching, Difficult Topics, and the Cultivation of Political Judgment: Lessons From the Israel/Palestine Conflict

A New Twist on the Multiple Choice Quiz

a multiple choice test

by James Mixson, Department of History Ah, the multiple-choice quiz. An old stand-by for some instructors who love them not least because it can make grading so easy. For others, especially those in more narrative-intense disciplines like mine (history), they are problematic: names and dates and other “data” are only the beginning. What matters is what it all means, and that is best assessed through long-form writing. Students love multiple choice quizzes and hate them, too. Some like that they […]

Read More from A New Twist on the Multiple Choice Quiz

Overview of Active Learning

by Jessica Porter, Office of Educational Technology (eTech) Active learning requires students to participate in class rather than sitting and listening to lectures. Techniques include, but are not limited to, discussions, brief question-and-answer sessions, writing and reading assignments, hands-on activities, and peer instruction. In other words, active learning promotes a deeper, more engaging learning experience, and it establishes a much-needed feedback loop for students. Rationale According to recent studies, the average attention span of a typical student is between 10 […]

Read More from Overview of Active Learning

Scan and Deliver! Personalized Feedback in Large Classes

barcodes used to scan and return graded exams

by 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. When it comes to testing, students answer open-ended questions in handwritten free form. We both encourage our students to learn from their mistakes, from the […]

Read More from Scan and Deliver! Personalized Feedback in Large Classes

Let’s Get Digital, Digital (Humanities)! Part One

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies The Alabama Digital Humanities Center (ADHC) opened in 2010. At the beginning of my second year at UA, I just now discovered the ADHC and its amazing home in Gorgas Library Room 109A . I arranged for a consultation with Emma Wilson yesterday. We enjoyed a vibrant discussion about how my teaching might deploy a digital humanities project. I really appreciated the upshot of our time together: pedagogy and learning objectives should inform whatever digital […]

Read More from Let’s Get Digital, Digital (Humanities)! Part One

Power-Using and Hacking Blackboard

Teaching Hub

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Do you use Blackboard in your course? I do. Here’s why: I think it’s easier for me, as well as the students, to have a simple, one-stop place to find and do everything related to a course outside of class. Now beginning my second year of teaching at UA, I find my commitment to grasping the basic features of Blackboard has made my teaching much more manageable. Furthermore, as faculty technology liaison for the College of Arts and Sciences, […]

Read More from Power-Using and Hacking Blackboard