Cancel your final
Give everyone a break from the stress of traditional finals and infuse a new sense of purpose in your final assessment with these suggestions for alternative final assessments.
Practicing project management
As the semester settles into a rhythm, the more daunting but less urgent projects that we’ve put off are beginning to demand attention. But where to start? Make a plan, commit to a practice and voila, the only work you’ll have to do is the work, not the managing of the anxiety about the work.
Support students’ basic needs
If we learned anything this summer, it’s that working under conditions of uncertainty and crisis makes it hard to get the work done. This is equally true for students, and it is true at the macro-level of statewide budgeting as well as the micro-level of individual...iTeach Live Interviews
UAF eCampus’s iTeach is an in-person event for UAF faculty interested in exploring pedagogy, technology, and online learning. Over the course of multiple days, UAF faculty are invited to work closely with the eCampus instructional design team to explore course...Facilitate active learning online
We learn better when we are involved in constructing our own knowledge. Some of us know this from experience — it’s why we do research, why we collaborate, why we ask our kids questions when we read to them. But this is also a finding backed by decades of...Storytelling as Teaching
Storytelling is a powerful tool for communicating a message. How can you leverage this power in your teaching? Whose stories are shared — yours? Students’? In this workshop, we’ll look at examples of how and where storytelling can be most impactful...Reflecting on your teaching
With all the logistics that go into wrapping up the semester, it’s hard to think about almost anything else — painful to think about the whole semester that you’re just trying to move beyond. But of course, as teachers we know that there’s great value in...Try inclusive class agendas
An agenda creates transparency and welcomes inclusion in the classroom. If these are qualities you strive for in your teaching, consider these principles for creating open, inclusive class agendas.
Gathering student feedback
Ideas for collecting feedback from your students and how to get them to participate.
Journaling for reflection and critical thinking
Reflective writing can help us carry ourselves through processes of change. Learning is a process of change and research shows that journal writing can support students across disciplines in connecting with and making meaning of their learning.
Students and learning in the “open”
Turning your course open with Open Education resources, practices, and pedagogy can have profound impacts on how students relate to the materials, to you, to their learning and their positioning relative to that learning. Ready to get started?
Hello? Use phone calls to connect with students
We’re at a point in the semester when energy gets low. Students have gotten quiet on discussion boards, you’ve got grading to last you the rest of winter and winter isn’t near over yet. It can be hard to keep everyone engaged in your work together, but making a simple phone call could make a big difference.
Teaching as mentoring
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.
Make space for student creation
In order for your course to go well, must it go as planned? Interrupt your class’s routine with tactics that make space for students to build and create.
Collaborative annotation brings context and conversation
Annotating helps a reader engage with, analyze, and comprehend a text. Online, collaborative annotation tools afford these benefits plus the opportunity to interact with peers and other annotators around the world.
Great Discussions and their Environs
WHY … What are students meant to take away from discussion? What impact does it have? Activity #2 You must post three times each week. Your first post should be an original thought with at least one secondary source. Your second and third posts should respond...How to blend the world into your classroom
When the world feels too big to shut out of your classroom, do you close the door or do you invite in what’s on the minds of so many? Integrating current events into your course is not only engaging for students, it teaches them to approach challenging conversations as learners and to defend their positions with evidence.
You’re not alone! And your students aren’t either
The physical space of a campus blends student support into the learning environment: on the first day of school, students taking face-to-face courses walk onto campus, stroll past the library, the Writing Center, and their advisor’s office on the way to your class. They greet their classmates who, a few weeks into the semester, are the ones they will ask when they’re confused about your instructions.
How to prepare for fall while enjoying summer
Summer is in full swing! You are camping, gardening, roadtripping, hiking, netflixing, swatting at mosquitoes — maybe even teaching. Meanwhile, you’re actively ignoring that buzz behind your ear: Fall’s coming … Teaching … Teaching … Teaching. No one will blame you for swatting that buzz away until, say, August. It’s summer, after all. But what if you could do something now to make your course development a month or two from now a bit easier?