As we continue through the winter season, the cold and dark becomes an ever-present factor in our daily mental health. The Student Health and Counseling Center (SHCC) has some helpful tips to keep in mind to prioritize our students’ wellbeing.…
Disclaimer: Unless specifically defined, I use the word classroom to refer to any group learning space, digital or physical. I’m sitting in the back of my first face-to-face class in 2 years. My glasses fog up from my mask and…
[This article is an update on a 2019 Teaching Tip by Janene McMahan. People at the University of Alaska have been using Grackle for over 3 years now, but the interface has changed a bit since the original article was…
Auto-generated captions use a speech-to-text engine to transcribe audio. They have greatly improved over the past few years and are usually 90-95% accurate given clear audio quality, a Standard American English accent, and one speaker speaking at a time. However,…
One of the reasons that asynchronous courses and online degree programs are so popular with students at UAF is the flexibility afforded. Compared with the national average, UAF has older students, many of whom balance family and job responsibilities with…
Remember the night before Christmas? You’re excited. You’re exhausted. Right now many of your students are simply tired. Check in with them, please. Michelle Pacansky-Brock suggests you “find a way to connect with your students…show them that the life you…
Based on the current state of affairs, my dog is my closest friend; I don’t remember the smell of erasing a whiteboard; I’m in a loop of self-discovery and loss, and I’m wondering: is my introspection just me crawling into…
Students thrive in our classrooms when they connect with each other, with the subject matter, with themselves and with us (Quinlan, 2016). Positive connections motivate student engagement and improve academic performance. This was true before the pandemic, when we could…