July, 2010
8/20 Workshop: PowerPoint Makeover Clinic
Jul. 29, 2010—Time & Date: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Friday, August 20th Facilitator: Rhett McDaniel, Educational Technologist Format: Teaching Workshop Location: Center for Teaching (1114 19th Avenue South, 3rd floor) Audience: New and Returning Faculty We have all experienced the pain of a bad PowerPoint presentation. And even though we promise ourselves never to make the...
8/19 Workshop – Assessment of Student Learning: Grading Effectively and Efficiently
Jul. 27, 2010—Time & Date: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Thursday, August 19th Facilitator: Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director Format: Teaching Workshop Location: Center for Teaching (1114 19th Avenue South, 3rd floor) Audience: New and Returning Faculty Whether the assignment is a semester-long project or a one-paragraph essay, student work should be assessed appropriately. That means aligning your...
8/17 Workshop: Just-in-Time Course Design: A Syllabus Clinic
Jul. 23, 2010—Time & Date: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Tuesday, August 17th Facilitator: Joe Bandy, CFT Assistant Director Format: Teaching Workshop Location: Center for Teaching (1114 19th Avenue South, 3rd floor) Audience: New and Returning Faculty With classes starting next week, you probably have a draft syllabus for each of your fall courses. Now is a good...
July 2010 Issue of the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
Jul. 23, 2010—The latest issue of the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is now available. The IJ-SoTL is a free, online, peer-reviewed journal in which faculty members from a variety of disciplines share their research into student learning and teaching practices. Although some contributors are education researchers, many are faculty members from outside...
Teaching and Evaluating All at Once: Asking Students to Write Their Own Questions
Jul. 23, 2010—This is a guest post by Isabel Gauthier, professor of psychology specialized in cognition and cognitive neuroscience. Thanks to Isabel for sharing this insight into her teaching. We welcome contributions to the CFT blog by others in the Vanderbilt teaching community! It is difficult to write meaningful and discriminative multiple-choice questions that students find clear...
The NSF’s Broader Impact Criterion and Educational Initiatives
Jul. 23, 2010—Nature recently published an article titled “Science for the Masses” that considered some of the problems with the National Science Foundation’s requirement that NSF grant proposal address a “broader impact” criterion. NSF director Arden Bement is quoted as saying, “The criterion was established to get scientists out of their ivory towers and connect them to...
New Resources for Teaching Sociology, Economics
Jul. 23, 2010—Two new websites feature resources for teaching in particular disciplines. The American Sociological Association (ASA) has launched Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology (TRAILS), a peer-reviewed site for sharing teaching syllabi, class activities, student assignments, bibliographies, and other teaching innovations. Submissions go through two rounds of peer review before being shared on the site. The...
The Perils of Terminology: Teacher-Centered and Student-Centered Pedagogy
Jul. 23, 2010—ProfHacker contributor Billie Hara wrote a post titled “Learning-Centered Pedagogy” last week that surfaces some of the dangers of educational jargon, particularly the terms teacher-centered pedagogy and student-centered pedagogy. Those in higher education who advocate student-centered pedagogy are often perceived as bashing teacher-centered pedagogy, which causes problems when the term teacher-center pedagogy isn’t well-defined. Here’s...
A&S Course on the Iraq War Features Professors Who Were There
Jul. 23, 2010—The Spring 2010 College of Arts & Science magazine features a story titled “War in the Classroom” about a fall 2009 humanities course exploring the Iraq War. The course was team-taught by Katherine Carroll, assistant professor of political science, and Michael Newton, professor of the practice of law at the Law School. Carroll served in...
Call for Proposals – NSF STEM Talent Expansion Program Centers (STEP Centers) – Due August 4, 2010
Jul. 23, 2010—From the National Science Foundation, a call for proposals for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program Centers (STEP Centers): The STEP Centers competition allows a group of faculty representing a cross section of institutions of higher education to identify a national challenge or opportunity in undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics...