“Relationships were absolutely everything”: Marcy Singer-Gabella shares approaches for connecting people, resources, and ideas across a course.

Posted by Rhett Mcdaniel on Thursday, February 4, 2021 in News, Resource.

Marcy Singer Gabella, Professor of the Practice in the Department of Teaching & Learning, recently joined Julie Johnson and Jesse Blocher for a Conversation on Teaching about the hybrid courses they taught in Fall 2020. You can see the recording of the entire session here. In the segment below, Marcy shares three key lessons from her teaching:

The value of breaking students into smaller groups for shorter, closer interactions with her and a smaller group of colleagues. Marcy also calls out the value of the Liberating Structures tool, which are protocols and ways of organizing small group work.
The importance of connecting resources from the class in a redundant way in an anchoring Google doc. This made it much easier for students to find what they needed, when they needed it.
The benefits of “doggedly mapping ideas, activities, and assignments” using visual tools to help students see the underlying structure of the course.