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Developing Intercultural Competency through Blogging – A Conference Report
Jan. 24, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director Back in November I attended the 30th annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Ohio. I thought I’d share some session highlights with my Vanderbilt colleagues. Here’s the second in a series of posts about the conference. Blogs as a Unique Environment for Critical Thinking and...
Show and Tell: Using Visual Thinking in the Classroom
Jan. 22, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director I’m leading a workshop titled “Show and Tell: Using Visual Thinking in the Classroom” at the CFT’s GradSTEP event this afternoon. Below you’ll find the visuals for my presentation, along with the workshop description for a bit of context. I like to post my slides before my workshops so...
CIRTL Coffee Hour, January 20 – What to Know about Tenure and Promotion BEFORE Applying for a Job
Jan. 17, 2011—The 2010-2011 CIRTL Coffee Hour Series provides an opportunity for STEM (science, technology, engineering, & math) graduate students and post docs to get together online and talk about careers and the academic job search. The series is facilitated by a mix of young faculty who have recently secured positions and more seasoned tenured faculty. The...
Teaching about Audience Using Projects for Outside Clients – A Conference Report
Jan. 17, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director Back in November I attended the 30th annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Ohio. I thought I’d share some session highlights with my Vanderbilt colleagues. Here’s the first in a series of posts about the conference. Developing a Signature Pedagogy to Cross the Audience Threshold...
Video – Crafting a Professional Digital Identity
Jan. 14, 2011—Back in October, the CFT co-sponsored with University Web Communications a session titled “Crafting a Professional Digital Identity: Faculty and Social Media.” The session featured a discussion of ways faculty members can avoid the pitfalls of engaging in social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and so on) while using those tools to enhance their professional work....
Video – Some Thoughts on Teaching with Clickers
Jan. 10, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director A few months ago, I was contacted by Rachel Wheeler, an MEd candidate in secondary education here at Vanderbilt. As part of a new media practicum she was taking, she and her partner were putting together a multimedia website called Inside Voice that would highlight Vanderbilt authors. She asked...
Update: Belmont Teaching Center Symposium Canceled
Jan. 9, 2011—Due to the projected inclement weather tomorrow, Belmont University’s January Teaching Symposium (which we mentioned here on the blog a couple of weeks ago) has been canceled. We’ll be sure to let you know if the event is rescheduled for later in the spring semester. Image: “Snow in Crookes,” Paolo Margari, Flickr (CC). That’s England,...
New CFT Guide on Making Better PowerPoint Presentations
Jan. 5, 2011—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director Ever seen a bad PowerPoint presentation? Ever given one yourself? Although some have said that PowerPoint is evil (“Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.”), I assert that PowerPoint is merely a tool, one that can be used well or used poorly. Ways to use PowerPoint effectively aren’t always obvious, however....
New CFT Guide on Teaching with Ecological Footprints
Jan. 3, 2011—As part of the CFT’s ongoing work on sustainability across the curriculum, particularly the fall 2010 workshop “Sustainability in the Classroom: Ecological Footprints,” we’ve developed a new teaching guide titled “Teaching with Ecological Footprints.” What are ecological footprints? Ecological footprints are calculations of natural resource use that assess environmental impacts. Typically they measure levels of...
Tackling Grade Inflation through Data and Transparency
Dec. 31, 2010—by Derek Bruff, CFT Assistant Director The New York Times published an article earlier this week titled “A Quest to Explain What Grades Really Mean” that reports on efforts at a few schools, notably the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to tackle the problem of grade inflation. UNC-Chapel Hill sociologist Andrew Perrin is...