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Teaching Digital Literacies: Six Conversations
Aug. 12, 2019—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director How can we prepare students for a world where they both consume and produce media in a variety of digital forms? In 2018-2019, the CFT hosted a learning community for educators interested in exploring ways to teach digital literacies, that is, the skills and competences students need to thoughtfully learn,...
So What’s Next? A Conversation on the Future of Digital Literacies
Jun. 3, 2019—by Chelsea Yarborough, Graduate Teaching Fellow, and Derek Bruff, Director In the final meeting of the 2018-2019 Digital Literacy Learning community, we gave ourselves space and permission to wonder about the possibilities of the future while also discussing the realities of today. The hope for this conversation was to engage the imagination and invite both...
Students as Producers: Collaborating toward Deeper Learning
Apr. 25, 2019—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director If you’ve been following my work, you know that I’m a proponent of engaging the students in the courses we teach not only as consumers of information, but also as producers of knowledge. My Vanderbilt Center for Teaching colleagues and I have been sharing this “Students as Producers” approach to...
Engaging Possibility: Digital Literacy, Disability, and Design
Apr. 25, 2019—by Chelsea Yarborough, Graduate Teaching Fellow, and Derek Bruff, Director On March 15, 2019, the Center for Teaching’s Digital Learning Community engaged in an important conversation centered on digital literacy and accessibility. The goal of this session was to focus on the real concerns of different learners already present in our classrooms and to consider...
Combining Forces: Collaboration as a Tool for Teaching Digital Literacies
Apr. 17, 2019—by Chelsea Yarborough, Graduate Teaching Fellow, and Derek Bruff, Director In February we kicked off the spring semester learning community on teaching digital literacies with a conversation focused on collaborations at the university. The goal of this session was to consider the ways that different people have worked together to help students create digital projects...
Science Teaching Essentials, a New Book by the CFT’s Cynthia Brame
Mar. 11, 2019—By Derek Bruff, CFT Director I am very excited to announce a new book from Cynthia Brame, associate director here at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching. Science Teaching Essentials: Short Guides to Good Practice (Academic Press, 2019) provides research-based strategies and resources for addressing common teaching challenges in the sciences, health professions, and engineering. Written...
A Conversation on Teaching Collaborations and Digital Literacies
Feb. 5, 2019—The next conversation in our “teaching digital literacies” series is coming up in two weeks! Helping our students develop digital literacies often involves moving outside our own areas of expertise–and comfort zones. How can we collaborate with others to teach students skills that we ourselves are still learning? Join us for a conversation on collaborations...
VandyVox, the Best of Student-Produced Audio at Vanderbilt University
Jan. 31, 2019—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director I am very excited to announce a new podcast from the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching and Vanderbilt Student Media! VandyVox showcases the best of student-produced audio at Vanderbilt University. Each episode features student work from a curricular or co-curricular project, including audio documentaries, radio dramas, spoken word essays, and ongoing...
Top Hat Week Is Here!
Jan. 28, 2019—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director It’s Top Hat Week at Vanderbilt! What does that mean? Well, we’re encouraging everyone teaching a class at Vanderbilt this week to try Top Hat, Vanderbilt’s in-class polling system. You can use Top Hat to pose a multiple-choice or free-response question to your students and have them respond using their...
Attend the Celebration of Learning on February 4th
Jan. 25, 2019—On February 4th the Center for Teaching will hold a Celebration of Learning, an exhibition of students as producers. Research projects and design initiatives, podcasts and documentaries, candle-making devices and board games, clothing catalogs and virtual reality simulations… these and more will be on display in Alumni Hall from 2pm to 4pm. We’re inviting faculty,...