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You’re Invited to a Celebration of Learning on January 29th!
Jan. 22, 2018—On Monday, January 29th, from 2 to 5 p.m., the Center for Teaching will hold a Celebration of Learning, an exhibition of students as producers. The event will feature posters, presentations, and projects by students from all over campus, sharing what they have learned, created, designed, and discovered. All faculty, staff, and students at Vanderbilt...
Student-Produced Podcasts: A Conversation on Digital Pedagogy, November 7th
Oct. 3, 2017—Podcasts have been around since the early 2000s, but the medium has experienced remarkable growth in recent years, thanks to increasing smart phone adoption and to very popular podcasts like Serial and Radiolab. Educational uses of podcasts are growing, as well. Some instructors create podcasts for use in their courses, others assign podcasts as “texts”...
Mid-Semester Student Feedback
Sep. 26, 2017—The feedback students provide about your teaching on their end-of-semester course evaluations can be valuable in helping you improve and refine your teaching. Soliciting mid-semester student feedback has the additional benefit of allowing you to hear your students’ concerns while there is still time in the semester to make appropriate changes. A Small Group Analysis...
September 5-6: The Open Classroom, Two Days of Teaching Visits
Aug. 22, 2017—The Center for Teaching will host “The Open Classroom: Two Days of Teaching Visits” Sept. 5 and 6. This program will showcase examples of best teaching practices featuring talented faculty from across the university. During the event, faculty hosts will open their classrooms to registered faculty and graduate student visitors. These visitors will attend their choice...
Fall Courses Available on Brightspace
Aug. 17, 2017—Fall courses are now available on Brightspace, Vanderbilt’s new course management system. Brightspace can be used to share course resources with students, communicate with students and engage them in discussion, administer quizzes and other assignments, and provide students with feedback on their learning. Faculty are invited to prepare their courses on brightspace.vanderbilt.edu and activate them...
Teaching after Charlottesville
Aug. 15, 2017—By Derek Bruff, CFT Director This weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia, saw hateful and bigoted speech turn into deadly violence. As classes at Vanderbilt resume this month, these events will be on the minds of students and faculty returning to campus. They’re certainly on my mind. I think of my visit to the University of...
Teaching with Blogs: A Leading Lines Interview with Humberto Garcia
Aug. 15, 2017—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director I’m happy to announce the start of Season 3 of Leading Lines, a podcast on educational technology co-produced by the Center for Teaching. Our new season launches with an interview with Humberto Garcia, associate professor of English at the University of California at Merced. I met Humberto several years ago...
Top Hat Selected as Vanderbilt’s Classroom Response System
May. 23, 2017—The Center for Teaching is glad to announce that the classroom response system Top Hat will be available to faculty, students, and staff across campus starting July 2017. Instructors teaching with “clickers” are invited to consider Top Hat for in-class student polling. Classroom response systems are educational technologies that allow instructors to rapidly collect and...
Brightspace Launched as Vanderbilt’s New Course Management System
Apr. 17, 2017—The Center for Teaching is excited to announce that Brightspace is now available for instructors planning their summer and fall courses. Brightspace will replace Blackboard as Vanderbilt’s course management system starting this summer. The new platform has a modern, responsive design and a number of features that faculty and students will find useful, including drag-and-drop...
From the Director: A New Course Management System
Jan. 9, 2017—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director Happy New Year! We have another busy semester coming up at the Center for Teaching, as you can tell from our latest newsletter. Perhaps the biggest news is that the Center for Teaching will help Vanderbilt launch Brightspace as its primary course management system in summer 2017. Brightspace will replace...