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Upcoming Conversation on Teaching: Overcoming the ‘busywork’ Dilemma
Jan. 12, 2021—Overcoming the ‘busywork’ Dilemma: Creating Meaningful Asynchronous Activities for Student Engagement The busywork dilemma is where students perceive that assigned learning activities or assessments are not meaningfully contributing to their learning. This can be very frustrating to instructors as they often put a lot of effort and time into the design and implementation of these activities. This...
Upcoming Workshop: Teaching with Top Hat: Synchronous & Asynchronous Strategies
Jan. 12, 2021—The folks at Top Hat have identified specific strategies to build community and engage students in online and hybrid courses. Erin Vaianisi from Top Hat will share ideas about how best to incorporate Top Hat into your class, demonstrate the platform’s newest features, and answer your questions. If you are simply Interested in learning more about Top...
Brightspace Workshops
Jan. 11, 2021—CFT staff offer Brightspace workshops for instructors interested in learning how to use Brightspace tools effectively and efficiently. We are also available during the academic year to facilitate Brightspace workshops on topics both general and specific for departments, programs, and schools, upon request. Email brightspace@vanderbilt.edu to ask about these offerings or the possibility of an invited...
Upcoming Workshop: An Introduction to Online and Hybrid Teaching
Jan. 11, 2021—Are you looking for ideas for how to engage your students this spring? This workshop will provide a structured introduction to teaching in online and hybrid settings. Participants will learn principles and practices for supporting student learning asynchronously (via Brightspace and other tools) and synchronously (via Zoom). This workshop will be particularly useful to Vanderbilt...
CFT Now Offers Instructional Design Consultations
Jan. 8, 2021—The Center for Teaching is pleased to offer instructional design consultations to the Vanderbilt teaching community. Julaine Fowlin, assistant director for instructional design, is available to consult with instructors on the design of online courses, moving an existing course online, or the development of online programs. As an instructional designer, Julaine collaborates with faculty and...
Upcoming Conversation on Teaching: Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps
Jan. 7, 2021—Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps With the move to remote and online teaching in 2020, faculty and other instructors experimented with a wide variety of tools to foster and maintain social presence with their students. Some tried using group messaging apps like Slack, Discord, and Teams as a way to connect and communicate with...
Upcoming Teaching Workshops
Jan. 6, 2021—As we look ahead to another unusual semester in the spring, we are offering a number of workshops to help you prepare. The extended winter break will be a good time to learn about various technologies and strategies for your face-to-face, online or hybrid class sessions. An Introduction to Online and Hybrid Teaching...
Upcoming Conversations on Teaching
Jan. 5, 2021—Conversations on Teaching focus on emergent teaching and learning issues in an informal, discussion-based format. These sessions provide members of the Vanderbilt teaching community a chance to share their teaching experiences and learn from each other. Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps With the move to remote and online teaching in 2020, faculty...
Instructional Design Consultations through iDesign
Dec. 17, 2020—Vanderbilt University has partnered with the instructional design firm iDesign to make available a number of services to help faculty and other instructors prepare for online and hybrid teaching this fall. iDesign learning specialists are on-hand to assist with your course design and teaching effectiveness questions. If you have a question relating how to best...
Spring Journal Club: Investigating Student Learning
Dec. 15, 2020—In this journal club we will explore different approaches that college instructors can use to investigate how and what our students are learning. We will discuss research articles that illustrate how a range of methods can be used to understand our teaching and our students’ learning, considering benefits and limitations of the methods for answering...