Ask Professor Pedagogy: Geocaching in the Community
Dec. 28, 2012—Ask Professor Pedagogy is a twice monthly advice column written by Center for Teaching staff. One aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. If you have a question that you’d like...
Ask Professor Pedagogy: Crickets, Crickets
Dec. 14, 2012—Ask Professor Pedagogy is a twice monthly advice column written by Center for Teaching staff. One aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. If you have a question that you’d like...
CFT Hosts International Scholar Catherine Easton to Study Educational Technology
Dec. 12, 2012—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director This year the CFT is hosting a visiting scholar, Catherine Easton of Lancaster University in the UK, where she teaches law. Catherine is in the United States as part of the International Scholars Program of the UK’s Higher Education Academy (HEA). She will explore how classroom response systems (“clickers”) and...
Interpreting and Making Sense of Course Evaluations
Dec. 11, 2012—As the semester draws to a close, our students are given the opportunity to provide us with a potentially valuable source of feedback on our teaching and its effects on their learning. You may find it challenging, however, to interpret what your end-of-semester course evaluations mean and decide how to act on them. The CFT...
Spatial Teaching
Dec. 10, 2012—GTF Beth Koontz discusses the potential for teaching with spatial technologies in the college classroom. Held in January each year, GradSTEP provides several workshops and discussions on teaching, learning, and professional development issues across the disciplines. This year’s line-up includes a session on teaching with spatial analysis tools: Adding Spatial Dimensions to Teaching led by...
Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow Spotlight:Jason Valentine
Dec. 7, 2012—Each month, the CFT Newsletter highlights the work of our Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows. This month, Jason Valentine, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, talks about his teaching philosophy and interests: My overarching goal in teaching heat transfer is for students to be able to identify the application of heat transfer in various engineering systems and quantitatively...
From the Stacks…
Dec. 6, 2012—Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices by Tanya Joosten Faculty will learn to choose the appropriate social media tool for the intended learning outcome, design engaging and innovative activities, and better meet pedagogical needs. In addition, the author offers strategies for assessing and documenting the effectiveness of using these tools in your course....
Professors tweak their pedagogical style with blogs
Dec. 6, 2012—Vanderbilt faculty are increasing incorporating online wiring in their teaching. A recent article by Joan Brasher highlights the work of Assistant Professor of English Humberto Garcia and his course blog The Romantic Period: Romanticism and Apocalypse and Allison Schachter, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and English and her course blog Literature, Photography and Memory. ...
Who am I When I’m Teaching?
Dec. 5, 2012—By Cynthia Brame, CFT Assistant Director Who are you when you’re teaching? Are you a knowledgeable guide traversing well-traveled ground? An expert transmitting the accumulated wisdom of your field to hungry apprentices? A supportive but honest critic? A fellow traveler on a journey without a well-defined destination? And whatever your description of your teaching persona,...
A Student Poster Conference – Spatial Analysis: Multidisciplinary Applications
Dec. 4, 2012—This year, the CFT has been creating and sharing a podcast series ‘Student Learning on Display’ which highlights student projects across a variety of disciplines. If you’ve been enjoying that series, you might like to see these student projects Wednesday afternoon. The poster session will include a diverse range of projects that integrate GIS-based spatial analyses....