Come Work at the Center for Teaching!
Dec. 16, 2019—Each year the Center for Teaching (CFT) hires a number of graduate students as part of its efforts to mentor and train graduate students, including those serving as teaching assistants or instructors of record here at Vanderbilt as well as those interested in developing teaching skills for future faculty careers. The CFT has several types...
Teaching Innovations at Vanderbilt: Danielle Picard, Mary Anne Caton and Wikipedia Editing
Dec. 15, 2019—By Faith Rovenolt, CFT undergraduate intern We’ve all been told—or been the one telling people—to not use Wikipedia as a source. There’s a variety of reasons, of course, with the main one being the credibility of the information. Wikipedia is aware of this and has made a series of changes aimed at rectifying this. Their...
Is Your Gradebook Ready for the End of the Semester?
Dec. 10, 2019—The end of the semester is coming up quickly! Is your Brightspace gradebook set up correctly? While you are certainly not required to use the Brightspace Grades tool to track your students’ grades, it can be a big help. Especially if you are using Brightspace to collect assignments or giving quizzes and exams. Tips for...
Celebration of Learning 2020: An Exhibition of Students as Producers
Dec. 6, 2019—On February 13, 2020, the Center for Teaching will hold a Celebration of Learning, an exhibition of students as producers. The event will feature students from all over campus sharing what they have learned, created, designed, and discovered, providing the Vanderbilt community with a picture of deep learning across the colleges and schools. We are inviting faculty...
Leading Lines Podcast Featuring Ian Bogost
Dec. 5, 2019—Bogost is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the George Institute of Technology. He’s an author of multiple books, an award-winning game designer, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Ian studies games by making games and is an incredibly deep thinker about an impressively broad...
Teaching Writing Workshop Series: Scaffolding Writing Across the Semester
Dec. 4, 2019—Over the course of the academic year, the Writing Studio leads a series of faculty workshops focused on different aspects of teaching writing. Workshops provide participants with current research, strategies for best practices, and a forum for discussing how these approaches might be adapted to teaching writing in their disciplines. The Teaching Writing Workshop Series...
Teaching Innovations at Vanderbilt: McKanders and Refugee Policy Podcasts
Dec. 2, 2019—By Faith Rovenolt, CFT undergraduate intern In the spring of last year, three students from Professor Karla McKanders’s LAW 7620: Refugee Law and Policy course contributed podcasts to the Life of the Law Blog New Voices series. This amazing opportunity for students came about from a final project for the course. The course focuses on the...
Biological Sciences Seminar: Improving student learning through understanding reasoning and problem-solving practices
Nov. 26, 2019—Join the Biological Sciences Department on Monday, December 2, 3:30-5:15, to consider different teaching practices as part of their ongoing seminar series. Undergraduate Learning Assistants will present posters on questions such as, “Which clicker questions promote the most discussion?” during tea time from 3:30-4:10, followed by Professor Jenny Knight’s seminar. Professor Knight writes, “Classroom practices...
New Book from CFT Director, Derek Bruff
Nov. 19, 2019—Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Arguing that teaching and learning goals should drive instructors’ technology use, not the other way around, CFT director Derek Bruff’s new book explores seven research-based principles for matching technology to pedagogy. Through stories of creative and effective use of educational technology by faculty...
Science Teaching Lunch on more inclusive active learning classrooms: How groups of students are differentially impacted by active learning
Nov. 18, 2019—Join Professor Sara Brownell at a Science Teaching Lunch as she discusses her lab’s work investigating some “off-target” effects of active learning. Professor Brownell writes, “To what extent do students experience college science classrooms differently because of their social identities? How has transitioning traditional lecture courses to active learning spaces impacted students? What can instructors...