News Category
Upcoming Faculty Teaching Visit with Craig Smith, Associate Professor in Psychology and Human Development Friday January 30th
Jan. 16, 2015—PSY-PC 1700: Social and Emotional Context of Cognition Craig Smith is Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development as well as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at Peabody College. In PSY-PC 1700, he works with students to understand how the ways we perceive the world impact a variety of cognitive processes, guiding the students through considerations of...
Grad Students, Come Work at the CFT!
Jan. 13, 2015—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...
CIRTL Network Development Opportunities
Jan. 12, 2015—The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) is an NSF Center for Learning and Teaching in higher education. CIRTL has opened registration for upcoming course opportunities. These are free, online events for grad students and post-docs in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) interested in faculty careers. January sessions...
Call for Proposals – Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives: Filling the Void
Jan. 6, 2015—Guest Post by Megan Myers, Co-President of the GSMLA If you are not a Graduate Student in the French and Italian, German, or Spanish and Portuguese Departments here at Vanderbilt, you likely have not heard of the Graduate Student Modern Language Association (GSMLA). My fellow graduate student in the French Department, Raquelle Bostow, and I...
From the Stacks…
Dec. 29, 2014—Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham Faculty will learn the importance of story, emotion, memory, context and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences in this book by Daniel Willingham. This books helps...
Interpreting and Making Sense of Course Evaluations
Dec. 22, 2014—As the semester draws to a close, our students are given the opportunity to provide us with potentially valuable 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 can help. A...
Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow Spotlight: Lily Claiborne
Dec. 19, 2014—Each month, the CFT Newsletter highlights the work of our Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows. This month, Lily Claiborne , Senior Lecturer in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, talks about her teaching philosophy and interests: In a time when earth processes are moving to the forefront of global issues through climate change and natural...
SoTL Scholars Program is Accepting Applications
Dec. 18, 2014—The SoTL Scholars Program introduces participants to the principles and practices of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, an international, multidisciplinary field of disciplinary specialists studying student learning. SoTL is a synthesis of teaching, learning, and research in higher education that aims to bring a scholarly lens—the curiosity, the inquiry, the rigor, the disciplinary variety—to what happens...
From the Director: Vanderbilt’s Course Management System and the CFT
Dec. 17, 2014—The Center for Teaching is taking on a significant new role in the educational technology landscape at Vanderbilt. Starting this spring, the CFT will coordinate and provide technical and pedagogical support for Blackboard, Vanderbilt’s course management system, known locally as OAK. Also, in conjunction with Vice Provost for Learning and Undergraduate Affairs Cynthia Cyrus and...
A New Guide on Increasing Inclusivity in the Classroom
Nov. 17, 2014—Among the greatest challenges facing higher education in the US rests in its difficulties confronting, rather than replicating, an array of social inequalities, and in related efforts to create diverse and democratic campus cultures. These challenges touch every area of campus life, but no domain is as central to this work as the classroom. The...