Resource Category
From the Director
Apr. 13, 2020—Greetings from my home office, where I sit writing at the beautiful roll top desk I inherited from my father. A lot has changed since our March newsletter, at Vanderbilt, in middle Tennessee, and around the world, but I don’t have to tell you that. We’re all figuring out how to teach and learn and...
Pivoting to remote teaching and learning: Community health clinical hours from a distance through a weekly newsletter
Apr. 10, 2020—Brittany Haskell is a Nursing faculty member who is engaged in the CFT’s Junior Faculty Teaching Fellowship this year. She teaches in the Community Health course series, which requires that students engage in a particular number of clinical hours. During the transition to remote teaching and learning this spring, Brittany and her colleagues worked with...
Additional security measure for logging into Brightspace goes into effect Monday, April 13
Apr. 9, 2020—As of April 13th 2020, all faculty, staff, TAs, and postdoctoral researchers will be required to use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) as an additional security measure for logging into Brightspace as well as several additional Vanderbilt accounts. This will change the way you log into Brightspace. First, you will need the Duo Mobile app on...
Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Online
Apr. 7, 2020—by Joe Bandy, CFT assistant director Teaching face-to-face presents many challenges, not least of which is the task of ensuring that all students feel belonging and have equal chances to thrive regardless of their abilities, identities, or perspectives. The online teaching environment suffers from all of the same obstacles to this and more, especially...
Teaching Innovations at Vanderbilt: Chad Carpenter and Multi-Step Class Problem Solving
Apr. 6, 2020—By Faith Rovenolt, CFT undergraduate intern During Spring 2020, the Teaching Innovations at Vanderbilt blog series will highlight teaching innovations that CFT staff have implemented and evaluated in their own courses. In teaching quantitative courses, it can be easy to fall into the trap of creating plug-and-chug problems for students. However, Chad Carpenter,...
Gathering feedback during remote teaching and learning: questions and tools to use
Apr. 5, 2020—by Cynthia Brame, CFT associate director As we head into our fourth week of remote teaching and learning at Vanderbilt, it’s a good idea for instructors to gather information from students about how they’re experiencing the shift. You may be doing that informally with your students by checking in via virtual office hours, email, and...
Teaching labs remotely
Apr. 3, 2020—by Cynthia Brame, CFT associate director As we start to prepare for teaching summer courses online, some instructors are making the shift toward teaching labs online. As many lab courses are designed to be about learning from hands-on, messy, real-world exploration, this shift can be a challenge. Use your goals as your guide One of...
Gradescope grading tool for handwritten exams, lab reports, and more is free through June 30
Mar. 26, 2020—Gradescope is an online, FERPA compliant grading tool that professors can use to grade handwritten exams, typed homework assignments, lab reports and more. Gradescope works well for many types of questions: paragraphs, proofs, diagrams, fill-in-the-blank and true/false to name a few. Six Vanderbilt professors have been using it for over four years and are enthusiastic...
GoReact enables faculty and peers to give feedback on presentations
Mar. 25, 2020—Through June 30th, Vanderbilt faculty and students can use GoReact for free by signing up with a valid Vanderbilt email address. GoReact is a video feedback tool where students can upload videos and receive time-stamped feedback from both instructors and peers. This tool is useful for when you need to give feedback on student presentations,...
New CFT resource on giving online exams focuses on reducing the probability of cheating
Mar. 24, 2020—As courses have moved online this spring, many of us need to consider how to have our students take exams online. In many cases, this involves learning how to use tools that help ensure students take the exam with only the resources you want them to have. As you think about giving exams online, it...