Resource Category
Podcasting Essentials: What you need to know to launch your own podcast
Mar. 4, 2022—by Rhett McDaniel Have you ever listened to a podcast and been inspired to make one of your own? You can! Producing academic podcasts around your course topics is a great way to help your students learn. In addition, your podcast would be accessible to the nearly 118 million podcast listeners all over the world....
Join a CFT Learning Community!
Feb. 22, 2022—Learning Assistant Instructors Learning assistants, or LAs, are undergraduates who serve as peer educators in courses that they have previously taken. Supported by training in pedagogy, they extend the reach of faculty members implementing active learning components in a course and help provide personalized experiences that increase students’ sense of belonging. In this learning community,...
Catch up with the Leading Lines Podcast
Feb. 10, 2022—In this episode, Nathan Stucky, director of the Farminary Project at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and Emma Lietz Bilecky, Farminary Fellow talk about the origin of the Farminary, combining work on the farm with theological education, and the challenges and opportunities that come with teaching in rhythm with nature. Listen to the latest episode below!...
Come Work at the Center for Teaching
Feb. 7, 2022—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 positions...
Reaching Students through Open Pedagogy and Digital Media
Jan. 24, 2022—In this workshop, participants will be invited to consider how they might pursue a more open pedagogy through the creation and sharing of digital media. Andy Wesolek, director of digital scholarship and scholarly communications at the Vanderbilt Libraries, will explore the practice of open pedagogy and the benefits it can bring to faculty and to...
From the Executive Director
Jan. 18, 2022— As I write this, snow is falling in Nashville, and I’m reminded of all the challenges our local community has faced over the last two years, from tornadoes and storms to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The teaching community at Vanderbilt has had to adapt again and again over the last two years, and I...
Teaching in a Mask
Jan. 12, 2022—Since the university has reinstituted universal masking for the spring semester, some of us will be teaching in the classroom in a mask for the first time or the first time in a while. This presents some auditory and other challenges, but there are strategies you can use to mitigate these challenges. Here are a...
Newly Updated Teaching Guide: Personal Devices in the Classroom
Dec. 16, 2021—The CFT first published a guide on considering how to work with wireless devices in the classroom in 2010. Given the rapidly changing digital landscape since then, this guide has been updated to consider how personal electronic devices (especially laptops) can impact learning in the classroom, and how faculty members may design policies and positions regarding their usage. ...
New Additions to the Course Design Resources Site
Dec. 14, 2021—Branching scenarios are much like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. In a branching scenario, learners are taken through a scenario where they must make decisions based on the events that are presented. In the newest addition to the CDR (Online Course Development Resources) site, Carrie Sennet and Diana Vasquez (Vanderbilt School of Nursing) teach us how...
Teach Coding? Learn About a tool for integrating enhanced Jupyter Notebooks into Your Teaching
Dec. 6, 2021—As part of a Course Improvement Grant project, associate professor of biomedical engineering Will Grissom been using Pathbird, a tool that runs enhanced Jupyter notebooks (in Python, Julia, or R). It allows students to navigate to their site with no additional setup, and the instructor can interleave autograders, multiple choice questions, and short answer questions with...