Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting the Institute for the Advancement of Higher Education (AdvancED- formerly known as the Center for Teaching).

We are currently redeveloping our site. For current events and workshops, please visit our new site.


 

Students as Producers: Initiatives at Other Universities

Mar. 3, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director Last month, I reported that the 2014 Horizon Report on current trends in educational technology identified as one of its six key trends a shift from students as consumers (of information, of content, of knowledge) to students as creators. From the report: “A shift is taking place in the focus...

Read more


Upcoming Faculty Teaching Visit with William Collins on March 20th

Mar. 1, 2014—William Collins Terence E. Adderley Jr. Professor of Economics & Professor of History (by courtesy) and Department Chair ECON 266: Topics in the Economic History of the US Professor Collins is an economic historian whose research concentrates on twentieth-century labor market and urban history. His recent work has studied changes in racial disparities in earnings...

Read more


The Mindful PhD: Busy-Shaming

Feb. 28, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director My Women & Gender Studies class talked about “slut shaming” recently, and I’ve since been thinking about another kind of shaming that worries me–and that I want to be careful to avoid. The flurry of popular media discussions of mindfulness (and other topics) have been accompanied by concerns about how...

Read more


Student Notetaking for Recall and Understanding: A Lit Review Review

Feb. 27, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director. Cross-posted from Derek’s blog, Agile Learning. I’m giving a talk on sketchnotes in the classroom next week at Indiana University. (I’m following John (Engaging Ideas) Bean in their speakers series, which is just a little bit intimidating.) I’ve been using sketchnotes for my own notetaking practice since 2011, and I’ve...

Read more


The Mindful PhD: Opening Our Eyes

Feb. 21, 2014—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director In the rhythm of academia, right as we began this semester, we also selected our courses for next year. I decided to revisit my course on monsters.  Soon after, a friend gave me a book of original Grimm’s fairy tales–a gruesome treasure! I didn’t expect to stumble onto mindfulness while...

Read more


TAing to Thousands: A Graduate Student MOOC Panel, February 24th

Feb. 18, 2014—What is it like to serve as a teaching assistant in a course with thousands of students? On Monday, February 24th, a panel of graduate students will share their experiences serving as teaching staff in Vanderbilt’s massive open online courses (MOOCs) hosted on Coursera. “TAing to Thousands” is scheduled for 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. in...

Read more


I’ve Flipped My Classroom. Now What?

Feb. 17, 2014—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director “A few years ago if I had said flipped classroom to them, most faculty would have given me a blank stare,” said Derek Bruff, director of the center and a senior lecturer in mathematics. “Now they are coming to us wanting more detail. The speed of that change and the...

Read more