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Upcoming Faculty Teaching Visit with Jay Clayton on October 15th
Oct. 8, 2013—The Teaching Visits program is an important way by which the CFT promotes collaborative inquiry and reflection. Specifically, the Teaching Visits program provides case-based opportunities for Vanderbilt teachers to consider choices they have when constructing their classes. A small group of visitors observes a host’s class on a selected day and then engages in an...
Students as Producers: Incorporating Research and Design in Science and Engineering Courses
Oct. 7, 2013—by Julie Lapidot, CFT Student Assistant, and Derek Bruff, CFT Director On September 25th, the Center for Teaching hosted a conversation on teaching on the theme of “Students as Producers” organized by CFT assistant director Cynthia Brame. The conversation centered around one idea: How can we help students in a science or engineering course engage...
Getting to Know Coursera: VIDL and Vital Questions
Oct. 2, 2013—by Kathryn McEwen, (former) CFT Graduate Assistant The new school year is underway, bringing with it some big changes for online learning at Vanderbilt. At the end of May, the new Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning debuted. Led by Douglas Fisher, associate professor of computer science and computer engineering, VIDL will not only manage Vanderbilt’s...
The Mindful PhD: Playing with Others
Oct. 1, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director I recently received an email that, in another time, would have tested me. It’s a genre familiar to all of us: several paragraphs registering a complaint, only some of which we have control over, written out of frustration and haste, and expressed in a way that (we think) we...
Wrapping a MOOC: CFT Study Published in the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT)
Sep. 30, 2013—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director Last fall, Vanderbilt computer science professor Doug Fisher “flipped” his graduate-level course on machine learning. Instead of having his students read their textbook before class or watch lecture videos that he created, as is typical for a “flipped” classroom, Doug asked his students to prepare for class by taking another...
The Mindful PhD: Being Fully Present in the Classroom
Sep. 25, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director A recent study on students’ laptop use in the classroom has brought a lot of attention to the issue of, well, attention in the classroom. As their title indicates, Sana, Weston, and Cepeda (2013) found that “Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers.” In a...
Looking to the Future: Reflections on Andrew Delbanco’s “College”
Sep. 25, 2013—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director This year’s Commons Reading is Andrew Delbanco’s College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. Our first-year undergraduates have been reading the book and discussing it in their Vanderbilt Visions sections, and Andrew Delbanco himself will give a talk at Langford Auditorium on October 14th. Since I wanted to be...