The Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching promotes university teaching that leads to meaningful student learning. Our offerings are available to any members of the Vanderbilt community interested in developing their teaching practices.
Grades as a necessary evil? How they affect student motivation and what we can do about it.
Dec. 19, 2019—By Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director During the December meeting of the CFT’s student motivation journal club, we tackled the perplexing question of whether grades help or hinder student motivation. Chamberlin and colleagues’ paper titled, “The impact of grades on student motivation” gave us a great launching point to embark on this discussion. The authors...
New CFT Guide on Assessing Student Learning Now Available
Dec. 18, 2019—Student assessment is, arguably, the centerpiece of the teaching and learning process and therefore the subject of much discussion in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Without some method of obtaining and analyzing evidence of student learning, we can never know whether our teaching is making a difference. That is, teaching requires some process through...
Come Work at the Center for Teaching!
Dec. 16, 2019—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...
Teaching Innovations at Vanderbilt: Danielle Picard, Mary Anne Caton and Wikipedia Editing
Dec. 15, 2019—By Faith Rovenolt, CFT undergraduate intern We’ve all been told—or been the one telling people—to not use Wikipedia as a source. There’s a variety of reasons, of course, with the main one being the credibility of the information. Wikipedia is aware of this and has made a series of changes aimed at rectifying this. Their...
Is Your Gradebook Ready for the End of the Semester?
Dec. 10, 2019—The end of the semester is coming up quickly! Is your Brightspace gradebook set up correctly? While you are certainly not required to use the Brightspace Grades tool to track your students’ grades, it can be a big help. Especially if you are using Brightspace to collect assignments or giving quizzes and exams. Tips for...
Celebration of Learning 2020: An Exhibition of Students as Producers
Dec. 6, 2019—On February 13, 2020, the Center for Teaching will hold a Celebration of Learning, an exhibition of students as producers. The event will feature students from all over campus sharing what they have learned, created, designed, and discovered, providing the Vanderbilt community with a picture of deep learning across the colleges and schools. We are inviting faculty...
Leading Lines Podcast Featuring Ian Bogost
Dec. 5, 2019—Bogost is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the George Institute of Technology. He’s an author of multiple books, an award-winning game designer, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Ian studies games by making games and is an incredibly deep thinker about an impressively broad...