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Overcoming the “busywork” dilemma
Jan. 11, 2021—by Julaine Fowlin, CFT assistant director What is the busywork dilemma? The busywork dilemma is where students perceive that assigned learning activities or assessments are not meaningfully contributing to their learning. Instructors put a lot of effort and time into the design and implementation of these activities, which can be very frustrating. Sometimes activities are...
CFT Now Offers Instructional Design Consultations
Jan. 8, 2021—The Center for Teaching is pleased to offer instructional design consultations to the Vanderbilt teaching community. Julaine Fowlin, assistant director for instructional design, is available to consult with instructors on the design of online courses, moving an existing course online, or the development of online programs. As an instructional designer, Julaine collaborates with faculty and...
Upcoming Conversation on Teaching: Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps
Jan. 7, 2021—Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps With the move to remote and online teaching in 2020, faculty and other instructors experimented with a wide variety of tools to foster and maintain social presence with their students. Some tried using group messaging apps like Slack, Discord, and Teams as a way to connect and communicate with...
Upcoming Teaching Workshops
Jan. 6, 2021—As we look ahead to another unusual semester in the spring, we are offering a number of workshops to help you prepare. The extended winter break will be a good time to learn about various technologies and strategies for your face-to-face, online or hybrid class sessions. An Introduction to Online and Hybrid Teaching...
Upcoming Conversations on Teaching
Jan. 5, 2021—Conversations on Teaching focus on emergent teaching and learning issues in an informal, discussion-based format. These sessions provide members of the Vanderbilt teaching community a chance to share their teaching experiences and learn from each other. Teaching with Chat & Channel Apps With the move to remote and online teaching in 2020, faculty...
Lessons from teaching in Fall 2020: what to keep, what to ditch, and what to change
Dec. 18, 2020—by Cynthia Brame, CFT associate director This fall, I got the opportunity to teach online for the first time. I had been thinking about online teaching for several years because of my work in developing Vanderbilt’s BOLD (Blended and Online Learning Design) Fellows program. But although I read about, thought about, and helped others with online teaching,...
Instructional Design Consultations through iDesign
Dec. 17, 2020—Vanderbilt University has partnered with the instructional design firm iDesign to make available a number of services to help faculty and other instructors prepare for online and hybrid teaching this fall. iDesign learning specialists are on-hand to assist with your course design and teaching effectiveness questions. If you have a question relating how to best...