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‘Online Education’

Structures for flex classrooms: pros, cons, and pedagogical choices

Jun. 23, 2020—By Cynthia Brame, CFT Associate Director As we head into the fall thinking about classes where we may have a combination of students who are physically and digitally present, I’ve been thinking about different ways to structure students’ time “in the classroom”. The first and most straightforward of these is to divide students into groups...

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Apply Now for the Online Course Design Institute

Jun. 2, 2020—The Center for Teaching invites Vanderbilt faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to apply to its new Online Course Design Institute, a two-week online experience intended to help participants prepare to teach an online course. The Online Course Design Institute will be offered multiple times this summer and we are now accepting applications. During the institute participants will:...

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Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Online

Apr. 7, 2020—by Joe Bandy, CFT assistant director   Teaching face-to-face presents many challenges, not least of which is the task of ensuring that all students feel belonging and have equal chances to thrive regardless of their abilities, identities, or perspectives. The online teaching environment suffers from all of the same obstacles to this and more, especially...

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Using OneNote to teach online

Mar. 30, 2020—by Elliott McCarter, Senior Lecturer in Hindi-Urdu, Asian Studies Program and 2019-2020 Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow at Vanderbilt University Upon being called to teach my courses online, I cringed at the thought of being chained to a computer for hours on end as I slowly typed everything in Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit. My strong desire...

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Gradescope grading tool for handwritten exams, lab reports, and more is free through June 30

Mar. 26, 2020—Gradescope is an online, FERPA compliant grading tool that professors can use to grade handwritten exams, typed homework assignments, lab reports and more. Gradescope works well for many types of questions: paragraphs, proofs, diagrams, fill-in-the-blank and true/false to name a few. Six Vanderbilt professors have been using it for over four years and are enthusiastic...

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GoReact enables faculty and peers to give feedback on presentations

Mar. 25, 2020—Through June 30th, Vanderbilt faculty and students can use GoReact for free by signing up with a valid Vanderbilt email address. GoReact is a video feedback tool where students can upload videos and receive time-stamped feedback from both instructors and peers. This tool is useful for when you need to give feedback on student presentations,...

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New CFT resource on giving online exams focuses on reducing the probability of cheating

Mar. 24, 2020—As courses have moved online this spring, many of us need to consider how to have our students take exams online. In many cases, this involves learning how to use tools that help ensure students take the exam with only the resources you want them to have. As you think about giving exams online, it...

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Communicating with your students about the move to online classes

Mar. 12, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Joe Bandy I just wrote my students an email (see below) that you can use as model of things you might say to your students in preparation for next week, if you haven’t considered something like this already.  Included in it is a link to a Google Forms survey I constructed...

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Leading Lines Ed Tech Podcast with Kylie Korsnack

Mar. 27, 2019—In this episode, the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching’s assistant director for educational technology, Stacey Johnson, recently talked with Kylie about a new practicum the CFT launched aimed at preparing grad students to teach online. Stacey and Kylie discuss the origin and structure of the practicum, as well as a really useful framework for teaching online...

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Improved Multiple Assignment Options Brightspace

Feb. 20, 2019—Did you know Brightspace now gives you multiple assignment options to give students? The new types include: Text Submission, On Paper Submission, and Observed In-Person. Students no longer have to submit a file to a folder in order to obtain an assignment grade! If you want to know more, come by during our drop-in hours...

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