Each semester, we in the A&S Office of Teaching Excellence & Innovation grow more impressed by the dedicated efforts of our faculty. One of the most recent examples comes from Adam Penenberg in the American Journalism Online (AJO) program. AJO is A&S’s first and only fully online graduate program. Over the summer, Adam dedicated significant […]
What are Learning Analytics?
Terms like “learning analytics” and “data-informed teaching” have been thrown around quite a bit in last several years. But what do they mean? The Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) define learning analytics as, “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and […]
New Office Website
We’re happy to announce that we’ve got a brand-new website! Not only does it look new and swanky (if we do say so ourselves), but we’ve also organized our resources and support services. Our efforts in doing so help us further align with the office’s transition from the Office of Educational Technology to the Office […]
5 Reasons to Use the Brightspace Grades Tool
Most (if not all) students reflect and focus on their grades in each of their courses. There are a number of ways that instructors can keep students informed about the progress they’re making in a class. Here are 5 reasons to use the Brightspace Grades tool to keep students informed about their grades. Transparency First […]
Summer 2024 Teaching to Engage Shoutouts
In partnership with the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS), the Office of Teaching Excellence & Innovation offers a 3-week asynchronous course to graduate students who hope to learn about pedagogy and educational technology. This course is called Teaching to Engage. To date, we’ve had 77 graduates from this offering! We had 13 new […]
Exploring Pedagogy: Authentic Assessment
What is authentic assessment? All assessments inherently do just that: assess. Authentic assessments, however, require students to apply what they’ve learned to a new situation. This is in comparison to a traditional exam that might ask students a multiple choice question. Identifying the correct answer can indicate learning, but doing so does not require students […]
Exploring Pedagogy: Ungrading
What role do grades play in learning? Susan D. Blum’s text Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) encourages instructors to consider the above question. This scholar, in addition to countless others, is a part of a recent movement that seeks to de-emphasize grades attributed to student work in an effort […]
Teaching Innovation Awards
We’re happy to announce that the office is currently accepting proposals for this year’s Teaching Innovation Awards. We’re excited to celebrate the high impact work of A&S faculty, especially as it relates to enriching student learning. Further, we fully support faculty work as each award contributes $1,000 to an instructor’s research account. Past year’s winners […]
Getting Ready for the Spring 2024 Semester
Getting started for each new semester often feels like an opportunity for a refresh! That’s one of the many unique things about working in higher education; we have built in resets at start of each new fall, spring, and summer terms. As you take a step back and consider how you might prepare for the […]
Making Accessible Video Content
Do you use video content in your courses? Many instructors do! Videos can make for invaluable resources to recap important concepts/terms from a lecture, cultivate additional student engagement, and facilitate active learning. Research on active learning in particular has shown to not only enable students to achieve learning goals, but also contributes to an increased […]