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 […]

Empowering Students to Succeed – Release Conditions in Brightspace

To facilitate student learning, instructors must consider many factors during their course design process. In addition to discipline specific pedagogy, the modality of the learning environment, the makeup of the student cohort, and their institutional context, instructors must design their learning materials with the student experience in mind. Whether teaching online or in-person, the quality […]

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 […]

Spring 2024 Teaching to Engage Cohort Shoutouts

A total of 64 current and aspiring instructors have completed the Teaching to Engage Seminar, one of the Office of Teaching Excellence and Innovation’s faculty development offerings, since its first cohort of graduate students participated in the fall of 2022.This three-week intensive course provides a fully asynchronous experience, allowing instructors to discuss research-based pedagogy, experiment […]

Check out Tim Schaffer’s post on SoTL on the NYU Faculty Forum Blog

Timothy Schaffer’s recent recent post on the NYU Faculty Forum blog highlights the practice of “documenting your teaching” and argues it is an entry point to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) that is accessible for most faculty members. Whether or not they are doing SoTL, getting into the practice of documenting and telling […]

Welcome to the Office of Teaching Excellence & Innovation: Starting Our Second Decade with a New Name

Ten years ago the NYU Arts & Science Office of Educational Technology was launched with the goal of advancing innovations in teaching and learning by offering instructional design services and educational technology enhancements to all faculty. Over the ensuing decade, the Office has fostered the growth of major innovative teaching initiatives across Arts & Science, […]

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 […]

Adding Poll Everywhere Activities to Brightspace

Did you know that you could add Poll Everywhere activities to the Brightspace Content tool? Poll Everywhere is NYU’s licensed polling tool and can more traditionally be used to create polls for both in-person and remote events and classes.  To keep conversations around course content going beyond class meetings though, Poll Everywhere activities can be […]