Monday, April 9, 2012

Spring Quarter 2012 Workshops

Don't miss the exciting new lineup of workshops offered by the Teaching Commons this Spring Quarter. Visit the Teaching Commons Workshops page to learn more and RSVP online.

In Teaching with e-Portfolios, you will hear how e-Portfolios have been implemented in one program's learning-outcomes-based pedagogy during the past year, the scholarship that informs that pedagogy, and learn concrete strategies for making them work.

In Connecting Your Class to the "Real World", faculty members in the humanities and the social sciences will discuss strategies for connecting course work to the "real world" and share ideas about how to enhance student buy-in without compromising the integrity of the course’s learning goals.

In Election 2012: A Teachable Moment, a Political Science professor focuses on how faculty members can productively engage the upcoming election in their courses, both through class discussions and more substantive course assignments.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Autumn Quarter 2011 Workshops

Don't miss the exciting new lineup of workshops offered by the Teaching Commons this Autumn Quarter. Visit the Teaching Commons Workshops page to learn more and RSVP online.

In Teaching with Archives & Special Collections, faculty members from different disciplines will use hands-on demonstrations to show how they've built research-based assignments around the Libraries' archives and special collections.

In Commenting on Student Writing, DePaul's resident writing experts will share their insights on how to prioritize comments, compose helpful end notes, and avoid "over-commenting" on student work.

In the Neuroscience & Learning workshop, participants will learn about neuroplasticity, mirror neurons, and other important concepts, but more importantly they will see how the field of neuroscience might inform their teaching practices.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Resources for the Start of the Quarter

Autumn Quarter classes begin on Wednesday, September 7th, 2011. These resources will help instructors prepare for the start of what is often a particularly hectic quarter:

The Course Design section of the Teaching Commons offers resources on developing a course, constructing a syllabus, and choosing course materials.

Need help navigating the various websites and technology resources that are available to faculty? Check out the page on Campus Connection for information on accessing your course schedule and roster. For those using Desire2Learn (D2L), this website is the only place to find DePaul's official tutorials and quickguides.

The latest Teaching Commons video series, DePaul Faculty Oral Histories, provides a range of experiences, insights, and strategies from faculty members, including clips on preparing to teach.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Spotlight on Teaching & Learning: July Edition

Tired of spending entire evenings looking for the perfect YouTube clip to show in class? PBS has just released LearningMedia, a free and easily searchable media library with over 14,000 resources for teachers at all levels.

ProfHacker offers some tips for those teaching evening classes in "When Teaching Goes Past Your Bedtime."

The Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan provides a collection of resources that deal with incivility in the classroom.

The University of Venus blog gathers inspiring thoughts from educators around the country in "What We Love About Higher Ed."

Monday, June 13, 2011

Summer Course Planning

Summer is a great time to plan new courses or revise existing ones, so here are some particularly useful course design resources:

The files listed on our Syllabus Boilerplates page allow faculty to easily copy and paste required/recommended syllabus statements from existing Word documents.

The Chronicle offers a helpful breakdown of four major learning models, which are important to consider when writing new assignments or considering learning objectives.

When it comes to actually writing learning outcomes in your syllabus, Articulate Your Learning Objectives from Carnegie Mellon University offers extremely helpful and concrete advice.

It can be difficult for teachers to know when they should be at a certain stage in their course design process, so this suggested course design calendar offers a flexible set of guidelines to help stay on pace before (and during) Autumn Quarter.