We have created a number of resource guides on various topics related to teaching and learning. We invite you to explore these guides.
This guide invites you to think about the nature and purposes of syllabi in your own teaching and to ask questions that help you communicate your course design to others through the syllabus. Moreover, it informs about institutional guidelines, requirements, and templates.
Syllabus 101
An Instructor’s Guide to Syllabus Composition
Please contact this guide's current curator, Mascha Gemein, with any questions about writing an effective syllabus.
This guide presents several active learning strategies designed to engage students in thinking about or applying the content in a course.
This guide provides suggestions for course policies and structures that provide both structure and flexibility and promote student learning.
Balancing Structure and Flexibility Guide (under development)
This guide provides an overview of best practices in supporting collaborative learning, in which students work in pairs or small groups to accomplish shared learning goals.
This guide is designed for instructors who would like to learn about the concept of the "flipped classroom" and the goal of reserving more in-class, group-based time for active learning tasks. In addition to the introductory resources presented here, instructors are encouraged to look for evidence-based studies about the impact of the flipped classroom on learning within their respective disciplines.
This guide offers a brief overview of how to write good multiple-choice-type test questions. It also explains how question statistics in Brightspace can be used to assess test questions and student learning to help make teaching decisions.
This guide provides an introduction to learning ePortfolios, including benefits, technology suggestions and guidance, and tips and tricks for implementation in your course.
This guide presents some teaching and learning strategies drawn from research on learning, which makes it more likely that students will retain what they learn and will be able to use that learning in future courses and after they graduate.
This guide provides an introduction to mindfulness and reflection. It provides suggestions for low-stakes activities and large-scale projects, as well as how instructors can use this pedagogical practice to enhance student metacognition and learning.
This guide provides suggestions for structuring effective office hours and ways to encourage students to utilize them.
Office Hours Guide (under development)
The Discussion tool in Brightspace is a powerful tool to engage students with your course material and with each other. This guide provides some suggestions for the effective use of this tool.
This guide provides an overview of the backward-design process, a way of planning lessons, courses, or programs that focuses on the desired learning outcomes first and from there, develop assessment, curriculum, and facilitation.
This resource seeks to center STEM instructors and practices for their teaching contexts and to offer instructors and educational developers a practical resource for evidence-based Writing-to-Learn (WTL) techniques.
This guide provides suggestions for increasing student engagement in Live Online classes, even if students do not use their cameras.
Research shows that reflection is essential for developing transfer for learning and metacognition. You will notice that many of these activities overlap with other categories, and that’s to be expected. We hope the following activities and assignments are useful!
This guide consists of 11 tips that introduce new GTAs to various campus and teaching support resources, policies and requirements, and practical strategies to prepare for the first week of classes.