Teaching & Learning Resources
Distance Teaching & Learning
You don’t have to be a Moodle pro to create an engaging online course- though our Director Of Instructional Technologies can help! Online pedagogy necessitates thoughtful design and a willingness to adjust your practices to best suit your students. Here are some resources to consider when creating an online course from scratch or adapting an existing face-to-face course.
- “Humanizing Online Teaching” by Mary Raygoza, Raina León, and Aaminah Norris at St. Mary’s College of California is a great staring piece that not only helps situate educators to a more affective approach to online instruction, but also offers concrete suggestions for synchronous and asynchronous learning.
- “How to Be a Better Online Teacher”, by instructional designer Flower Darby, is a thorough primer in how to approach online instruction from a strengths-based, affective perspective. All of the resources linked throughout the longer article are illuminating, and be sure to check out the thoughtfully designed example course, Modern Mythology and Greek Culture.
- The Association of College and University Educators has a wonderful collection of resources in their Online Teaching Toolkit. The section on recording microlectures is especially useful when making asynchronous content available for your students.
- Guiding Learning in Online Courses from the University of Maryland’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center reviews effective online learning strategies and assessment. Suggestions for reflective assignments and formative assessment in synchronous and asynchronous settings help instructors understand where their students are in the learning process. Recommendations for transparent assignments and structuring work flow are also helpful when preparing your online course.
Syllabus Planning
All syllabi share basic information about a course, including its title, professor, location and meeting times, and basic expectations. Syllabi are so much more than prefunctory documents, though. Well-designed syllabi are the first step in creating an inclusive, welcoming atmosphere for students while encouraging proactivity and establishing norms.
- Course Descriptions Your course description should accurately reflect the content covered in the course. Course descriptions should also go the extra mile to situate students in their learning- connect your course with pre-requisites and/or explain how this course builds a foundation for future learning.
- Learning Outcomes Be explicit about what students will gain through engaging fully with the course as outlined in your syllabus. Learning objectives should be measurable and clearly written. See Indiana University Bloomington’s Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning’s guide to Developing Learning Outcomes for a primer, and review this helpful comparison of learning objectives and learning outcomes from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute.
- Course Policies Ensure that all course policies, such as attendance and participation, are spelled out in your syllabus in clear language and are easy to find.
- Availability How will you be available to students? Do you have standard office hours on campus? Would you prefer students to contact you via campus email? Make this information available to students at the beginning of your syllabus so they know the best ways to reach you. You can also use this section to set expectations for communication by including statements such as “I will check email between 10am-5pm Monday through Friday. Please allow up to 48 hours for a response”.
- Make sure your syllabus contains all of the information required by your program chair and dean! Standard information that is typically included in a syllabus include academic honesty policies, statements of campus resources, etc.
- Lastly, consider adding information about the Trinity Library to your syllabus. We’re here to help students throughout the research process, from refining research questions, selecting appropriate sources, and integrating research. Our contact information is listed on our home page, and we’re always available by email: trinitylibrary@trinitydc.edu.
Backward Design | Understanding by Design
- Vanderbilt University’s teaching guide to Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s Understanding by Design is a great starting resource for the systematic learning design process, backward design.
Active Learning, Metacognitive Processes
We can help students understand and participate in their learning process by engaging in active learning and leveraging metacognitive processes. Helping students think about their thinking and learning can assist in developing critical thinking skills.
- Thinking Routines: Strategies to Support Learning & Engagement from University of Maryland’s Teaching & Learning Transformation Center includes several metacognitive reflexive exercises for students.
Assessment
- Academic Affairs The Office of Academic Affairs supervises the planning, delivery, and assessment of all academic and co-curricular programs offered at Trinity.
- American Association of Colleges and Universities AACU is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. This site has numerous resources for assessment in higher education.
- Assessment at CELT at Iowa State University is a great collection of planning, assessment, and evaluation strategies.
- Authentic Assessment Toolbox A how-to hypertext on creating authentic tasks, rubrics and standards for measuring and improving student learning.
Teaching Writing
- Helping Students Write Better in All Courses
The ideas that follow are designed to make writing more integral to your courses and less onerous to you and your students. - The Writing Studio at Duke University’s Student Resources page contains a wealth of guides that can be shared with students and used to inform instruction and assignment design. Resources range from writing in different disciplines to grammar concerns. Additionally, their Responding to Student Writing contains useful tips for reviewing student writing in an efficient, effective, and empathetic manner.
Student Diversity and Teaching
- Diversity Web
Interactive resource for Higher Education. This site is designed to serve campus practitioners seeking to place diversity at the center of the academy’s educational and societal mission.
Copyright Resources
- Copyright – Information & ResourcesUniversity of Minnesota’s collection of basic copyright information and guidelines.
- What You Don’t Know About Copyright, but ShouldAn article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Pushing Back Against Legal Threats by Putting Fair Use ForwardTwo professors at American University fight against “copywrongs” with common-sense guides to the law.
- Can I Use That ? – Fair Use in Everyday Life University of Minnesota Guide from a workshop on Fair Use