Summer Workshop Announcement: Gateways to Student Learning: Engaging students through the Flipped Classroom Approach
What have been the lessons of teaching in the LfA modality? How will you be transferring some of the successful strategies you implemented to increase student engagement remotely into the classroom? After a year of teaching in the LfA modality, you may be thinking about adapting many of the hybrid and remote content you have […]
Announcing Our New Graduate Teaching Blog!
This year, CTL has been fortunate to have three wonderful graduate students working with us as Graduate Teaching Consultants (you can find out more about Phillippa Pitts, Sarah Sklar, and Ben Suitt on our staff page). One of their ideas was to produce a blog “for grad students, by graduate students” addressing some of the teaching questions […]
The Pedagogical Prelude: Playing Music Before Class
Contributed by Deb Breen, with thanks to Steve Donweber and Irit Kleiman (3 minute read) Music educators have long known that the benefits of listening to music in the classroom are manifold: as a way of creating an atmosphere for learning by either calming or stimulating the senses; as background sound that can heighten focus; […]
Meet our Spring 2021 Adobe Catalyst Program Cohort!
BU’s Adobe Catalyst Program (ACP), a Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) and Digital & Learning Innovation (DL&I) partnership has started its third cohort. The ACP provides a virtual learning space for experienced Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC) users (catalysts) to mentor colleagues who wish to implement multi-modality into their teaching and assignments, and use ACC […]
Adobe Catalyst Program: Teaching with Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud software provides a unified platform to edit professional video and audio, process digital images, create single and multi-page printed layouts, render 3D objects, and much more. The Center for Teaching & Learning’s Adobe Catalyst Program brings faculty together to help them become more comfortable using this powerful software tool in the classroom.
The Power of the Special Guest on Zoom
Film Director Isaac Cherem visits Prof. Amina Shabani’s Spanish class as guest via Zoom (Image courtesy of Amina Shabani) Faculty Contributor: Amina Shabani (Lecturer in Spanish, Romance Studies) (2 minute read) Thanks to the generous support of the CTL and the Hub Office, we were able to host last month the Mexican filmmaker Isaac Cherem […]
Game-based Learning & Gamification
Faculty Contributor: Amber Navarre (Senior Lecturer in Chinese, World Languages & Literatures) (2 minute read) Between playing a game with friends and attending a lecture in Zoom, what would your student choose? What if the lecture itself is a game they can play with friends? Researchers have found that playing games and creating a game-like environment […]
Faculty Guide to Assessment Options in Remote & Hybrid Classes Part 1: Overview of Exams & Assignments
(12 minute read) Creating and administering assessment tasks such as assignments, quizzes, and exams during this remote and hybrid teaching period is a challenge, but also an opportunity to evaluate how to meet the learning objectives in your class. The options outlined in this multi-part series guide on assignments and exams will help you think […]
Wikipedia in the Classroom: Getting Started
Thursday, October 29 from 2:00-3:30pm Presented by faculty and staff from BU Libraries, BU CAS Writing Program, College of Communication, School of Public Health, and Wiki Education. Wikipedia editing has proven to be useful in academic courses. It can serve as a form of service learning and can lead to new informal communities of interest on […]
Strategies for Connecting with Students
(2 minute read) At the beginning of the American experience of COVID-19, Doug Lederman asked a number of higher education experts to predict the impact of the pandemic on students and faculty. A number of them suggested that students would need extra support, patience, and flexibility from their teachers – a prediction that has been […]