Keeping Breakout Rooms On Task
Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (2 minute read) Research shows that assigning students to work in small groups can enhance learning (and introduce variety, which can help reenergize a long summer term class!), but how can you structure the activity to keep students engaged and on task? In our Graduate Student Teaching blog, Graduate Teaching Consultant […]
First week of class: Welcoming the Community!
Contributed by CTL staff (2 minute read) As you meet your students online or in person this week, we recommend you have an intentional and purposeful approach for welcoming your students to the learning environment and building community in your classroom. When students feel that they are welcomed members of a group and part of […]
Student Engagement Part 1: Focusing on the emotional aspects of learning
Contributed by CTL staff (3 minute read) Are your students engaged, actively present and effortful at their learning? Are your students ‘there,’ with you, in class? Are your students still emotionally invested in our course now that you are half-way through the semester? The middle of the semester always presents its own challenges for keeping […]
Keeping Breakout Rooms On Task
Graduate Teaching Blog Post Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (4 minute read) Q: I hear students benefit from small group work and appreciate using Zoom breakout rooms. But how will I know that they’re staying on task if I’m not there? A: This is a question that came up frequently in the physical classroom. Now, in […]
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 […]
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; […]
Supporting Students in the First Weeks of the Semester
Notes from the Virtual Hub & Pub (2 minute read) At the recent Virtual Hub & Pub (February 2, 2021), facilitated by the CTL-Hub Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellows (Kaytlin Eldred, Sophie Godley, Joseph Harris, Irit Kleiman, and Benjamin Siegel), discussion centered on the importance of developing class community early in the semester. Participants reflected on […]
InClassLfA Student App
With thanks to Christine Paal, University Registrar, for this information. InClassLfA, an app that students can use to reserve seats in classes they wish to attend in person, will be available for faculty on the Charles River Campus this week (BUMC has been using its own version of the app since Summer 2020). It will […]
The End of an Extraordinary Semester
Contributed by CTL staff (2 minute read) What does the last day of class look like in a remote or hybrid Learn from Anywhere class? Many of the strategies that instructors may have used in the past (see this useful, but more traditional, list from UC Berkeley’s Center for Teaching & Learning) don’t map exactly […]
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 […]