Supporting students and faculty in the classroom
Contributed by Jean Otsuki and Deb Breen, CTL (3 minute read) After more than a year and a half of pandemic pedagogy (masks, social distancing, remote and hybrid teaching), many students and faculty have been looking forward to the prospect of a return to face-to-face classes. Yet the spread of the Delta variant has subdued […]
Planning Peer Review for Students
Contributed by Ben Keating (4 minute read) When students develop their capacity to give and receive feedback—and to use that feedback to revise their work—they are empowered in multiple ways. They learn to engage with peers while also claiming their own authority, and to make choices about how to integrate feedback into their revision and […]
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 […]
Jump-starting Discussion Using Images (Part 2)
Graduate Teaching Blog Post Contributed by Phillippa Pitts (5 minute read) This post is a follow-up to my entry last week, where I introduced two quick approaches to teaching with images in ways that will get students talking and thinking about your course content in a new way. In this post, I’d like to introduce […]
Student Engagement Part 2: Ensuring deep learning
Contributed by CTL staff (3 minute read) In our Student Engagement Part 1 News & Announcement post, we focused on the emotional aspects of learning, and offered strategies to keep students invested and motivated in your courses. It is equally important to have techniques during class to ensure that students are engaging in learning activities […]
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 […]
Harness the positive power of feedback
Contributed by CTL staff (3 minute read) Mid-term is a great time in the semester to check in with students about how they are going – with course materials and content, with your teaching style, or with other issues such as technology. It’s far enough into the semester for students to be familiar with the […]
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 […]
Supporting Graduate Students as Teachers
The CTL, with help from our Graduate Teaching Consultants (GTCs), offers a variety of programs and services designed to help graduate students grow as teachers and connect with a cross-disciplinary community of peer instructors.
Keeping On In Challenging Times
Contributed by Deb Breen (2 minute read) As someone not born or raised in the US, I am often mystified by political and cultural approaches here that don’t resonate with my own sense of the world. But, like so many Americans, I understood the January 6 attacks on the Capitol for what they were: a […]