Rethinking How Office Hours Are Kept

Once a year. Maybe twice. I have always viewed my office hours as the product of an implicit contract to be there for my students, so I am loath to miss them for any reason. But my preferences have recently been overridden by the arrival of my son; his mucous membranes have introduced a level…Continue Reading Rethinking How Office Hours Are Kept

The excitement of academic learning

Last year 1,180 UP students worked together with peer assistants in the Learning Commons to support and improve their learning for a total of nearly 4,600 visits. Wouldn’t it be great if even more students came early and often to the Learning Commons to support their thinking, learning, and the application of new concepts in…Continue Reading The excitement of academic learning

TLC Tip – Video Lecture Capture Made Easy

CaptureSpace is the simplest way to turn a presentation into a video to share with students. Faculty can use this tool to capture video as part of a flipped classroom or use screencast videos to provide feedback to students. Also, CaptureSpace makes it easy to record audio as part of podcast lectures for online, hybrid,…Continue Reading TLC Tip – Video Lecture Capture Made Easy

Making Group Work Work

students working collaboratively in a group. They are sitting around a table using laptops

As the term unfolds, many professors will be asking students to work productively in groups. While there’s lots of evidence to support collaborative learning, both in terms of knowledge gained and essential work skills honed, many professors are also faced with groups that don’t gel or fall under the dominion of one hyper-achiever, and the occasional…Continue Reading Making Group Work Work

Should You Worry About Cheating in Online Quizzes?

a young man takes notes in a paper notebook while using a laptop computer

Moving assessments online has many potential benefits. For one, you can free up class time for more group or active learning activities. Out of class, LMS-based quizzing eliminates the chore of manually grading objective multiple choice, true or false, or match questions. (This last one alone is enough to pique the interest of many instructors.) Some faculty, however, are concerned that,…Continue Reading Should You Worry About Cheating in Online Quizzes?