Generosity, flexibility, and confidence—those are attributes associated with IMPROV. Discover how improv techniques can make your classroom more engaging, help students think on their feet, and reduce your own teaching anxiety.
Teaching & Learning Collaborative
TLC From The TLC: Future Teaching, Super Courses, and Core Exploration
For this week’s Teaching & Learning tip, Andrew Guest, psychology and core director, offers possible prompts for summer teaching dreams – with a specific invitation to start imagining courses for the new Exploration Level of the University Core. With the end in sight of this most challenging and odd academic year, it can be fun […]
TLC From The TLC: “Thank God for the Poets”
For this week’s Teaching & Learning tip, Lars Larson, English, suggests reading Margaret Renkl’s recent New York Times piece “Thank God for the Poets”: Deep in the bloom of spring, we are all tired from a hard year. Here in National Poetry Month, Renkl’s short essay invites instructors to reflect on the role of the lyric […]
TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Citation Help with RefWorks
As we approach the end of spring semester, your students may be working on major research projects. (Or, looking ahead to summer, you may have some research and writing projects of your own planned). Citing sources is often a less-favored aspect of the research process; the library’s RefWorks database can help! As an alternative to creating citations […]
TLC Teaching Tip: Universal Design for Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we teach and learn. Your experience may be similar to those faculty who have told me they recently implemented Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to develop new teaching strategies that otherwise would not have been implemented had it not been for the remote-learning model caused by the pandemic. […]
TLC Tip of the Week: Integrating Understandings of Truth Into Classes
At a time in public life where truth feels both tenuous and more important than ever, how might we integrate understandings of the truth into any and all of our classes? As a Teaching and Learning Collaborative tip of the week, core curriculum director and psychology professor Andrew Guest offers some liberal arts inflected ideas […]
TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Good Enough
As we claw our way to the end of a semester like no other, the Teaching & Learning Collaborative offers this pithy tip on the virtues of doing work that is not miraculous, but good enough: “Good enough” doesn’t mean settling. “Good enough” isn’t a cop-out. “Good enough” represents an attitude of deep gratitude toward […]
TLC Tip of the Week: Difficult Conversations and Liberal Arts Ideals
During a challenging time in a challenging year many of us may be having difficult conversations in the classroom (or in other spaces). While there is no magic formula for making those conversations into constructive educational opportunities, there are lots of possible recipes. With suggestions and links to resources, this week’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative […]
TLC From The TLC: Literary Thoughts for Covidian Times
As the distanced Fall 2020 semester enters its eleventh week, the spirits of UP professors may be low. For this week’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative post, Lars Larson offers this link of quotations drawn from literature for reflecting on our aims and our selves. For more information contact Larson at larson@up.edu.
TLC Tip of the Week: Ways to Take Care of Yourself
These days, creating a sustainable “work-life balance” feels as elusive as a unicorn, but it’s an absolute necessity to ensure you are still whole and healthy by the time we get to The Other Side of the pandemic. A recent article by Rebecca Pope-Ruark in Inside Higher Ed lays out several doable strategies for college […]