“Best practices” is a bad way of looking at teaching. How can we frame teaching practices more productively to encourage experimentation and innovation? I’ve got a gripe I’d like to share. My hope is that my griping might help you consider your teaching practices in a new light. Here goes: I hate the phrase “best […]
Learn how brainstorming your next course topic like a big adventure can shift your mindset and set you, and your learners, up for meaningful success. As a person who loves traveling, I often compare course development to planning my next big trip. I plan a travel schedule to make sure I get from point A […]
How can we both challenge and support students through our assignment design? Learn how careful planning of information, tools, and support can help students navigate uncertainty and solve complex problems. Assignment design frameworks often emphasize that assignments should be clear (such as Transparent Assignment Design), or that they should be real (such as Authentic Assessment). […]
Learn about one instructor’s participation in a Faculty Learning Community and how it led to a positive experience with ungrading in their classroom. As an educator, I have long struggled with the notion of letter grades and even percentages in the classroom. In this blog, I reflect on my grading practices and student feedback after […]
Learn how to use the Set Default Grade feature in Canvas’s Gradebook to lighten the grading workload. Whenever a new semester or academic year rolls around, I always find myself thinking about how I get work done and how I can most efficiently approach the grading in the weeks and months ahead of me. With […]
Learn about Canvas tools for facilitating meaningful group work in your class. One of the first articles I wrote for the Teaching Innovation Blog was about students’ shared frustrations for collaborative learning and how we might overcome some of the challenges that group work presents in our classrooms. In that piece, I explained that despite […]
Learn why and how to use a GIF as your Canvas course card, welcoming students to your course with some fun and flair. When students access their Canvas dashboard, your course shows up as one card among many. Your course card image is the only part on the main dashboard you can customize to make […]
How many of you cringe at the thought of planning one more ice-breaker activity for the start of the school term? I think we can all agree that it’s important to set the right tone at the start of the class, and for students to get to know each other right away for meaningful learning […]
Arguments for a particular length of instructional videos miss the mark: engaging video can be any length, from less than a minute to more than an hour. If you listen to the commonly accepted wisdom, every instructional video would be a TED Talk: polished production values and a strict 10-15-minute time limit. In a previous […]
Explore how a gamification for learning experience in one online course fostered empathy and communication skills. I’m not a gamer, but I have always been curious and intrigued by the possibilities of gamification for learning or games-based learning. In this blog, I share what a gamification for learning experience taught me about the power of […]
