News

April 26 Teaching & Learning Newsletter

May 2, 2017, 15:42 PM

 

View the CITL Teaching & Learning Newsletter April 26 Issue

Announcements

CITL Exam Services Final Exam Office Hours

Our office at 247 Armory Building will be open 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, May 5 and Monday, May 8 through Friday, May 12. We will be open during the lunch hour. We are closed Saturday and Sunday during finals. Contact 244-3839 or exams@illinois.edu with any questions.

Call for Presenters: August 2017 Grad Academy and Grading Symposium

Faculty, academic professionals, and experienced TAs are invited to participate as presenters and facilitators in the Graduate Academy for College Teaching (August 21-22, 2017) and the Symposium on Grading & Office Hours (August 22, 2017).  The Graduate Academy is our program for new TAs with classroom teaching responsibilities with the Symposium of Grading for those TAs with non-classroom responsibilities. There are opportunities to create your own concurrent session, facilitate a lesson from a pre-existing lesson plan, or facilitate microteaching sessions (a great choice for those with some experience but who may not feel like an expert quite yet). Follow this link to volunteer. 

Faculty Summer Institute End of Standard Registration May 1

The semester is winding down. Spring has finally sprung in Illinois and you are looking forward to a hopefully less hectic summer. The best way to close out your semester and get ready for the next is to attend the 2017 Faculty Summer Institute. Registration is open for the 2017 Faculty Summer Institute.  Registration is $59 until May 1.

We welcome all faculty, staff, students, anyone interested in finding ways to engage students in the classroom. The conference is May 23-24 at the I-Hotel in Champaign. We have an excellent hands-on interactive program across many disciplines. We hope to see you there. 

Celebration of College Teaching

Join us in celebrating the work and dedication of those who earned a teaching certificate over the past year.  On Tuesday, May 2, 3:30pm-5pm, in the Heritage Room at the ACES library, we will be officially awarding this year’s certificates.  We will also hear from Wojtek J. Chodzko-Zajko, Dean of the Graduate College, and we will share some stories (inspiring, funny, sometimes both) from certificate recipients.

CITL Events & Workshops

Want to see what workshops and events are coming later in the system? Look at our full calendar for more information.

Workshops

Thu Apr 27
CTEN Presents: A Talk from Jose Vazquez
3:30 P.M. - 4:00 P.M., room 428, Armory
Speaker: Jose Vazquez (LAS)
 
Mon May 1
ELI Webinar | Virtual and Augmented Reality: Stepping Into the New Frontier of Learning
12:00 P.M. - 1:00 P.M., room 428, Armory
Sponsor: Jamie Nelson (CITL)
 
Wed May 3
Teaching with Technology Seminar Series: The Design Studio
12:00 P.M. - 12:50 P.M., room 428, Armory
Speaker: Deana McDonagh (FAA)

Training Opportunities Across Campus

Want to see what training opportunities exist across campus? Look at the Illinois Staff Training Calendar for more information.

Tue/Thu May 2, 4
Access 2016: Level 1
1:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M., room 27, Illini Hall
Sponsor: Fast3/Webstore Training Services

Teaching Tips

Alternatives to Traditional Testing

It is too late now to change, but you should keep this in mind for next semester when you think of diverse ways of assessing student learning. For many courses of varying format and size, across many disciplines, reasonable alternatives to traditional tests (i.e., paper-based T/F or Multiple Choice) exist. In fact, oftentimes the alternatives may even be advantageous to promote student learning and be more authentic means of students demonstrating what they have learned at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (synthesis, analysis, evaluation).  Here are some suggestions

Preparing Your Students for Final Exams

Final Exams are stressful to make, to give, to take, and to grade—not to mention, a critical element in the evaluation of students. Typically comprehensive, they carry more weight than mid-terms and other tests given throughout they semester, and provide that “final” opportunity for students to demonstrate what they’ve learned. But, as reported in an article in UC-Berkeley’s New Faculty Teaching Newsletter, students often complain that “final exams do not always test the kinds of knowledge…asked for in homework or quizzes or presented in lectures” (Tollefson, 2007). Whether this complaint is valid or not, it is important that we devote our best effort to creating good final exams. Here are nine helpful suggestions to prepare your students.

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