Spring 2020 Junior Faculty Seminar Series on Teaching & Learning begins Feb. 12th

Come join a dynamic learning community by participating in this specially designed seminar series for junior faculty (though all faculty are invited to come). We’ll share research-based strategies and best practices for improving student learning and your teaching. For returning attendees, there are several new workshops. Some of the topics are the Teaching Philosophy Statement for P&T, team projects, multimedia instruction, and cheating. Great conversation and handouts provided. Limited seating and registration required. See a flyer for the entire series.

Educause Workshop: Implementing Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education

Join us February 13 and 20 for a workshop on Universal Design for Learning hosted by Thomas J. Tobin, author of Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education. Come learn how to: incorporate UDL elements into your course-design process, design/retrofit existing course components using UDL principles, measure student outcomes that improve with UDL adoption, and expand your use of UDL and accessibility elements beyond the legally required minimum.

Register for Part 2 (Feb. 13)

Register for Part 3 (Feb. 20)

Professional Development Resource Fair for Grad Students February 20

Grad Students: come learn about services and resources available to you. Ask questions and engage with representatvies from a wide range of campus units. CITL will be there! Thursday, February 20, noon-2pm in the Illini Union rooms B&C. You can get a free professional headshot from Memory Lane Photography. Learn more about this and other Graduate Student Professional Development Week events.

Now Is the Time to Collect Informal Early Feedback (IEF)

Don't wait until ICES at the end of the semester to find out how your class is going. Check in with your students now to find out what they think is working (or not) in your class. Informal Early Feedback is easy to implement, and can pay off in a big way. It's also a requirement of the Graduate Teacher Certificate. Want to learn more? Attend an IEF workshop on Monday, February 10.

It's My Favorite Place to Teach!

Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider (School of Information Sciences), describes the benefits of teaching in IFLEX classroom Huff Hall 209, particularly for small group discussions and activities. “When I was in a forward-facing lecture hall, I tried to have students work together on problems in class. It was always an interruption for them to talk to the people behind and around them. In this classroom style it’s the lecture that’s the interruption! Students really get a lot out of meeting and interacting with their colleagues… It’s my favorite place to teach!”

Learn more about teaching in IFLEX interactive classrooms, or visit the IFLEX website.

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

Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

(From Faculty Focus.) I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, “How do we help students learn in courses where there’s a lot of memorization?” He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn’t all memorization, it did challenge students’ capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts.The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn’t about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam.We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do. Here are sometechniques that target this specific teaching and learning challenge.

Reading Textbooks: The College Plague

(From Faculty Focus) First, let’s acknowledge this universal epidemic. College students despise reading textbooks and e-books that cover content with academic information. Fortunately, I discovered a cure for the reading plague that only requires five teaspoons of ingestion: 1) survey 2) question 3) read 4) retrieve and 5) review. In my class, I have found the SQ3R Method to be a step-by-step approach to learning and studying from textbooks. Although it took my students time and practice to master this method, it has been valuable in regards to preparing students for more content-driven class discussions, increased retention and understanding of information, strategic study skills, and test preparation.

Click here to see past Teaching Tips