Teaching portfolios are large documents used majorly for academic job applications and promotion. They serve as collections for everything surrounding your teaching, including teaching statements, diversity statements, syllabi, activities, lesson plans, teaching evaluations, course descriptions, and fourth wall-breaking justifications or explanations for pedagogical choices. This daunting list can create some anxieties about where to start,… Read more »
One of the largest challenges in my “Introduction to Fiction” course was showing students how skills like close reading would serve them outside the classroom. I know many of my students will enter careers where their employers would never dream of having them analyze the works of Louise Erdrich, but I also know that their… Read more »
Along with recording your lectures in PowerPoint, you can alternately automate recording your live lectures to keep it simple. You can use the Kaltura Lecture Capture system to easily share the recordings with your students via Canvas. There are several reasons why you might want to save your lectures: to share with students who are absent, to… Read more »
Seeing students getting sleepy? Try the “human histogram” classroom activity. Create a continuum along one wall. For example, one side of the wall may represent “strongly agree” and the opposite side represents “strongly disagree.” Pose a statement and have students arrange themselves along the continuum based on their opinions. Once students are settled, debrief as… Read more »
There are two main components to any good teaching statement or promotion dossier: 1) thorough explanation of the essential tenets of your teaching philosophy, and 2) examples of these essential tenants that foreground your students doing cool things in your course as a result of your pedagogical choices. As you are teaching and working, create… Read more »
Before you start recording your lectures to PowerPoint, future proof your slide decks by making sure they are fully accessible. Open your PowerPoint and click on the Review tab. Next, look for the “Check Accessibilty” button in the Review tab ribbon. Go on, click it! It will open a panel on the right-hand side of… Read more »