With the new academic year now underway, we would like to remind instructors of the campus subscription to the Teaching Professor sponsored by the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning. The Teaching Professor is a highly informative newsletter with a singular purpose: to provide ideas and insight to educators who are passionate about teaching. It’s a source of cutting-edge information and inspiration for more than 10,000 educators at universities and colleges worldwide.
To access the Teaching Professor visit teachingprofessor.com:
- On campus you can obtain full access to all Teaching Professor content (including their extensive archive) if your computer/device is connected to the campus network (except the MichiganTechGuest network). It is not necessary to create an account or log in to access the subscription on-campus.
- Off campus access is also available but does require you to create an account.
Take advantage of this resource and contact the CTL (ctl@mtu.edu) if you have any questions.
CTL Services
Ever wonder how the Center for Teaching and Learning can support your instructional needs? We are here with support for any questions you may have about Canvas, Huskycast, Gradescope, Turnitin, Zoom, or iClicker. Already familiar with these but would like to take a deeper dive into some of these technologies or maybe you have never used these and would like to give them a try in your classroom, we would be happy to provide some one-to-one training! Feel free to drop by during our walk-in hours from 10-noon and 1-4pm Monday through Friday. We can also provide in-person consultations in classrooms for classroom teaching technologies. No time to stop by the CTL? Be sure to check out our online resources that can be found on our site in our Teaching and Learning Knowledge Base, Canvas Instructor Guides, and the Getting Started With Canvas sections. Our CTL Blog is another great place to get information, especially for upcoming events and workshops!
We also have a wide range of devices for short-term instructional loan such as Surface Pros and iPads. If you’re in need of a microphone or portable document camera to hold a phone or iPad for recording, those are available as well!
iNSwan document camera
IPEVO Uplift Multi-Angle Arm for Smartphones
IPEVO VZ-R HDMI/USB Dual Mode Document Camera
IPEVO V4K Ultra High Definition USB Document Camera
Snowball Ice Plug and Play USB Microphone
Swivl Robot camera with tracking
Are you interested in taking a deeper dive into a specific instructional topic? We also have a periodical library available for checkout covering a wide range of topics! Feel free to stop in anytime and review the collection.
Feel free to contact us at 7-3000 or email us at elearning@mtu.edu.
Are you interested in creating an online course? Do you have colleagues who enjoy teaching online, but you’re not sure how to get started? Below are some tips for developing an online course. (If you are already teaching online, consider joining our Fall 2024 book club where we’ll read Flower Darby’s Small Teaching Online.)
Develop a Vision for Your Course
When you begin developing an online course, start by thinking about what you want to teach students and why an online course would be a good way to teach what you want to teach.
Many times, online courses are developed as an additional section of an in-person course that is already being taught at the university. In these cases, the purpose for teaching the course and the learning outcomes that you want students to achieve by taking the course may already be clear.
Sometimes, an online course is developed to meet a specific need before a similar in-person course has been developed. For example, your department may be launching a new online program, and a new course needs to be developed to support students in achieving the program learning outcomes. In these cases, it’s important to clarify how the course will fit into the program and what learning outcomes students should achieve by taking the course.
Determine How to Assess Student Achievement
After you have decided on the purpose for your course and what students should learn from taking the course, it’s important to think about how you will assess student achievement using assessments that have been tailored for an online environment. In addition to or instead of multiple choice tests and writing assignments, authentic assessments can be useful for assessing student achievement in online courses. Authentic assessments “are tightly aligned with the learning objectives of a course or learning experience and have learners working on ‘real world’ problems” (Niemer, 2024). These types of assessments can be more engaging for learners and can better prepare them to use what they are learning in a course in their professional and personal lives.
For more information about authentic assessments, see Rachel Neimer’s (2024) discussion of Creating Authentic Assessments.
For more information about assessing students in online courses, see Creating and Adapting Assignments for Online Courses.
Collaborate with Instructional Designers
Once you have a vision for your course and ideas about how you would like to assess student achievement, consider working with an instructional designer as you continue designing and organizing your online course. The instructional designers at the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning can help you:
- Gain access to the MTU online course Canvas template
- Brainstorm effective online assessment and learning activities
- Consider how to make your course accessible to as many students as possible
- Prepare to meet the Michigan Tech online quality course standards
To contact the CTL’s Instructional Design team, email Dan Ye at dany@mtu.edu or Catharine Gruver at cgruver@mtu.edu.
References
Niemer, R. (2024, January, 15). Creating authentic assessments. M Online Teaching. https://onlineteaching.umich.edu/articles/creating-authentic-assessments/
The Ohio State University Teaching and Learning Resource Center. (n.d.). Creating and adapting assignments for online courses. https://teaching.resources.osu.edu/teaching-topics/creating-adapting-assignments
