As we know, there may be disruptions that affect teaching and learning. It’s important to keep appropriate flexibility in mind as you design and teach your courses. Such a course does not mean the absence of standards or structure. Instead, designing with flexibility in mind allows students and faculty to adapt to changing circumstances, while maintaining a commitment to academic excellence, even in difficult times. Research has shown that not having structure or expectations can place a burden
Designing courses that provide equitable learning experience for all students supports the Georgetown mission to care for the whole person through our teaching. By foregrounding wellbeing, designing for accessibility allows us to attend to the social, emotional, intellectual, and scholarly development of our students, thus improving learning outcomes. Students may be experiencing a range of challenges that can shift over the course of a semester. Accessible design can assist us in meeting our l
Active learning is an approach to education that does not consider students to be the passive recipients of knowledge transmitted from an expert, but rather, active agents in their own learning. In active learning, formats such as traditional lectures, where students simply sit and listen while the teacher presents material, are combined with or replaced by other formats where students actively engage with the material, through talking, writing, reading and reflecting. Studies, such as Freeman
One of our most important goals for our students is a deeper engagement with and investment in the subject matter. We want them to care about what they’re learning, because intrinsic motivation, what Amabile (2018) calls “the drive to engage in a task because it is interesting, enjoyable, challenging, or satisfying in and of itself” makes it easier to persist and learn. (See a review of this literature in Hennessey, 2018.) This is where grades can become a problem. A long line of research has c
Once you have clearly articulated learning goals for your course, you will need to figure out how to measure students’ progress toward those goals. The word "assessments" seems to conjure up images of pointless administrative exercises for some teachers, but what we're actually talking about is you figuring out whether your students are learning what you want them to learn. Assessment in this sense is not imposed from without; instead, it's your personally-designed method of making sure your st
A good assignment helps the professor and students pursue the learning goals of the course. Rather than starting with a prefabricated assignment, then, this is another opportune moment for backward design; ideally, you start with your course goals and think creatively to devise work that will help you meet them. In practice, this means that a good assignment generally does two things: it reinforces important learning and offers an opportunity for the professor to assess the quality of that learn
Sometimes students can't all meet in the classroom, for all sorts of reasons—but they can still have an opportunity to engage with course material. It’s useful to think about using the online space as adaptation to a new kind of classroom rather than a translation from the physical classroom. Skilled faculty take advantage of the affordances of the online space (Supiano, 2020). In what follows, we provide strategies and techniques for engaging students specifically in the asynchronous modality.
Introducing a new group of students to your subject area or to your discipline is challenging business. There are tricky concepts that they have to master to move on; there are places where students regularly get stuck. More challenging still, the very fact that you’re an expert in the field may make it hard for you to identify the most significant hurdles. Bottlenecks Where do people get stuck in your classes? What are the concepts or skills that consistently seem to stymie students? You’re p
Whether it is through discussion and dialogue, brainstorming, problem-solving, roleplays, or group presentations, interactions with peers create learning spaces where students can practice, refine, and deepen their ideas, their skills, and their growing understanding of new concepts and materials. When students have structured opportunities to collaborate, it often means they are sharing their own learning process and teaching each other. It also requires higher order thinking skills and applica
Community and a sense of belonging are important factors in students’ academic success. We assume that community-building largely only happens when we are together in our classrooms, but it does not have to end there. Technology and other digital tools allow us to continue to build a sense of community and belonging with our students even when not physically sharing the same space. Whether it is through discussion and dialogue, brainstorming, problem-solving, roleplays, or group presentations,
Various departments and groups at Georgetown, both within CNDLS and outside of it, provide valuable resources to care for our community. Here, we have included a sampling of some of these resources which may be useful to you as a community member looking out for your students. If you are in need of a resource you do not see here, please continue searching on the Georgetown website and feel free to reach out to cndls@georgetown.edu for support. Diversity resources The university provides a
CNDLS offers a range of classroom and program assessment services to Georgetown faculty, graduate students, and administrators. These include designing and gathering customized mid- or end-of-semester student feedback, designing and implementing student focus groups, providing statistical support and analysis, and advising on the assessment portions of grants. Our services typically begin with a consultation and discussion about learning goals and the development of questions for investigation,
Polling systems foster interactive, responsive classrooms via live polling and Q&A during class. These softwares capture student responses and instantly tallies and produces a visualization of the results. Mentimeter What is Mentimeter? Mentimeter is an online polling tool that allows faculty to create presentations (similar to PowerPoint Presentations) that are interactive and allow students to answer questions and polls anonymously using any device. The number of participants is unlimited
You may not have much say in where you will teach, but it can still be a useful exercise to envision the ideal classroom space for your course. It can also be helpful to think through how to best work with the space you’re given. When selecting your teaching strategies, it’s important to consider the physical layout, characteristics, and overall design of the classroom space. At many institutions, including Georgetown, instructors may request particular classroom characteristics, features, and
The syllabus presents students with a first impression of your course. It offers many opportunities to share what the learning experience in your course will be like—both explicitly, with the information that you choose to include, and implicitly, with the tone that you set. Think about how the syllabus functions in your teaching. Which of these roles does your syllabus play in your courses? Is there a new function for your syllabus that you might want to try with your next course? The syllabu
What goals do you have for your students? What is it that you want them to know—and what do you want them to be able to do—by the time they've finished your class? In backward design, you build your course not around predetermined assignments and activities, but around the skills and knowledge you want your students to gain from the experience. Maybe you want them to know how to perform a certain kind of analysis, or to have a critical understanding of a particular theory and its shortcomings,
Set up the space from the beginning to encourage academic integrity Cheating happens for a lot of different reasons, which means that it needs to be addressed in multiple ways. Here are steps you can take from the get-go to foster a climate of integrity: 1. Make sure students understand University academic integrity policies and your course-specific expectations: 2. In your syllabus and during class, communicate with your students about your and the University’s expectations of academic integ
A learning management system (LMS), like Canvas, provides students in a course with one single place to go to access course materials, submit assignments, track their grade, and engage in activities that extend beyond the classroom. Effective use of an LMS can help both students and faculty stay organized, streamline communications, and provide more immediate information on student performance. Canvas in particular has been designed to integrate with a plethora of third-party tools, so it is pos
Difficult discussions are an inescapable part of higher education. While certain topics lend themselves to more divisive conversations, difficult discussions can even crop up in courses whose focus is theoretically far removed from topics of public controversy. The diversity of our students, their experiences, and our collective interests create conditions where conflict and volatile conversations are always possible. Often it’s the role of faculty to lead students in exploring “hot button” item
Engaging in course-based digital projects can multiple benefits and perhaps unexpected learning outcomes. Such assignments can encourage collaborative work, as well as help students explorE multiple literacies, write for public audiences, and learng to effectively present critical, creative, and community-engaged scholarship. These non-technical outcomes should form the basis of and motivation for the development of digital assignments. Digital work for digital’s sake is never a good idea and ad
A semester is a marathon effort, and, by the time you reach the end of it, it’s quite possible that everyone—you and the students both—will be exhausted, and perhaps very ready to leave the course behind. But one last thoughtful push can ensure that the course’s conclusion is meaningful in its own right. Looking Back Naturally, the final stretch of the course is an important time to reflect on the class experience and the material that’s been covered. Not only is it an opportunity to review m
Engagement in context Student engagement generally refers to students’ level of investment, passion, and interest in the subject and course material, as well as the degree of interaction and the motivation shown by students to learn and progress through the course. It can be helpful to consider this in terms of three key relationships—with material, peers, and professor; here we’ll focus on engagement with material. Within a course, however, these elements are often interwoven and do not fun
What is experiential learning? Experiential learning is characterized by learning by doing. There is a diverse range of experiential learning approaches that engage students in applying theoretical knowledge to practical situations. - Problem-based learning involves students tackling real-world problems to develop solutions through research, collaboration, and problem-solving, typically within a limited scope and timeframe. - Project-based learning extends over longer periods, allowing stude
Experienced teachers know that “How do I want class to go?” and “How is class actually going?” are two different questions, and both are worth asking. To grow as a teacher, you need evidence on how you’re doing; you need feedback, whether from student evaluations, a CNDLS Mid-Semester Teaching Feedback session, assessments you develop yourself, or from peers. Making use of student evaluations Faculty receive feedback on their teaching every semester in the form of student evaluations. These ca
From a student’s perspective, grading can seem like a mysterious and even sometimes arbitrary process, and yet it has the potential to be an important, productive, and educational part of a course. For ideas on low-stakes (ungraded) evaluation of students, see our page on Classroom Assessment Techniques. It helps to recognize that grading serves multiple purposes beyond the obvious one of giving the registrar information for their calculations of credits and GPAs. Assessing students: - can tel
Hybrid vs. HyFlex Hybrid courses move a significant part of course learning online and, as a result, reduce the amount of classroom seat time. The term Hybrid describes courses that combine face-to-face classroom instruction with online and offline approaches in and out of the classroom. Hybrid courses move a significant part of course learning online, and classroom seat time may or may not be reduced. HyFlex (a term coined by Brian Beatty) stands for a combination of “hybrid,” meaning alter
Most professors want students to leave their classes with more than just a heap of information: ideally the student has also been transformed in some way, has become more complex in thought and intention, has an understanding of the significance of what’s been learned, and has made some progress on a larger life path. As a Jesuit institution, Georgetown embraces these possibilities, all of which can be traced to the practice of Ignatian Pedagogy. Some history Ignatian Pedagogy is rooted in spi
Assessment is a crucial part of any course; you need to know whether your students are learning what you set out for them to learn. Learning happens differently for each student; a traditional or narrow set of assessment practice may not capture demonstrations of learning. Inclusive assessment includes considerations of purpose and intent of the practice; clear criteria; motivation and retention; and formative, low-stakes opportunities that allow students to monitor their own progress. Inclusive
CNDLS is here to support faculty interested in issues of diversity and inclusion in the classroom. Those interested in reading more on the subject have access to a variety of resources, several of which are highlighted below. If you have specific questions about either designing or teaching a course with inclusive teaching practices in mind, we encourage you to reach out to us for recommendations or to set up a consultation. Definition Inclusive pedagogy is a method of teaching in which ins
You undoubtedly have implicit ideas about what you want your students to take away from your course. You may also be expected to meet learning goals from your department or program. But it can be incredibly valuable to articulate each of these goals explicitly for yourself and for your students. Specific, demonstrable and measurable Learning goals must express specific behaviors that are demonstrable (students must be able to show what they have learned) and measurable (you must be able to di
The lecture is a commonplace in many academic disciplines; also commonplace, however, are concerns that lectures can be unengaging, unproductive, a haven for uncreative teaching, even unfair (e.g., to women, students of color, first-generation students, etc. ) or unethical. (See Are College Lectures Unfair - The New York Times and Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds - Science). Proponents, on the other hand, note that the lecture is simply a tool—a tool that, like
Most students at colleges and universities have academic advisers, which means that they have some support as they work their way toward a meaningful degree. But how many have mentors? Mentorship—a person-to-person relationship that goes beyond advising to help a student succeed not only intellectually but personally, not only within the walls of the institution but in their lives beyond those walls—can be a powerful and critical experience for the mentee and or the mentor. The argument for me
Assessment, like all other aspects of teaching, needs to be adapted to work in a virtual course environment. If you traditionally rely on closed-book, in-class exams in your courses, you may want to think about proctoring software like Proctorio—or, given concerns about student privacy and bandwidth demands raised by this kind of software, you might want to consider alternatives to traditional testing approaches. We outline some options below and also in our Designing for Academic Integrity page
With more faculty moving course elements online and more technologies and services becoming available to support those environments, you may be considering how much of your class should be held in the online space. Many working professionals already pursue graduate programs that are fully online, and some colleges and universities are now experimenting with methods of integrating online learning into the traditional undergraduate environment. While most courses at Georgetown are still delivere
Guidelines for Securing Exams and Classes Online Academic integrity is of course just as important in a virtual learning environment as it is in an in-person class, and teaching remotely means considering a range of familiar and also some possibly new approaches to ensure that all students are bringing that integrity to their work. Below are a few suggestions to consider. Key Principles for Assessing Students in a Remote Learning Environment - Make sure students understand University academ
Good class sessions rarely just happen; they usually grow out of careful planning and execution. Planning the Class Session Designing a successful class session will, like course design, move through a few steps, some of which will resemble the work you did in formulating the course, but on a smaller scale. - Decide on your learning goals for the session. Maybe you want students to fully understand an important concept or finding, to learn how to do a certain kind of laboratory test, or to s
To paraphrase what philosopher Edmund Burke once said, learning without reflection is like eating without digestion. In either case you can feed as much as you want to a person but that person won’t leave nourished; it might be as though they haven’t eaten at all. With reflection, on the other hand, critical faculties become engaged, the learner’s understanding of the learning process deepens, and information becomes meaningful knowledge, connected to other knowledge, the learner’s life, and the
To start with the obvious: It’s important to respond to student writing. Giving students feedback on their written work (beyond a grade) emphasizes that writing well is a learned skill; reminds students that the learning happens over time, through experimentation and iteration; helps them to see what they understand about the writing and course content at any given moment and what they don’t; helps them to understand their grades and your grading approach; demonstrates your engagement with their
Across higher education, scholars explore student learning through systematic inquiries, falling under the umbrella of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). SoTL encompasses theories on learning processes, models for understanding student learning, and opportunities to share findings both within and beyond academia. In our collaborations with faculty, many develop innovative teaching strategies or try to better understand how students learn. Such efforts generate two important questi
A successful semester not only ends well—it also begins well. Thought and preparation can allow you to set a productive tone and direction from the very first day. Before the semester Check out the classroom space that you’ve been assigned, both so that you know where your class is located, and also to be sure that the room will work for you. Look at the lighting controls, arrangement of seats, and size of the room—can this space support your teaching plans (e.g., discussions, student collabo
What does a large lecture class look like online? We’re all familiar with the large lecture hall with fixed tiered seating and a pitched floor descending to the front of the room where the professor stands, perhaps on a stage behind a lectern, with a microphone in hand and a large projection screen framing the front of the room. The room is large, making it difficult to see the students in the back, much less get to know their names. The professor may use clickers or polls to increase particip
Student engagement generally refers to students’ level of investment, passion, and interest in the subject and course material, as well as the degree of interaction and the motivation shown by students to learn and progress through the course. There are a number of digital tools and strategies that can help students engage more deeply with the course materials. Engagement with course materials The primary means for students to engage with course materials is typically reading. While we often
Particularly in difficult times, it’s important to keep an eye on how students are doing—Georgetown’s Student Outreach and Support has compiled a guide to recognizing and supporting students in distress—and you should be ready to share campus safety net resources, such as Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), Health Education Services (HES), the Center for Multicultural Equity & Access (CMEA), the LGBTQ Resource Center, and Campus Ministry. You might also consider bringing well-being more
The presence of teaching assistants in courses has become so commonplace that we might be tempted to give that aspect of the class little thought—we might just assume TAs will lead discussion sections or labs and do some grading and call it a day. But a teaching assistant can play a very important role in the course, and can gain a lot from (and contribute a lot to) the experience, especially if the responsibilities and relationships (between TA and students, between TA and professor) are approa
Georgetown’s campus is not sealed off from the surrounding world. What that means is that our community feels—sometimes powerfully, sometimes painfully—the effects of critical local, national, and international events as much as anyone else does. Students may be deeply and constructively engaged with these events, and news coverage may unsettle and even traumatize students. Faculty in the classroom are in a unique position to help students access the resources and support they need. Students sh
Seminars—small classes typically driven by discussion and other forms of active learning and in which students often take on teaching roles and responsibilities—offer tremendous opportunities for students and educators to make learning experiential, meaningful, and lasting. But seminars don't run themselves, and this kind of learning doesn't just happen automatically. It comes out of organization, planning, and a thoughtful, responsive harnessing of the energy and interpersonal potential in the
Central to Georgetown’s educational mission is the Jesuit ideal of “Educating the whole person.” This ideal calls for both students and faculty to bring their “whole selves” into the classroom—intellectual curiosity and critical thinking, certainly, but also the full range of human experience and development. And of course, whether we mean to or not, we do bring our full selves everywhere we go. Acknowledging that is getting more and more important. According to a recent Chronicle of Higher Educ
Students are carrying considerable stress and trauma into learning spaces. Somewhere between 66% to 85% of college students have experienced trauma in their own lives. Some of the sources of this trauma cut across all students—the stresses of college, for example, or the effects of the COVID pandemic, for example. Others, like systematic racial inequities and oppression, may affect some groups of students more than others. And some of those experiences may make students more susceptible to retra
To teach effectively, your teaching must be accessible to your students, all of whom come to the classroom with varied backgrounds, expectations, and abilities. This understanding is at the heart of the philosophy of practice known as universal design for learning (UDL). UDL is part of a larger movement of universal design, which works to increase access for all through designs that consider the needs of diverse people from the beginning.. For instructors, UDL means designing your course with ac