Structuring Peer Feedback Many courses conclude with final projects, and many of us hope our students are already making good progress on those by this point in the term. But we also know that sometimes students wait until the day before the deadline to start, and then we don’t get to see their best work. […]
Weekly Teaching Tips
Before & After Spring Break + Upcoming Events
Bridging the Break Most of our students (and maybe our colleagues) can’t wait for spring break. We hope you’ll return on the 23rd refreshed and energized, but before we go, we have a week to help students consolidate their learning and hopefully stave off some of the forgetting that often happens over the break. The […]
Support for Learning + Upcoming Events
Adding Structure for Success One of the most effective ways we can use our all-too-limited class time is by giving students guided practice as they learn our course’s most complex or challenging skills and concepts. This process is sometimes called scaffolding, like the temporary support structures construction workers use in the early stages of building. […]
CAT’s 2026 Summer Course Design Institute: Call for Applications
Summer 2026 Course Design Institute To accommodate more schedules, CAT will be offering our summer Course Design Institute twice, once in Summer A and once in Summer B. We’re pleased to invite applications now. Summer 2026 Course Design Institute May 12-15 | 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Bradley Reading Room, Strozier Library July 13-16 […]
Attention Is an Achievement + Upcoming Events
Harnessing Students’ Attention Students learn more effectively when they figure things out for themselves, rather than just receiving information. If a well-designed activity sets them up to “discover” how gravity works, they’ll have a more robust understanding of the concept and be more likely to remember what they’ve learned than if they’d simply heard an […]
Midsemester Tune-Up + Upcoming Events
Getting Midterm Feedback From Students Last week we talked about giving students feedback that can help them learn, but it’s also useful to get feedback from them. If we think about teaching as an inquiry-driven process, our curiosity about our students and their learning can lead us to improve our practice. As we mentioned last […]