Most faculty hate the end of the semester, when students start asking them if they could come in and “discuss” their grades. We all know this usually means “Can you give me a better grade?” Many faculty will flat out say that they “Don't negotiate”. Others add bolded, underlined, red statements in their syllabi in order to set expectations about grade changes. With that said, we know that students today are being brought up in a world where everything is negotiable, some cultures encourage it, and it doesn't hurt to ask. I’ve found that using some best practices from the business industry, help me get through these difficult situations. In its most simple form, a negotiation is a bargain, where both parties take a side, sometimes meet in the middle, and usually leave the table frustrated. Bargaining in a class means that a student does C level work, but asks for an A. You get frustrated, and to agree to give them a B just to get them out of your office. But it doesn...

In our latest Teach T@lk webinar, we focused on student-centered Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). These popular and quick activities allow instructors to receive feedback about lesson effectiveness and student understanding. While CATs were developed by Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross (1993) with face-to-face teaching in mind, these easy-to-use and often non-graded techniques can be easily adapted to the online or hybrid setting. You might have heard about CATs, such as Minute-Paper, Muddiest Point, or Pro-Con Grids, but did you know these are just three of 50 CATs which instructors can use to gauge student understanding? Check out the following helpful resources to get started with CATs. Please do not hesitate to contact us for . Webinar Materials: recording (56 min.) webinar slides (PDF) ASU TeachOnline Blog: Gauging Student Understanding: CATs are puuuuur-fect Are my students really getting it? CATs will show you the way . Books: Angelo, T. A., & C...

This week's Guest Blogger is Christina Burden . Christina Burden is a doctoral degree candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience. She has a strong interest in innovative teaching and making time in the classroom effective for students with all learning styles. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory in honey bees and how toxic chemicals disrupt these processes. One of the strengths of active learning is the potential for helping students bridge the gap between a library of facts they must memorize and a conceptual understanding how those facts fit into a working biological system, like a neuron generating an action potential. I do not have a magical formula for creating active learning exercises that morph students’ understanding of a concept from a “mental fact library” to a “mental IMAX.” But, I will share three principles I use to help me avoid some common mistakes that can reduce the effectiveness of active lear...

Google Docs and Forms are terrific tools for teaching! Did you know that each ASU instructor and student get unlimited space on our ASU Google Drive (requires login with your ASURITE@asu.edu account) ? It's a great way to share files and collaborate. Three words specifically describe why you should use Google Drive, Efficiency, Collaboration, and Engagement. Google Docs are documents that can be shared with your students. There are a number of ways to use them to engage your students. You can have specific students be required to take notes for the class, or build a study guide for exams. Student teams can share a document, and you can leave comments, or start a 'chat' while everyone synchronously is working on it.  Google Docs are also easy to publish to the web for quick and fast websites. Google Forms are a survey tool that can be used for getting quick feeback from students. You could set them up for "Bell Ringer" activities, like "Ticket ...

Which type of video is best for your class? Matthew Robinson, Instructional Designer for UTO, shared best practices for both videos in the studio, and at your desk. Some key themes were: Research studies show students stop watching videos around 6 minutes Showing the professor talking is better than just slides and audio, and having two or three people in the video interacting is even better! "Cut the filler, maximize the THRILLER!"- cut out repeated information and stick to the key information that you can be enthusiastic about. Spontaneous and casual videos are a great way to communicate announcements and give feedback to students. Matthew shared the steps ( see handout ) for creating these using the Blackboard/YouTube tool and how to set up your webcam for the best look. Next semester, we are looking to do an 'advanced' video webinar that can address some issues for making videos more interactive, and adding closed-captioning and transcripts! Resour...