Great Teaching at University of Michigan

Making Lecture Recordings Available through iTunes U

Thad Polk, LSA - Psychology, teaches in a large auditorium where an automated lecture capture system is not currently available. For several semesters, he has been using ProfCast to record his lectures and make the recordings available to students via iTunes U in CTools. From the Ctools course site, students can download recordings for playback on their personal computers or iPods. Students in Professor Polk’s classes appreciate having podcasts available and consider them a great tool for studying, reviewing, and catching up. They also enjoy the flexibility that the technology provides, allowing students to review past lectures whenever and wherever they prefer.

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Lecture Podcasting

Mika LaVaque-Manty, LSA - Political Science, began experimenting with lecture podcasts in 2006. He mainly uses podcasts in his large introductory courses, although he has used them at the 400-level, as well. He uses Profcast, a college-licensed, shareware application for the Mac. Profcast requires no additional equipment beyond a laptop because it resides on the same machine as the lecture presentation. It captures both the presentation slides--whether PowerPoint or Keynote--and syncs them with the audio. Professor LaVaque-Manty twice created a podcast-only lecture when he had to cancel the live lecture.

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Friday Profile: Thurnau Professor Michael Haithcock

Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Michael Haithcock is well-known beyond U-M as a great conductor. He has garnered widespread acclaim for directing the world-class University of Michigan bands, he has commissioned and recorded numerous new musical works, and he is much in demand as a guest conductor.  Given this high profile, it might be easy to lose track of the fact that he's also an outstanding teacher of student musicians right here at the University of Michigan. As a teacher of conducting and director of student ensembles at U-M since 2001, Haithcock has gained a reputation as a professor who devotes extraordinary amounts of time to his individual students. He meets one-on-one with every member of the Symphony Band each semester, attends the senior recital of every band student, and writes scores of recommendation letters annually. Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 10/26/2012 - 2:52pm
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Friday Profile: Joseph Bull, 2012 Winner Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship

Imagine sitting in a fluid dynamics course as an undergraduate biomedical engineering student.  What teaching techniques could your instructor use to keep you engaged?  Students of Professor Joe Bull can tell you quite a bit about that question--and about great teaching in general.  In 2012 Professor Bull was honored with an Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, an award that recognizes outstanding undergraduate education at University of Michigan. 

Bull’s students might tell you that...
  • he organizes each of his lectures around a practical problem that they can readily recognize as relevant to their everyday lives. Whereas many initially dread a course based around, say, the principles of biofluid dynamics, they quickly come to enjoy his clear lectures about how blood moves through chambers of the heart.
  • his lectures are sometimes a "choose your own adventure" game, as he comes in with more than one outline prepared and decides upon the direction based on the questions students pose.
  • he uses technology to stay connected with students. For example, during a term with demading travel obligations, he did not want to decrease his accessibility to students, so he used Google+ Hangouts to hold office hours.
Read more »
Submitted by rkniemer on Fri, 10/19/2012 - 10:29am
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Video Study Guides for Music Performance Classes

Amy Porter, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, has created a series of DVDs that serve as study guides for her students. The DVDs include an overview of seminal flute pieces, providing details about their history, an analysis of performance, and practice strategies. Students use the DVDs both independently and to facilitate collaborative learning through study groups.

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