seminar series

Piazza in Your Classroom

Answering the same student questions over and over... An inbox full of student emails... Too little peer-to-peer interaction in your classroom... If these challenges sound familiar to you, you may want to check out the online discussion platform, Piazza.

A recent CRLT study of University of Michigan students and faculty (from Winter 2013) found that Piazza is a great tool for answering student questions, reducing email volume, facilitating student interaction between classes, and increasing the number of students participating in class discussion.
 
Available through CTools, Piazza can help you promote student engagement outside the classroom while keeping the workload manageable. Instead of emailing you with questions after class, students can post questions to Piazza, and other students or GSIs can answer them. As the instructor, you can also answer questions, endorse select student answers, provide feedback, edit student responses, and view reports of student participation. One key strength of Piazza is the ease of organizing questions: you can create tags or folders for each lecture of assignment, so students can easily find out if the question they have has already been answered. 
 
If you are a faculty member who is interested in learning more about Piazza or would like to try it out in your class, join the CRLT on September 23rd at 8:30am for Emerging Tech: Piazza, a workshop where you will get a hands-on guided tour of Piazza and learn about potential uses for it in your classroom. If you are a GSI and would like to learn more about Piazza, CRLT will be hosting Next Steps with IT on October 4th at 9am. This workshop will cover the use of multiple classroom tech tools including Piazza and M+Box.
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Submitted by akgreenb on Tue, 09/17/2013 - 1:59pm
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PowerPoint and Student Learning

Have you ever wondered whether you're using PowerPoint effectively to enhance student learning in your classes? Or hoped you could learn how to do so? This coming Tuesday, CRLT Assistant Director Rachel Niemer will lead a seminar on strategies for designing presentation slides that successfully serve several purposes: an organizing platform for a lecture, a study guide for students after class, and a place for students to take notes during class. Informed by recent research on how students learn, the session will equip participants with techniques to avoid "Death by PowerPoint." 

"PowerPoint Supported by Science of Learning" will take place Tuesday, 2/19, 2:00-4:00pm in Palmer Commons. More details can be found on the registration page for the event. For full information about this term's Seminar Series, click here or pull down on the Programs & Services menu above. 

Photo Credit: Mike Seyfang via Compfight cc

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 02/15/2013 - 12:31pm
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Pedagogies for Understanding Race

This term's LSA Theme Semester on "Understanding Race" provides opportunities for U-M instructors across campus to engage their students in productive exploration of questions about race. In connection with the Theme Semester, CRLT is sponsoring a panel later this month on "Pedagogies for Understanding Race."

Four U-M faculty members from a range of LSA departments will share insights they have gained from their experiences teaching courses focused on critical approaches to race. The panelists include:

  • Evelyn Alsultany of American Culture
  • Martha Jones of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS), History, and Law
  • Shari Robinson-Lynk of Social Work and the Ginsberg Center for Community Service Learning
  • Stephen Ward of DAAS and the Residential College

Participants will also hear from organizers of the Theme Semester with more information about the rich array of events, exhibits, and performances taking place across campus throughout the semester. We encourage instructors to spread the news among their students so they can take full advantage of the Theme Semester as a broad learning opportunity taking place both in and out of classrooms. The full calendar of events can be found here. 

The "Pedagogies for Understanding Race" session will take place Tuesday, January 29, 2pm-4pm in Palmer Commons. For full details, including registration information, click here. 

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 01/18/2013 - 10:35am
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Winter Term Seminar Series

Registration is now open for CRLT's Winter Term Seminar Series on teaching and learning. These programs provide an opportunity for participants to share ideas across disciplines, improve their teaching skills, expand their repertoire of teaching methods, and gain new perspectives on teaching at Michigan. The seminars are conducted by CRLT professional staff, U-M faculty members and experienced GSIs, and guest presenters from other campuses.

Topics for this term's series include Negotiating Race in the Humanities Classroom, PowerPoint Supported by the Science of Learning, and What's It Like to Pursue an Alternative Academic Career? CRLT in Engineering also offers seminars that focus specifically on teaching and learning topics relevant to engineers, such as Low-Stakes Ways to Assess Student Learning and Pedagogy for the Engineering Classroom (with Michael Prince, Bucknell University).

You can find a full list of seminars and register for individual sessions on this page. Programs that fulfill requirements for the Graduate Teacher Certificate are clearly marked on the site. 

Submitted by tbraun on Wed, 01/16/2013 - 5:48pm
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Leading Discussions in the Social Sciences and Humanities

How can I heighten student participation in my sections? What are different ways I can plan a discussion and ask questions of students? How can I confront challenges in my classroom discussions? This seminar will provide participants with strategies for addressing these questions in social science and humanities classrooms. Seminar participants will learn and practice techniques for facilitating discussions, managing controversies, asking effective questions, and enhancing student participation.

Event Information
Start Date: 
Tue, 02/05/2013 - 3:30pm
End Date: 
Tue, 02/05/2013 - 5:00pm
Location (Room): 
CRLT Seminar Room (1013 Palmer Commons)
Presenter(s): 
Sara Crider
Audience: 
Graduate Students and Postdocs Only
Eligible for Certificate: 
Eligible for Graduate Teacher Certificate
Submitted by fisherpj on Mon, 12/17/2012 - 9:01am
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