Author: Nardina Mein
Welcome to the first issue of the year for the Office for Teaching & Learning Newsletter, and our first issue in the new web format! In order to foster a wider audience, and allow convenient linking to electronic resources of interest, we have moved our newsletter to an electronic format. I welcome your [...]
Author: Kristi Verbeke
With the revival of the OTL newsletter, we wanted to take the time to introduce what we feel to be a critical topic related to teaching effectiveness—the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Have you ever wondered if the activities you’re using in class really contribute to your students’ learning? Are you intrigued [...]
Author: Anne Marie Armstrong
Universal Instructional Design applies an architectural concept (universal design) to the design of instructional presentations, strategies, and assessments. Architects found the ramps used to make businesses wheel chair accessible were also used by individuals not in wheel chairs (e.g., older individuals, mothers pushing strollers). Thanks to this serendipitous discovery, many architects began [...]
Photography by Lara Hrycaj
Detroit News Staff (middle) Interviewing Phil Cunningham, Professor of Biology (left), and Sandra Yee, Dean of Libraries (right) for a Feature News Article on Technology, November 27, 2007.
Phil Cunningham Explaining the Benefits of Microscope Projection in Labs to Detroit News Reporter
Demonstrating Classroom Performance Systems (Clickers)
Computer Displays Slide on Microscope
Projecting Contents of Petri [...]
Author: Kimberly Conely
On Friday, November 2, 2007, the Office for Teaching and Learning (OTL), along with Dina Mein, Technology Resource Center (TRC) Director, and Sandra Yee, Library Dean, welcomed seventeen new WSU faculty members for the first of many planned open forum discussions and lunch.
After enjoying the catered, three-course meal complete with chocolate mouse, WSU [...]
Author: Anne Marie Armstrong
Jonathan Finkelstein (2006), Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning, San Francisco, CA 157 pages
Finklestein provides the rationale and motivation to use synchronous tools that “humanize the learning experience, efficiently teach and gauge performance-based skills, and cultivate natural means for collaborating and learning in real time.” Synchronous teaching [...]
Author: Bill Warters
The Office for Teaching and Learning has just launched a new weblog creatively titled the WSU Teaching and Learning Blog. The intent is to provide graduate teaching assistants, faculty and staff with quick access to resources, ideas and commentaries that support great teaching. Current bloggers include OTL Faculty Fellow Bill Warters and OTL [...]
Author: Julie Thompson Kleinh
Dr. Julie Thompson Klein (Faculty Fellow in OTL and Professor of Humanities) and Dr. Nardina Mein (Director of New Media and Information Technology) are co-directing a new team-based initiative called the Digital Learning and Development Sandbox (DLDS). The DLDS will enable students and teachers to generate and share online learning experiences using [...]
Author: Kimberly Conely
Over 20 Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) attended the Brown Bag Session held on Friday, November 16 in the Simons Room at WSU’s Purdy-Kresge Library. Sara Tipton, a lecturer from the English Language Institute, moderated the discussion by proposing various ways of embracing and overcoming cultural differences.
The GTAs represented several WSU departments, including [...]
Author: Annette Feravich
The Office for Teaching and Learning continues to upgrade software and technology on a regular basis to enhance both classroom and online learning. Below are details on upgrades in Blackboard, Respondus, CPS, and Wimba, our newest online software tool.
What’s new in Blackboard?
Although our current Blackboard 7.3 version introduced only minor changes, the [...]