By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Are you using Blackboard Grade Center to its full capacity? If not, you may be missing out on ways to simplify your grading. In this article, some of your VU colleagues share their favorite features of Blackboard Grade Center . Dan Maguire (ECE) talks about using rubrics […]
Tag: assessment
What Faculty Learning Communities Can Do for You
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Some of your faculty colleagues have been meeting regularly this year to explore a teaching topic that interests them and then making positive changes in their classrooms. That is what our Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) do. In the following article, Abbie Thompson (Psychology) talks about what she […]
Why Quality Matters Matters
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development We all know that enrollment in traditional in-person university classes has declined across the country. But did you know that there has been a corresponding increase in enrollment in online and hybrid courses? Despite this growing demand, many faculty have little or no experience designing online and hybrid […]
Two Perspectives on ChatGPT
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL This past winter there was a veritable explosion of news stories about ChatGPT, a technology that lets users put in prompts to generate text that reads like it was written by a human. Some decried it as the end of the college essay, others saw it as […]
Take the Pain Out of Testing
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Everyone hates tests. For students, test anxiety has long been on the rise. Faculty dread both writing exams and the tedium of grading them. Three of your VU colleagues have found a way to take some of the pain out of testing. Musa Pinar (Business) draws on […]
Using Starfish to Help your Students Succeed
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Starfish is one of Valpo’s primary retention tools. Used properly, it lets both students and advisors know early on when a student is struggling in your class. Yet many faculty don’t use Starfish at all or don’t take full advantage of its features. In this article, student […]
Beyond Exams: Other Ways to Measure Student Learning
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Do you ever wonder whether your tests, exams, and assignments are really developing the skills you want your students to learn? What would you like them to retain five minutes after your class ends? Five months later? How about five years later? Your colleagues Salena Anderson (English) […]