By Abbie Thompson, Department of Psychology In this article Abbie Thompson (Psychology) describes how students in her service-learning courses support new mothers in Porter County to teach our youngest learners: babies and young children. The name says it all. Talking is teaching as many of us faculty know. We share nuggets of our knowledge with […]
Tag: pedagogy
Collaborative Spaces: One Size Does Not Fit All
By Ed Finn, Executive Director, CITAL Collaboration can happen almost anywhere; we see it all the time. Whether it is students sitting underneath a tree on a fall afternoon, or faculty members engaged in discussion at Grinders, the need to congregate and discuss big ideas is ever-present on a college campus. In this short article, […]
Valpo Faculty Respond to Generative AI
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL At the faculty workshop this August, our keynote speaker Derek Bruff spoke about four possible faculty responses to AI: Red Light: I’ll prohibit the use of AI. Yellow Light: I’ll permit the use of AI, but with limitations. Green Light: Let’s see what AI can do! No […]
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 […]
Getting Your Students Excited about Learning
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Two proven ways to get students excited about learning are research and philanthropy. In the article below, you will learn about how the students of Kristi Bugajski (Biology) are raising money to combat malaria. You will also hear about two alumni whose introduction to research at Valpo […]
What to Do for the Last Week of Class
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Does your last week of class look like every other week of the semester? If so, you may be missing a chance for a memorable finale that will fix the semester’s learning in your students’ minds. In this article some of your colleagues share their ideas about […]
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 […]
The Humane Syllabus
By Cynthia Rutz, Director, Valparaiso Institute for Teaching and Learning (CITAL) As we know all too well, both faculty and students have been worn down by the pandemic. In particular, the mental health of our students has suffered. Even before COVID, the teen suicide rate had increased so much in the last decade that it […]
Technology: Neither Culprit nor Savior
By: Allison Hunt On the heels of the last article (Effective Online Teaching -Best Practices), we explore the question: how can I use technology to address my pedagogical challenges? Technology is primarily a utility for teaching and learning. When faculty state they want to learn more about technology to use in their courses, what […]