Trends and Issues in Higher Ed

Tips & Tools Archive


March 8, 2016

What to Know When Using Random Calling

Ben Wiggins, faculty coordinator for instruction and lecturer in biology, shares his top tips on incorporating random calling for a more inclusive and equitable classroom experience. Prepare a randomized list of student names: Don’t rely on yourself to randomly choose a name; instead, develop a system. Wiggins says it can be as simple as using two…


November 12, 2015

Five tips: Getting the most out of Active Learning Classrooms

The Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) at Odegaard Undergraduate Library make for a great teaching and learning environment—but may be a little intimidating for some lecturers and students who have never used them before. ALCs are designed to foster cooperative and problem-based learning experiences. While ALCs are relatively new, more than two years of research and…


October 31, 2014

Six tips for video success in the classroom

Butch de Castro, Associate Professor, Nursing and Health Studies at UW Bothell, shares six tips he used to help students succeed in a group video assignment, which focused on understanding the views and concerns of South Seattle neighborhoods. Salem Lévesque of the UW Bothell Learning Technologies team provided support for his class. 1. Consider class size…


March 1, 2013

To tweet or not to tweet

Dr. Alissa Ackerman, Assistant Professor of Social Work at UW Tacoma—a 2012 UW Tacoma Tech Fellow—has used Twitter in and out of the classroom to engage students in a broad conversation about criminal justice issues. How she did it Twitter: “Setting up Twitter was the easy part for all. Operating Twitter was a little more…


Keep students on track with “electronic nudges”

Tracey Haynie, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Tacoma, is putting students’ mobile devices to work for a good cause. To help her online pre-calculus and introductory statistics classes stay on track and motivated, she piloted a tool called Persistence Plus, which gives students electronic ‘nudges’ via their mobile device — about due…