Campus Resources Map

This is an interactive map for instructors to use to familiarize themselves with some of the resources on the campus. There are pictures and videos. Feel free to show the map, pictures, and videos with your classes. It seems to run smoother if you click the "old version" link below the map.

 Campus Map

Who Gets to Graduate?

This recent New York Times Magazine article delves into some interesting recent research on student persistence and success, focusing on the affect of non-cognitive qualities like grit on student success. It explores how the University of Texas at Austin has worked to support at-risk students in a way that has had some amazing results including reducing the achievement gap for African American students. It's a longer article, but it's certainly engaging enough to keep you company at the beach or by the pool this summer!

Simple stuff you forget even though you've been teaching 20+ years

This link will take you to a list of ten common teaching mistakes. For most of the mistakes, you will probably laugh and say, "Ha! I would never do that!" But there are a few here that you may never have thought of or that you could have forgotten over the years. (I know I'm guilty of a couple of these.) Even us "Old Timers" can use a refresher once in a while, and this one is relatively painless. The list was originally written for chemical engineering, but it can be applied to almost any area of instruction. The 10 Worst Teaching Mistakes

Feeling a Little Overwhelmed in Week 9?

Follow this link to see results of a survey of 72 academics done by Professor Vince Resh of Cal Berkeley: Work/Life Balance Survey. Their insights on work/life balance may help you give yourself permission to binge-watch some House of Cards or take a nap after class tomorrow. If that doesn't work, you can always browse the internet for pictures of adorable baby animals.

Carol Dweck, an educational psychologist at Stanford University, has developed a way of understanding how our mindsets (our beliefs about intelligence) affect our outcomes in school and in life. This idea has taken roots in education at all levels. Here is a short and relatively accessible journal article that you can use to learn about the mindset concept: Dweck's "Brainology". This article can also be shared with students. It's helpful at the start of the semester to read and discuss this and use it as a touchstone throughout the semester (when you hand back graded work, you might preface passing back their work with discussion questions like "how would a students with a fixed respond if they received a grade they weren't satisfied with? How would students with a growth mindset respond?").

For more in-depth explanation of the mindset concept, check out Dweck's book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In it, she talks about mindset in many contexts from teaching to parenting to the business world.

This short video is a good place to start as well, and it can be easily shared with students. In it, Dweck sums up the key difference between fixed and growth mindsets.

Remind 101 - a safe way to text message students

Remind 101 is a website that allows teachers to send students text messages from the Remind 101 website or app. Teachers create an account for each class, print a page that tells students how to sign up, once students sign up, teachers can see the names but not the phone numbers of students. Teachers can then send text messages to the students signed up for a class. Messages can be sent right away or scheduled for later. www.remind101.com or Remind 101 in the App Store

Lesson Example

In this short video clip, Basic Skills Instructor, Angela Henderson, explains the pedagogical purpose for using motor imaging as a vocabulary development strategy.

Basic Skills Instructor Explains Motor Imaging

In this video clip, you can see the lesson in action in a Reading 96 classroom.

Motor Imaging in the Classroom