Writing Workshops in First Year Seminars

If you want some support in communicating with students about your expectations for their writing, and you want to encourage students to try working with writing tutors at the writing centre, consider booking a writing workshop for your class.

Research on First Year University Students

Research on the "The First Year Student"

Helpful Links to Carleton University Resources.

Student Academic Success Centre-  www.carleton.ca/sasc

Help for Students Coping with Crisis

Coping with the stress of money problems, a new environment, and relationship trouble can lead to negative consequences for students in and out of the classroom. The following link brings you too a brochure prepared by student affairs, that contains helpful information for students dealing with crisis.

 

Adding Content in 3 Easy Steps

Adding content to The Teaching Commons is a simple process. If you know how to paste text into a text box, then you're half way there.

First-Year Seminar Objectives

Sample Text to Outline First-Year Seminar Program Objectives

Using Student Feedback

The following website from the University of Oregon's 'Teaching Effectiveness Program' includes a discussion of the benefits of using student feedback to improve a course:

"Student feedback is an invaluable component in the wide array of tools that can be used to improve teaching. By gathering midterm feedback, courses can be adjusted mid-stream to make them better learning experiences for students. Through careful consideration of end of the term feedback, courses can be improved each year. Asking for student feedback connects students and instructors and creates a sense of good will."

from www.uoregon.edu/~tep/resources/assessment/usingfeedback.html

Getting More "Teaching" out of "Testing and Grading"

This issue of "Speaking of Teaching" discusses forward-looking assessment which encourages instructors to "...focus on how students will use course material in meaningful ways, not on how much material you can cover, and how well students remember what was covered in the course".

http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/testing_grading.pdf

ArtsOne TA Meeting Handouts (17/10/08)

The ArtsOne TA Meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, focused on marking students' papers and commenting on their writing. Attached you will find the handouts provided during that meeting.

Critical Thinking Mini-Lessons

For some interesting reading on critical thinking, check out the following link to the Skeptic's Dictionary - a website that approaches thinking with the opinion that "skepticism is most valuable when seeking and evaluating information".

http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons.html