Teaching completely online writing courses quickly taught me that students needed additional preparation and support in most cases. While students at my university are online often, they are not frequently online for academic purposes. Now, thanks to COVID-19, they are…
Category: Teaching
Teaching Online 911 Collection on Evernote
As everyone scrambles to support students in online classes, colleagues are sharing links to teaching tips, free online resources, and classroom activities. I have found links in my Twitter Timeline, my Facebook Newsfeed, and my email inbox. Lots of links.…
Design Principles from Career Field to the Writing Classroom
Students typically know about design in their own career fields. Civil engineering majors, for instance, typically know what a good bridge, a well-designed intersection, or an efficiently designed airport looks like. They may not be able to design and build…
Write This, Not That: A Class Activity
Writing a simple email message can turn me into an overthinking scaredy-cat. Am I using the right phrase? Do I sound like I’m apologizing too much? Am I oversharing? Am I being too vague? Ugh. I end up evaluating, re-evaluating,…
A Classification Activity Based on Visual Qualities
Today I have a classification activity that asks students to use visual design as they compare items by creating categories based on the visual qualities of the items they classify. The activity builds on designer Haik Avanian’s classification of 2020…
Designing Visual Outlines with Graphic Organizers
I have asked students to informally outline all of their projects this term. I am not strict about the form of the outlines. They can use jot lists, topic outlines, tree structures, or any kind of map that shows their…
Designing a Twist on Active Learning Strategies
Last week, I shared a series of active learning strategies focused on design principles, related to a research poster project that students are working on this month. That activity inspired me to consider how I could rethink active learning strategies…
Examining Design Principles through Active Learning Tasks
My students are beginning research posters this week, so the course is returning to information on effective design and in particular the design principles of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. In today’s post, I’ll share the active learning tasks I’m…
Great Writing Resources from UNC-Chapel Hill
Recently I needed a resource to help students understand brainstorming. I knew that they generally understood the idea, but I wanted to encourage them to try some new strategies and stretch their invention skills a little. After a few disappointing…
Making Time for Software Instruction
For students to do well in the courses I teach, they have to understand how the course software works. Since the courses are 100% online, the spaces that our course software creates become the classroom where we interact. If students…