Scientific Teaching in Biology at Duke
Students are encountering scientific inquiry, active learning and a focus on concepts in three revised courses in Duke’s Biology department. Many of the Biology faculty designing and teaching these courses …
Mohamed Noor on teaching his large Biology 102 class
Dr. Noor, Professor of Biology at Duke, taught a large class in basic genetics and evolution (Biology 102) for the first time this spring, as part of the Biology Curriculum …
Tips for teaching a course with both face-to-face and distant students
Robert G. Brown, Lecturer, Physics, is teaching Physics 53 both on campus at Duke, and simultaneously at the Duke University Marine lab in Beaufort, NC, using video teleconferencing. He would like to share what he has learned; read more for his advice.
Better prepared students, more participation
Will Wilson (Duke Biology) wanted to engage his students and have them come to class prepared, having read the text. He wanted the class meetings to go beyond the text, and include more student discussion. He’s incorporated two new features in his course this year to achieve these goals: reading quizzes and minute papers […]
Blackboard tip: Uploading files
You’ve been distributing files to your students for the entire semester via Blackboard, and there’s just one that does not seem to be working correctly. Either it won’t upload, or …
iEdit: Using the iPad for Editing and Annotating Papers
Deb Reisinger, Lecturer, French, and Assistant Director of the French Language Program, Romance Studies
Project description:
In Fall 2010, Deb Reisinger will be using an iPad and stylus borrowed from the Duke Digital Initiative as a tool for editing and annotating students papers along with the iAnnotate iPad app. Reisinger will be grading 144 papers over the semester in her […]
Responsive teaching
Recently, John Willis (Professor of Biology) assigned several chapters of the book “Why Evolution is True” by Jerry Coyne to his Biology 102 (Genetics and Evolution) students. Based on student comments, he decided to invite the author to talk with students via Skype in the classroom.
Social media workshop
CIT recently co-hosted (along with Duke’s Office of News and Communications) a ‘social media’ workshop for Duke faculty. Here’s a link to the PDF version of the handout from the …
Duke WordPress: now available for courses
The Duke-hosted version of WordPress is now available for faculty to use for their courses this fall. WordPress is a popular blogging and flexible website creation tool that faculty can …
More Twitter for more courses
Instructors are finding good uses for Twitter to increase student learning. Some examples: Dale Basler writes about having his students tweet during a physics field trip. He shares tips for …