Teaching Materials
Course Design and Planning Materials
You may download the Syllabus Template if you'd like to follow some recommended best practices for syllabus construction. There are two versions: a MS Word version with word processing formatting, and a PDF version that you can print out if you can't open the Word version. You can use the Word version to simply type in your course material and information without having to format everything.
To assist you in writing learning objectives, Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives provides some useful verbs to write objectives for different levels of learning.
For general course planning, the Course Materials Checklist is helpful to review the components of your course and the elements of your syllabus to make sure you haven't forgotten anything that may be helpful to your students.
If you are just beginning to design a new course, the Course Planning Questions provides a series of questions through a logical progression that can help you avoid common mistakes in course design.
Active Classroom Teaching Methods
The Getting Students Involved framework provides a conceptual overview of classroom dynamics and communication behaviors that either help or hinder classroom learning and exchange.
A companion piece to the Getting Students involved is the Classroom Structures matrix with a number of suggestions of how to structure learning activities with students, along with a list of preparation activities and limitations for each.
Assessing Student Learning
The Test Construction Manual will be very useful. to help you write discriminating test questions, avoid common mistakes in multiple-choice and true-false questions, construct and grade essay questions and plan an exam.
The Assessment Resources is a bibliography of helpful books on effective ways of assessing student learning.
Professional Development
The Mid-Term Evaluation Form is a questionnaire you can give your students around the 4th week of the semester to get a sense of what components of your course are helping your students learn the most effectively.
The Observation Checklist is helpful if you want a colleague to observe you teach and give you constructive feedback. It is also useful if you are part of an evaluation team for peer review of teaching.
The Teaching Feedback Form is designed to be part of a peer evaluation of teaching process. It can help provide consistency and structure to pre-observation meetings, guide the observer in how to observe effectively, and how to provide constructive feedback after the classroom observation.