Building Accountability During Breakout Rooms

Building Accountability During Breakout Rooms

by Rebecca Borowski, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, WWU Have you ever popped into a breakout room to check on your students, only to find cameras off, everyone muted, apparently using the time for their own purposes, rather than engaging with each...

How Can I Increase Student Buy-in in My GUR?

by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, Assistant Professor, English, WWU Common challenges in teaching larger courses (GUR) In teaching my recent GUR (around 60 students), I felt I struggled to gain the student trust, commitment, attendance, and involvement that I was used to in my...

Rethinking Workshop Models: The “Ikebana” Workshop Method

Rethinking Workshop Models: The “Ikebana” Workshop Method

by Brenda Miller, Professor, English Department, WWU Why "Ikebana"? This model stems from what I experienced as a student in an Ikebana class here in Bellingham. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging; the compositions follow formal guidelines, but they also...

Teaching Handbook: Active Learning Toolkit

Teaching Handbook: Active Learning Toolkit

Active learning is an instructional approach that "involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing," (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p.2). Use the Active Learning Toolkit as a resource to develop active learning techniques in the...

Top Tips for Online Student Engagement

Top Tips for Online Student Engagement

by Meg Weber, Director of Community Engagement and Executive Education, Head Instructor, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, WWU As faculty members, so often we can feel like our connection with students is less than it was in the past. We recall bustling days of...

Using Microlearning to Improve Teaching

Using Microlearning to Improve Teaching

Definition  Microlearning is learning bursts of new information in small parts at a time. Some key features tend to include1: Sessions under 10 minutes  Targeted simple and/or narrow topics Tasks be completed in-person or virtually  Information paired...

WesternOnline: Student Engagement

WesternOnline: Student Engagement

WesternOnline is a resource created by WWU's Outreach and Continuing Education to help build online courses effectively. Learn more about strategies and methods that can help you increase student engagement in online courses--and with any course modality using online...

What and Why of Experiential Learning

What and Why of Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is the process of student-centered learning by doing. Instructors engage students through hands-on experiences and reflection. This process enables students to better connect knowledge from the classroom to real-world situations.1  Kolb's...

Whiteboard Options for Collaboration

Whiteboard Options for Collaboration

Last Updated: September 16, 2024   Using digital whiteboards collaboratively with and among students can help them to generate ideas for a discussion, organize thoughts for a project, build a collection of resources, or generate a flow chart. This post includes free,...

Zoom: Using Socrative for Student Engagement

Zoom: Using Socrative for Student Engagement

Using the Socrative polling tool, or any polling tool for that matter, can add an element of engagement to a Zoom meeting. Typically, professors use polling quizzes to check for knowledge, prepare students for exams, check for the "muddiest point" at the end of class,...