Resources

Request your history with the CTT

If you can't quite remember which events you attended, what year you participated in that program, or which courses instructional designers helped you with, request your CTT interaction history. We'll send you what we have on file for you.  The email address below must match the one we have on file for you. If your email address has changed, please contact ctt@unl.edu. 

What is Mastery Grading?

The key underlying principle of mastery grading is that all students can learn, but different students will learn at different rates and need different strategies and supports to assist them in their learning.

What is Contract Grading?

A type of standards-based grading incorporating the use of a contract between the student and the instructor on what must be completed and to what level of mastery to earn a specific grade.

What is Specification Grading?

Specification grading integrates aspects of mastery grading, competency-based grading, and contract grading to ensure students meet the learning objectives for a course.

Alternative Grading for College Courses

Explore other ways of giving feedback because traditional grading systems do not increase student motivation or interest in learning and can have negative impacts on student performance.

What is Competency-based Grading?

Competency-based grading is a type of standards-based grading that incorporates aspects of mastery grading while structuring learning into bundles or tiers that are associated with specific grades.

How to Explore ChatGPT

A guide to getting to know ChatGPT and what one might do with it.

Teaching and Generative Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT

ChatGPT generated a significant response from the higher education community. This resource will help instructors think through how the technology may be used in their courses.

Classroom Implications

Generative AI may impact the workflow of both students and instructors.

Impact on Assessment Practices

As you explore various generative AI tools, you’ll notice that they are more successful with some aspects of writing than others.

FAQ

In this guide, we have detailed the responses that we think will be most helpful in responding to this tool. This section includes some additional questions you might have.

Implications Outside Higher Ed and Future Development

The reality is that generative AI will only get better and is likely to become more interconnected with the technologies we already use.

What is Generative Artificial Intelligence?

Generative Artificial Intelligence is a program that can create “new” content by using and referencing existing material.

What Does Generative Artificial Intelligence Mean for Higher Education?

Questions we will try to address based on the state of AI at this moment: “What does this mean for my course?” “What does this mean for my students?” and “What does this mean for academic integrity?”

Promoting Equity in the Classroom

Intentional and thoughtful ways to implement strategies to increase equity in the classroom.

Infusing Diversity and Inclusion into Course Content

These strategies can help you integrate diversity and inclusion in your courses to deepen students' understanding and create a more inclusive classroom environment.

Fostering Relationships and Academic Belonging

Fostering relationships with your students and between students in the classroom may seem unrelated to learning but can often be an essential precondition for learning to occur. 

Inclusive Online Teaching

The principles of inclusive teaching are particularly essential for online courses because students are more likely to feel less connected with others, less engaged with class content, and less motivated.

Syllabus and Course Policies for Inclusive Teaching

The information that we include, the language we choose to use, and the expectations we set all send implicit signals to our students about our values as instructors.

Inclusive Teaching

These resources focus on ways to create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for students.

Peer Review of Teaching

In academia, peer review is the standard for evaluating research to ensure that only high-quality research is published. Similarly, instructors give students feedback in classes because they recognize the value of students receiving feedback from an expert in the field to foster learning and skill development. With appropriate structure and intentionality, peer review of teaching allows instructors to benefit from expert feedback in the same way as students and researchers.

Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning Bridge Training

This Bridge training provides instructions for increasing accessibility in digital programs (Microsoft Office and Canvas), file types, and videos.

Improve Scientific Writing Skills with Canvas Commons Module

This module is designed to be used as a free-standing review module for scientific writing or can be edited to fit the learning objectives and needs of an instructor’s course.

How to Design Effective Rubrics

Rubrics can be effective assessment tools when constructed using methods that incorporate four main criteria: validity, reliability, fairness, and efficiency.

Introduction to Rubrics

A rubric divides an assessment into smaller parts (criteria) and then provides details for different levels of performance possible for each part.

2022-2023 Teaching Planner

In this planner, you can organize some of your teaching-related responsibilities, debrief on classroom experiences with an eye toward iteration, journal on your own professional development experiences, and note any questions you might have about teaching throughout the year.

Classroom Climate and Culture

To cultivate a positive classroom climate, instructors need to build strong rapport with students by incorporating seven dimensions of classroom climate.

Teaching Support Network

Many faculty across our institution have put significant effort into reflecting on their teaching practices and the following individuals provide peer support for teaching.

Inclusive Course Checklist

This guide helps instructors make their courses more inclusive so they can better support the learning needs of all students.

Timely Tools for Student Success

Key ways to support student success at points of time during the term.

CTT-Recommended Peer Observation Process

The CTT recommends using a peer observation process to expand reviews of one's teaching beyond student course evaluations.

Experiential Education

Experiential learning encompasses a variety of activities to engage students with course content.

Developing a Teaching Portfolio

Created by CTT instructional designers, the Teaching Portfolio resource is available through Canvas.

Exit Ticket/ Chat Waterfall

Exit tickets or slips are used by instructors to gage student understanding of topics covered in a class.

Mid-term Course Evaluation

Mid-term course evaluations provide student feedback on the effectiveness of teaching strategies before the traditional end-of-term feedback is given.

Write a Question

Write a Question asks students to reflect on a topic and then write down at least one question they still have on the topic.

Minute Paper

Minute papers provide a short, written response to a question and allows students an opportunity to reflect on their learning while also providing feedback.

Using formative assessments to improve critical thinking & writing skills

Explore five formative assessment approaches focusing on improving writing skills and critical thinking.

Additional Classroom Assessment Resources

The following resources address assessment resources for both online and in-person classes.

UNL Classroom Assessment Examples

Articles describing how formative or summative classroom assessments have been carried out at UNL.

CTT Guide to Classroom Assessment

Use classroom assessment to investigate what students are learning and how well they are learning it.

Identifying, prioritizing, and aligning learning goals to assessments with the iTGI

The Interactive Teaching Goals Inventory tool provides instructors with a valuable resource to align their learning goals with various assessment techniques.

Make Assessments Authentic

An assignment is “authentic” if it resembles what a person might do with the knowledge and skills that you aim to teach students in your course.

The Importance of Practice

Assessments are often described as falling into two categories: formative and summative. Learn about both in this resource.

Proctoring and Academic Integrity

Maintaining high standards of academic integrity is an essential feature of any class - learn more in this section.

Canvas Commons: Modules for Instructors

Use high-quality instructional modules to supplement student support information in your course.

Assessment Begins with Learning Goals

Course creation begins by deciding what students will know and be able to do by the end of the course.

Reviewing and Comparing Lecture Notes

When students are given time to review and compare notes, students make significant learning gains by constructing context through collaboration.

Practice/Application Problems

Practice or application problems can help students understand and retain information on a topic longer than passively listening to a lecture.

Lecture Reaction

Lecture reaction is a strategy used to elicit deeper learning on a topic just covered in a lecture and is divided into four sections.