Teaching Tips

Faculty and graduate students at Brown have contributed these examples of strategies and techniques they have developed to improve both their teaching and their students' learning. These teaching tips are grouped in four general categories: Course Design, Course Management, Documenting Teaching Effectiveness, and Advising.

• Course Proposals
• Syllabi
• Assessments
• Instructional Technology
• Variations in Student Learning

• The First Day of Class
• Shopping Period
• Large Classes
• Teaching Assistants
• Critical Reading Methodology
• Student Presentations
• Student Writing
• Plagiarism Prevention & Detection
• Student Feedback
• Assessment of Students

COURSE DESIGN

• Creating a Course Proposal

• Constructing a Syllabus - A Sheridan Center Handbook
• Linking Student Assessment to Course Design

• Designing Asssessments

• Preparing to Use Instructional Technology

• Variations in Student Learning - A Sheridan Center Handbook
• Implementing Universal Instructional Design in College Courses
• Signs of Diverse Learning Styles: Hints for Instructors

COURSE MANAGEMENT

• Identifying your Audience - Student Questionnaire
• Syllabus Questionnaire

• Strategies for Shopping Period: Recommendations from Brown Faculty

• Strategies for Teaching Large Classes: Recommendations from Brown Faculty

• How Faculty Can Work with TAs Effectively
• Working with Graduate and Undergraduate TAs

• Critical Reading of Texts
• Critical Reading/Analysis of Primary Sources: Text, Objects or Architecture

• Guidelines for Preparing Presentations
• Feedback Form for Student Presentations

• Peer Review
• Self Review
• Brown University Writing/Rhetoric Fellows Program
• Brown University Writing Center

• Tips for Preventing Cheating & Plagiarizing On Papers/Written Exercises
• Tips for Preventing Cheating on Tests/Quizzes/Exams
• Tips for Detecting Cheating & Plagiarizing On Papers/Written Exercises
• The Academic Code: A Step-by-Step Guide for Faculty

• Feedback from a Single Class Period
• Mid-Semester Feedback

• Class Participation
• Ensuring Students Read Your Comments
• Grading Rubrics for Writing Assignments
• Grading Rubrics for Research Papers

DOCUMENTING TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

• Elements of Effective Teaching
• Conducting Effective Classroom Observations of Colleagues
• The Teaching Portfolio - A Sheridan Center Handbook

ADVISING

• Helping Students Assess a Syllabus