Best Practices for Teaching and Learning
- From the Students' Perspective
- Learning-Centered Course Design
- Syllabus Design
- Active Learning
- Lectures
- Group Work
- Student Reading
- Student Writing
- Websites from other campuses
From the Students' Perspective
Professors Review Best Teaching Practices
1000 students rank-order a list of teaching practices from most to least helpful.
Top 28 Ways to Drive Your Students Crazy
A humorous but research-based list.
Learning-Centered Course Design
A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education
The classic article from Robert Barr and John Tagg.
Learning Centered Syllabus Workshop
A guide to using the syllabus as a tool to think through your course.
Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice (book)
A practical, thoughtful guide to making teaching learner-centered rather than teacher centered.
A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning (pdf)
A short but intense individual workshop that leads teachers through deciding what they want their students to learn and how to help them learn it.
Syllabus Design
Cal Poly Pomona Syllabus Template (WORD)
A suggested format to use.
Learning Centered Syllabi Workshop
A guide to using the syllabus as a tool to think through your course.
A Chronicle of Higher Education article about a unique kind of syllabus.
The Promising Syllabus (PDF)
An article by Ken Bain about how to write a "promising" syllabus.
Active Learning
The basics. Explore the rest of this website for more information and classroom scenarios.
Innovative Mathematics Teaching
Ideas from math teachers that are also good for many quantitative or reasoning fields.
Lectures
Parham Aarabi. 2007. Cambridge University Press.
Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course
Practical advice from the classic book "Tools for Teaching" by Barbara Davis.
Giving Lectures that are Easy to Outline
Students report that the most important aspect of lecturing is good organization - here are some ideas.
Improving Lectures (pdf)
One of the classic IDEA series from Kansas State University , this paper discusses the reasons to use lectures and how to use them effectively.
17 links to various websites about lecturing.
Group Work
A tool for students (or faculty) to work remotely and collaboratively on documents of various kinds.
An extensive, detailed site by the "guru" of team-based learning, Dr. Larry Michaelson.
Collaborative Learning Techniques (book)
A handbook of well-crafted ideas for group work in many disciplines. Includes advice on grading group work.
Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams
Practical advice from the classic book "Tools for Teaching" by Barbara Davis.
Cooperative Learning: Best Practices
About 30 links to papers on group work that address issues from class time to freeriding.
Student Reading
Helping Students Learn to Read (PDF)
Ideas for encouraging reading by helping students learn to read disciplinary materials.
Using Textbooks Effectively, Getting Students to Read Them
Ideas from a teacher of psychology.
Improving Student Writing (book)
Students have to read in order to write - this slim book by Cal Poly Pomona faculty is available in the Faculty Center Library and the Bronco Bookstore.
Engaging Ideas (book)
This classic book has a wealth of ideas for helping students learn to read effectively. It's available in the Faculty Center Library.
Student Writing
Improving Student Writing (book)
This slim book by Cal Poly Pomona faculty is available in the Faculty Center Library and the Bronco Bookstore.
Engaging Ideas (book)
This classic book has a wealth of ideas for helping students learn by writing. It's available in the Faculty Center Library.
An Introduction to Writing Across the Curriculum
Much more than an introduction! Built around a series of FAQs about writing in the disciplines.
Digital Writing Across the Curriculum
Explanations and innovative examples of different ways students can write both alone and together using digital media.
Websites from other campuses
Online Instructional Resources from Michigan State University
An extensive and well organized compendium of links.
MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching
A searchable database of real live classroom materials in many disciplines.
Q&A with very experienced instructors; focused on engineering but widely useful.
Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Very extensive site with many links to a wide variety of teaching topics.
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