This page provides an archive of announcements that were previously featured on the CIDR homepage:

The 4th Annual UW Teaching and Learning Symposium

The 4th Annual UW Teaching and Learning Symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 6, 2:30-4:30 p.m., in the HUB Ballroom. The Symposium will open with a keynote address by Tom Hinckley, UW College of Forest Resources, followed by 39 concurrent poster sessions featuring the work of UW faculty, staff, and TAs who are actively engaged in examining teaching and learning in their disciplines.

Come and see what your colleagues have been discovering about teaching and learning!

Using "Clickers" to Promote Student Learning

Portable response systems, known as “clickers," are used to facilitate interactive learning in the classroom. This technology allows students to use an individual remote control to respond to questions posed by an instructor in lecture. Instructors and students find this tool particularly helpful in large classes because it creates opportunities for more students to actively participate in answering instructor questions and to receive feedback on their understanding of the material or their contributions to class.

Mentoring the Undergraduate Research Experience

Many in the UW community have found that mentoring undergraduates to become productive scholars is a teaching and learning opportunity that can have valuable benefits for all participants. This Bulletin, a collaboration between CIDR and the Undergraduate Research Program (URP), offers guidelines for faculty on how to make an undergraduate research experience successful for both students and mentors.

Discussing controversial material can stimulate critical thinking about complex issues, present students with a diversity of perspectives, and challenge their unexamined assumptions. This issue of the Bulletin identifies ways to keep class discussions engaging, substantive, and focused on learning. ... (read more)

Threatening Classroom Situations: Planning Guide for Faculty and TAs

This web guide identifies resources and strategies for dealing with difficult and threatening situations that you might encounter through your teaching. It also identifies considerations for discussing these types of situations with your students.

Many classes include some kind of research assignment or literature review that requires students to seek out evidence in support of an argument or thesis. In this issue of the Bulletin, we discuss ways that instructors can help students develop effective research skills ... (read more)

The Annual TA Conference on Teaching and Learning is scheduled for September 17-19, 2007. See the TA Conference web site for more information about the conference program, department recommendations, and how to register.

New technologies – for example, electronic portfolios, blogs, and wikis – are making it easier for students to create, store, organize, and share their work. These emerging Web-based technologies can support participatory online learning communities that foster collaboration, creativity, and public engagement ... (read more)

Students report that PowerPoint can be helpful, depending on how it is used, but in some ways it can also distract them from what the instructor is saying or overwhelm them with a high-speed flow of information that leaves little time to think, reflect on their questions, or learn ...  (read more)

What is the best course design to use in a large, introductory course in order to maximize learning and performance by all students?

CIDR's Spring Quarterly Forum will feature Scott Freeman, UW Department of Biology, who will present how he and a group of colleagues have used data from the research literature and from their own teaching to redesign Biology 180.

The Spring Quarterly Forum is being held in conjunction with the Annual Teaching and Learning Symposium. Come and see what your colleagues are learning about teaching!

Dates have been set for the Fall 2007 TA Conference on Teaching and Learning, International TA Program Workshops, and the Annual Workshop for Graduate Research Assistants.

Group projects offer significant learning benefits:  They can stimulate critical thinking, expose students to an expanded array of perspectives on problems, and provide opportunities for students to work on projects too large for them to tackle individually.

Planning the Course Syllabus

This CIDR Web Guide identifies components that are commonly included in a syllabus, and illustrates each component with examples taken from courses taught by UW faculty and TAs.

This issue of the CIDR Bulletin is designed to help UW faculty and TAs interpret the student ratings they have received and use them as one source of information about quality of teaching.

The Wireless Campus: What Does It Mean for Your Teaching and Your Students' Learning?

The Winter Quarterly Forum, scheduled for January 25 at 2:30 p.m., will address issues related to teaching in wireless classrooms. We hope you will be able to join us!

We have retained much of the material from our former site, and have updated and expanded a number of sections. If a page you are looking for has moved, you will be directed to the new address for the site.

Finally, there are a few pages still undergoing revision. If you cannot find what you are looking for, or if you have other comments on the web site, please let us know.