Last year I heard about Loom for the first time when I attended ACT. I gave a brief description of the program in a previous post. Essentially, Loom is a program accompanied by an online platform that instructors can use to create videos. Videos are recorded either using the browser plugin or desktop app and are stored and shared using the online platform. 

Today, Dr. Julie Hill shares her experience adapting an assignment she got from Ciara, Design-A-Game. Read on for more information about how Julie and Ciara use the assignment in their classes, examples, and tips for implementation! 

​Keeping on top of your busy schedule can be stressful at times! This blog has definitely touched on this topic before. Our tech guru, Jenel, has discussed strategies and tools she uses to keep organized and maximize her productivity. Her posts can be found here, here, and here, and they are definitely worth the read! 

Late last week Jen shared this post about how she has tackled creating rubrics from scratch for her assignments. Today, I share my thoughts on how points can be allocated in your rubrics. 

​This semester, I’ve put the task upon myself to give my students a variety of ways that they are engaging with course material and subsequently being assessed. This means I’ve create a lot of new projects. The easiest way to convey what you want the students to do for these assignments is to give them a detailed description but also a rubric. A rubric is a “document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor” (Reddy & Andrade, 2010, p. 435). Most folks (myself included) probably already knew that.  

During a discussion about conditioning, one of my Introduction to Psychology students asked if conditioning can help explain why students feel so much anxiety when the walk onto campus. The question caught me off guard. It lead to a discussion that went far beyond conditioning. Inspired by Dr. Dena Simmons’ TED Ed talk, my students and I talked about imposter syndrome in higher education.

​Like many General Psychology courses, I have a research participation requirement. Along with this, I also have to provide an alternative assignment as research participation is voluntary. In the past when I’ve taught General Psychology, I had students write article summaries as the alternative assignment, but this isn’t the most exciting assignment for the student or the instructor. (Grading these is less than thrilling.) One of my fellow faculty members, Dr. Kayce Meginnis-Payne felt the same way. At our first faculty meeting this year, she brought up the subject and wanted to come up with a different approach to the typical alternative assignment. She proposed that we give students opportunities to get involved with the department outside than research.