Accessibility in Teaching and Learning
This resource provides instructors with an overview of accessibility, including “getting started” strategies for making learning resources, tools, experiences, and opportunities accessible to all learners.
Applying Inclusive Teaching Principles to Clinical Education
Clinical educators face unique challenges when implementing inclusive teaching practices. This resource applies the five research-based principles of inclusive teaching, as described in the CTL’s Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia, to clinical setting.
Creating a High Trust, Low Stress Class Environment
For students to do their best learning, and to support an inclusive classroom environment, instructors must create a high trust, low stress spaces. This resource offers strategies that instructors can leverage throughout the semester.
Four Ways to Make Your CourseWorks Site More Accessible
This resource introduce methods to make your CourseWorks site more accessible and inclusive. Find course design tips and learn about Ally, an accessibility checker tool a tool called Ally, an accessibility checker integrated into CourseWorks.
Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia
This resource offers five inclusive teaching principles derived from research and evidence-based practices. The guide contains practical, accessible, and usable strategies that instructors can use immediately.
Inclusive Teaching and Learning Online
This resource offers strategies for applying inclusive teaching principles in online environments to foster belonging, ensure accessibility, and support student success with empathy and resilience.
Pronouns in Our Community: A Guide From the Office of University Life
This Office of University Life resource helps Columbia students, faculty, and staff understand pronoun use by transgender and nonbinary community members.
Students can register their pronouns via You@Columbia in CourseWorks.
Teaching in Times of Stress and Challenge
This resource offers strategies for teaching during stressful times and responding to emotions that surface in the classroom, highlighting campus supports available to all Columbia community members.
Inclusive Teaching: Supporting All Students in the College Classroom MOOC
In 2019, the CTL launched this free, self-paced MOOC (massive open online course) offering practical strategies for inclusive teaching in higher education. Learn how to create and maintain supportive learning environments for all students.
Alternative Grading Approaches: Grading for Learning
This resource offers alternative grading approaches with a focus on student learning, clearer communications, timely feedback, and clearly defined assessment standards.
Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Action: First Steps
This resource supports broader commitments to anti-racist actions in higher education. These materials cite experts in the field and synethize their work to encourage further research while amplifying the voices of those who have been doing this work for decades.
Assessing Equitably with All Learners in Mind
Student assessments should meet the needs of all students, align with course learning objectives, and promote learning for all. This resource helps faculty reflect on assessment approaches to recognize and remove barriers to student success while promoting equitable learning experiences for everyone.
Blended Learning
This resource discusses the benefits of blended learning as well as strategies for classroom implementation. Research and evidence-based practices are provided along with materials to prompt reflection during course redesign.
Case Method
Case Method is an active learning approach to teaching in which students apply course content to real or imagined scenarios, learning analysis, synthesis, and evaluation skills in the process. This resource introduces faculty to this methodology and shares examples of successful Case Method Teaching at Columbia University.
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs): Low-Stakes Strategies to Assess Active Learning
A companion to the Getting Started with Active Learning resource, this material introduces classroom assessment techniques (CATs) as a way to identify what students have learned from active learning methods.
Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom
The following resource offers instructors a brief introduction to AI Tools, specifically ChatGPT, along with several strategies they might consider for navigating or engaging with these tools in their courses.
Contemplative Pedagogy
This resource introduces contemplative pedagogy—an approach that encourages deep learning through focused attention, reflection, and introspection—with strategies for building opportunities for students to develop deeper understanding.
Course Design Narrated Video Playlist
This playlist walks instructors through the backward design process. It includes four short videos: 1) course design: getting started, 2) articulating learning objectives, 3) assessing student learning, and 4) planning teaching and learning activities.
Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning
In each episode of this podcast, instructors, students, and leaders in higher education are invited to share their discoveries of “dead ideas” in teaching and learning—ideas that are not true but that are often widely believed and embedded in the pedagogical choices we make.
Designing Assignments for Learning
The shift to remote teaching forced higher education to reimagine assessment. This resource distills the elements of assignment design that are important to carry forward as we continue to seek better ways of assessing learning and build on our innovative assignment designs.
Designing for Inquiry-Based Learning In Undergraduate Science And Engineering Lab Courses
This resource features inquiry-based lab designs from Columbia and Barnard faculty, offering considerations for moving beyond cookbook-style labs to create meaningful inquiry opportunities in undergraduate science and engineering courses.
Developing Poll Questions to Engage and Assess Student Thinking in Science and Engineering Courses
This resource offers strategies for developing and incorporating poll questions in science and engineering courses that engage students in higher-order thinking and provide real-time assessment to inform instructional decisions.
Digital Literacy Competency Calculator
Find connections between digital literacy competencies and the teaching and learning practices that produce them.
Early and Mid-Semester Student Feedback
The CTL recommends capturing student feedback at various points within the semester, including mid-term. The goal is a dialogue about students’ learning, not an evaluation of the instructor’s teaching. This resource outlines two approaches for collecting feedback from your students.
Effective Feedback in Clinical Education
This resource presents research-based strategies for providing effective feedback to clinical trainees, helping guide their actions and progress toward achieving required competencies in clinical settings.
FAQ for Teaching Assistants
Browse our list of frequently asked questions, scenarios, and resources for graduate student instructors regarding classroom course management, accommodations, academic integrity, personal issues, logistics, teaching inspiration, and more.
Feedback for Learning
This resource offers strategies and technologies for giving effective feedback across all course types and modalities—from large lectures to seminars, in-person to fully online.
Five Tips for Engaged Lecturing
Designing a class session is about planning experiences that maximize student learning. The following five tips emphasize the importance of keeping the focus on the students’ experience and what they should be doing during a lecture.
Getting Started with Active Learning
This resource introduces a holistic active learning framework and Columbia-supported technologies for designing synchronous and asynchronous activities that benefit all students and narrow achievement gaps for underrepresented learners.
Getting Started with Creative Assignments
This resource features Columbia faculty examples of creative teaching and reimagined assessments, offering strategies for cultivating classroom environments that increase engagement, motivation, and problem-solving skills through creative assignments.
Incorporating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Faculty Examples Across Disciplines
This resource features Columbia faculty across disciplines sharing how they’re reimagining course policies, assignments, and activities to address generative AI, transparently communicate expectations, and teach AI literacy to students.
Incorporating Rubrics Into Your Feedback and Grading Practices
This resource provides an overview of the benefits of rubrics, includes strategies to help integrate them into teaching practice, and introduces a few Columbia tools to support rubric design and use.
Learning Through Discussion
This resource offers key considerations and strategies for planning and facilitating effective classroom discussions that are dynamic and engaging, while addressing challenges like unequal participation and low engagement.
Learning Through Reading: Strategies to Support Students’ Reading Practices
This resource offers strategies to address common reading challenges—including non-completion, comprehension struggles, and generative AI use—with activities that increase student engagement and deepen learning through reading.
Learning Through Writing in the Age of AI
This resource explores the benefits of disciplinary writing activities and offers strategies for designing effective writing assignments in the age of generative AI, balancing appropriate instruction and guidance.
Leveraging Annotation Activities and Tools to Promote Collaborative Learning
This resource explores how collaborative annotation strengthens student confidence, critical thinking, and active engagement. Includes an overview of benefits plus specific tools and sample activities to facilitate peer learning.
Metacognition Resource
Metacognitive thinking skills are important for instructors and students alike. This resource provides instructors with an overview of the what and why of metacognition and general “getting started” strategies for teaching for and with metacognition.
Navigating Heated, Offensive, and Tense (HOT) Moments in the Classroom
This resource provides strategies for anticipating and navigating heated, offensive, or tense (HOT) moments in the classroom before, during, and after they occur, applicable to any course context.
Peer Review: Intentional Design for Any Course Context
This resource offers key considerations for designing peer review activities across all course formats—in-person, hybrid, and online—including platforms and strategies to facilitate effective peer feedback.
Getting Started with Project-Based Learning
Project-based learning (PBL) actively involves students in their learning and prepares them for the world beyond the classroom. This resource offers an introductory overview of PBL, including the key features and questions for reflection as instructors develop their project-based teaching practices.
Promoting Academic Integrity
This resource offers strategies for promoting academic integrity through meaningful classroom conversations about shared values, creating engaging learning environments, and designing authentic assessments that minimize academic dishonesty.
Resources for Assessing Student Learning
This resource compiles CTL resources and programming—including guides, podcasts, videos, workshops, and self-paced courses—to help instructors design effective assessments and provide feedback that supports student learning.
Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI
This site showcases how Columbia faculty and students are engaging with AI innovations. Explore AI’s capabilities and limitations, create materials tailored to your pedagogical goals, engage students in deeper learning, and, measure the effectiveness of your approach.
Teaching During and After the 2024 U.S. Elections: Resources for Faculty and Students
This resource offers four strategies for supporting yourself and your students during election seasons, helping to manage stress and maintain a positive learning environment during politically challenging times.
Teaching Large Courses Effectively and Efficiently
This resource offers four strategies for teaching large courses effectively: purposeful course design, leveraging instructional technologies, partnering with TAs, and upholding academic integrity. Adaptable to any modality.
Teaching Talks by Columbia CTL Video Playlist
This playlist introduces teaching and learning strategies that can be incorporated into any course. Each video focuses on a specific pedagogical need, presenting a strategy to meet that need.
Teaching Talks by Columbia Faculty Video Playlist
This playlist features Columbia faculty introductions to key teaching and learning methodologies. Each video focuses on a specific pedagogical approach, and provides a brief overview on implementation strategies.
Teaching Transformations: Faculty Reflections and Insights on Pandemic Practices
Teaching with DIY Video
Learn best practices for producing videos that can help you create more active and engaging classroom experiences.
Voices of Hybrid & Online Teaching and Learning
Faculty, postdocs, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students shared their reflections on hybrid/HyFlex or fully online teaching, curricular innovations, or learning experiences at Columbia during the pandemic.
Assessment and Grading in CourseWorks (Canvas)
A follow-up to the Introduction to CourseWorks (Canvas) online course, this self-paced resource provides an overview of the assessment and grading features in CourseWorks (Canvas). Participants learn to set up assignments and navigate the grading features to evaluate grade assignments, quizzes, and discussions.
Blended / Hybrid Learning Essentials
This self-paced course on blended learning guides instructors through the lesson design process. Video tutorials from Columbia faculty and former Provost’s Hybrid Learning Course Redesign and Delivery grant recipents are included. A course packet with worksheets to develop blended learning designs are included.
Course Design Essentials
This self-paced course covers the fundamentals of learner-centered course design. Modules include: an intro to course design, articulating learning objectives, planning learning activities, and unit assembly.
Introduction to CourseWorks (Canvas)
This flexible, self-paced online course helps members of the Columbia teaching community learn about CourseWorks (Canvas). Instructors are guided through their site setup and an overview of CourseWorks features.
Office of the Provost Faculty Orientation
The Center for Teaching and Learning and Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement invite Columbia faculty to enroll in these online orientation models. The resources provided should welcome and acclimate you to the new academic year.