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Talk by Valerie Irvine and Dean Crawford at Campus Technology 2013.

"It all started when a student approached Professor John Boyer after class one day and, inspired by a documentary they viewed about Southeast Asia, suggested the class talk to Aung San Suu Kyi. Boyer's knee-jerk response was skepticism; why on earth would a prominent world figure talk to a class of college students across the world? But with the help of other students in the class, they put together a video pitch, and it gained enough traction on social media to make the seemingly impossible happen: Boyer's students got their interview."

This article, by Todd Zakrajsek, offers some great tips for teaching large classes.

Back-of-envelope calculations are a great way to help your students practice completing problems and to break up the lecture. Check out the SERC's examples of back-of-envelope calculations in their Activity Collection.

The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) has an excellent repository of cases that could be used in teaching in higher education, specific to the sciences. Use their site search to browse the case collection. Educational use is encouraged, according to fair use guidelines, as long as the author of the case is cited along with the source, National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

Another interesting variant on a rubric for evaluating your course syllabus. I like how this one focuses on the principles of universal design- making your course accessible to differing student needs.

"Many people assume that because the web is open, any and all content is open for copying and reuse. It is not. Use some content and you could well be breaking copyright law."

This article explores a few good ways to make your lectures more interactive.

n some educational settings, the cost of textbooks approaches or even exceeds the cost of tuition. Given limited resources, it is important to better understand the impacts of free open educational resources (OER) on student outcomes. Utilizing digital resources such as OER can substantially reduce costs for students. The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the adoption of no-cost open digital textbooks significantly predicted students' completion of courses, class achievement, and enrollment intensity during and after semesters in which OER were used. This study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental design with propensity-score matched groups to examine differences in outcomes between students that used OER and those who did not. The demographics of the initial sample of 16,727 included 4909 students in the treatment condition with a pool of 11,818 in the control condition. There were statistically significant differences between groups, with most favoring students utilizing OER.

"How do you know if something you read is true? Why should you care? We pose these questions this week in honor of News Engagement Day on Oct. 6, and try to answer them with resources from The Times as well as from Edutopia, the Center for News Literacy, TEDEd and the NewseumEd. "

Bloom's Taxonomy of Measurable Verbs

"Open Educational Resources (OER) provide equal access to resources at no cost to students. This toolkit provides information and tools to help faculty and library staff across all publicly funded colleges in Ontario to understand, engage with, and sustain OER in their work and practice. "

"This page includes a list of links that we believe are helpful to those involved in open education. As you will see, these resources cover a variety of topics and include everything from printable documents that make handy reference materials to keep around the office to extensive online walkthroughs. Whether you are new to the concept of open education or you are an experienced open education practitioner, we believe you will find these materials useful."