Collections
Expertly curated content on a wide range of pedagogically focused topics
Collaborative Grading
These resources explore the practice of collaborative grading, an alternative grading approach in which students and instructors determine grades for a given course in consultation with one another.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the Syllabus
The syllabus is a reflection of one's course design and a powerful tool for defining the context of learning in your course. These Universal Design for Learning (UDL) resources help you create a more accessible and inclusive syllabus that reduces learning barriers and welcomes learner variability.
From Class to Community: Centering Trust in Learning Spaces
A collaborative classroom doesn’t happen by accident; it's created by design. Use these tools to lower resistance, foster trust, and help students learn with one another rather than just from you.
Making the Most of Office Hours
Office hours can be a useful opportunity for students to get the assistance and advice they need to succeed in a course, but students don't always realize that. In this collection, you'll find resources and strategies for framing and structuring office hours to help students make the most of them.
Supporting Executive Functioning through Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Executive functions are those mental processes that support attention, organization, time management, and related tasks that are critical to learning. The resources here will help you apply universal design for learning (UDL) to better support students' executive functions.
Using Our Non-Content Words
The language you use in the classroom shapes classroom climate and guides students in the hard work of learning. These resources introduce non-content "instructor talk" and instructional moves that help students guide their reasoning, engage with each other intellectually, and feel connected.
Interactive Lecturing: Integrating Lecture and Active Learning Strategies
As ubiquitous as it is, published research does not show that "active learning is more effective than lecturing." Research consistently demonstrates the very real and consistent finding that combining just about any form of active learning with an exposition lecture improves learning.
Considerations for Creating Instructional Videos
Video is an excellent teaching tool and a particularly effective medium for online and flipped learning environments. This collection will help you think through the different components of video to identify the right fit for your teaching context.
Teaching in Turbulent Times
Teaching during times of conflict and crisis isn't easy. This collection provides resources and strategies for supporting students and keeping your course on track when events in the world intrude on events in the classroom.
How Do I Get Started with Open Pedagogy?
This collection presents guidelines, frameworks, and concrete examples of Open Pedagogy assignments to get you started.
What Does Open Education Look Like at UVA?
The UVA community is active in Open Education engagement. This collection highlights the initiatives and resources created by our own faculty and staff.
Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) seeks to eliminate barriers to learning based on research on how people learn. It's an inclusive approach that recognizes student strengths and provides flexibility in how students access and engage with material and show what they know.
Annotation in Teaching and Learning
Whether you're writing notes in the margin of a paperback book or collaboratively adding comments to a digital document, annotation can be a powerful tool for learning—and thus also for teaching.
Students as Partners
Students as Partners is a framework that aims to reposition students as equal contributors to the pedagogical process. The resources we've collected here can help inspire you to more meaningfully involve your students in your teaching and research practices.
Reading Pedagogy
This collection includes resources about clear and effective ways to assign reading. These resources will help you consider how to motivate student engagement in reading tasks, while being attentive to the various skills and competencies required for students to be critical readers.
Supporting Neurodivergent Learners
Meeting the needs of neurodivergent students—those with ADHD or autism or other ways of processing information that aren't typical—requires thoughtful attention from instructors. The resources in this collection will help you design classes where your students can learn and succeed.
Learning Assistant Programs
The Learning Assistant (LA) model is a powerful, evidence-informed approach that embeds trained undergraduates into classrooms to support active learning, guide group work, and provide peer mentorship. In this collection are research and guides highlighting improved outcomes and engagement.
Getting Started with Discipline-Based Education Research
Discipline-based education research (DBER) is the scientific study of teaching and learning via a combination of disciplinary expertise and social sciences methodology. Use this guide for help getting started with DBER. Some resources also cite the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
Navigating the AI-Driven Writing Classroom
Generative AI (GenAI) is already changing the landscape of writing courses in multiple ways. The following resources collectively advocate for a thoughtful integration of GenAI, ensuring your students are well-equipped to harness its benefits ethically and effectively.
High Structure Course Design
High structure course design improves student outcomes via scaffolding students through the learning process with pre-class content acquisition and formative assessment, in-class active learning and problem solving, after-class review and formative assessment, and frequent summative assessment.