Each week, we send out three bite-sized tidbits with upcoming events: Teaching Tip, Research Review, and Favorite Resource. Find the archived postcards here.
See all Teaching Tips | See all Research Reviews | See all Favorite Resources
Teaching Tips 💡
Accessible & Safe Technology
Did you know that Maine law requires that all technology developed, procured, or provided by publicly funded organizations must meet the accessibility requirements of Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA?…
Facilitated Feedback
Why wait until the end of the semester to get feedback from your students on the Student Evaluations of Teaching in Blue? With our Facilitated Feedback program, otherwise known as…
Instructive Alt Text
All images in your files need to have alternate text that describes the purpose and important information for those who cannot see the image. While we used to just consider…
Enhance Memory with Accessible Brightspace Templates
Reading content in Brightspace does not guarantee your learners will remember all of it. In order for it to stick, the student has to actively do something with the information…
Research Review 🔍
Highly-Cited “AI Erodes Critical Thinking” Study Appears To Be AI Generated Slop
This week, I want to highlight a substack post critiquing a recent research article. The author critically examines a widely referenced paper claiming that increased AI use degrades critical thinking skills. Pookins…
Does ChatGPT enhance student learning? A systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental studies
This is a systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental research on ChatGPT’s impact on student learning (69 studies from 2022–2024). The goal was to move beyond simple correlations and look…
Learning with concept maps: the effect of activity structure and the type of task
This research examined how 226 undergraduate students learned using concept maps under different conditions, comparing task types (fill-in-the-blanks, shuffled concepts, self-constructed, and summaries) with activity structures (individual only, individual-then-collaborative, and…
Removing Phones from Classrooms Improves Academic Performance
Researchers in India conducted a randomized-control trial study with close to 17,000 at 10 colleges to test the impact of mandatory in-class phone collection versus unrestricted phone use. What do…
Favorite Resources 🔖
Prioritizing Faculty Well-Being During Politicized Times
This article in Change: The Magazine of Higher Education does an excellent job of outlining the effect that political pressures have had on faculty across the country and how some faculty in…
AI Prompt Library
From faculty member Ethan Mollick at the Wharton School of Business, here is a collection of prompts you can use with an AI chatbot to help you and your learners…
AI Use Cases in Higher Education: A Community Handbook
The AI Use Cases in Higher Education Handbook is a comprehensive, downloadable Excel workbook cataloging 75+ real-world and proposed applications of AI across 12 functional areas in higher education.