Tools and Resources

This document describes a specific strategy that provides a collaborative learning experience for students.

An easy to use graphical representation of updated Bloom's Taxonomy congitive domain, including definitions.

Item Analysis (a.k.a. Test Question Analysis) is an empowering process that enables you to improve mutiple-choice test score validity and reliability by analyzing item performance over time and making necessary adjustments. Knowledge of score reliability, item difficulty, item discrimination, and crafting effective distractors can help you make decisions about whether to retain items for future administrations, revise them, or eliminate them from the test item pool. Item analysis can also help you to determine whether a particular portion of course content should be revised or enhanced.

This list of inclusive teaching strategies was created as part of the Schreyer Institute's Creating Inclusive Courses workshop. The workshop activity is also available in this repository. The list was compiled over many years and is intended to help instructors recognize what they might already be doing to demonstrate that all students are welcome contributors to the course learning community. This is not a "checklist." Creating inclusive course environments requires sincerity, intentionality, and reflection, not simply enacting a list of strategies. These strategies are most effective when combined with other efforts such as critical self-reflection reflection, learning about antiracist pedagogies, and taking steps to decolonize our classrooms.

This two-page handout provides a basic explanation of how to make and use rubrics to improve grading. Print references included.

Three-page overview of the steps in documenting one's teaching through a portfolio.

This is a quick start guide for engaging in self reflection on teaching. It can be helpful to support the production of the reflection portion of the dossier for P&T and/or annual review for Penn State faculty.

This file contains a list of "item-writing rules," which will help you to write multiple choice questions in a way that will improve the ability of the test to focus on the content and prevent students from guessing the correct answer without knowing the material. The rules were developed by experts in the field of psychometrics, like the people who write questions for SATs or GREs.

Round Robin is a systematic technique that allows students to brainstorm answers to questions. It allows all students an opportunity to contribute.

This file describes the characteristics of adult learners and strategies for instructors who teach them.

This file is an example of a rubric that can be used to grade a science experiment. The use of a rubric can help instructors to grade more accurately and more quickly.

Many instructors feel that the student ratings process is something 'done to' them. Annotation offers a way for instructors to interpret their own ratings rather than rely on accurate interpretation by others not involved in the course. The annotation serves as a cover page for the summary report available to faculty from the Student Course Feedback (e.g., SRTEs) the student ratings system (rateteaching.psu.edu). This document identifies key elements of an effective annotation as well as an example of a one-page annotation for a fictional course.

Guidelines for a teaching philosophy.

How to write a teaching philosophy.

Rubric for a teaching philosophy.

Evaluating a teaching philosophy.

This document provides a tool for use in evaluating a teaching philosophy, or teaching statement, that might be included in a job application packet or a tenure and promotion dossier. The matrix includes evaluative criteria for: history/herstory; relation to course(s) and discipline; grounding in theory and/or experience; appropriateness of language to audience; organization and succinctness

This document was created to provide you with a source of options for gathering data on teamwork assignments and projects. You may choose to adopt one of the examples as is, combine elements from several of the examples, or use the examples to identify characteristics that correspond to particular aspects of your assigned work, course content, or student population.

This resource offers principles of trauma-informed teaching and recommendations instructors
might consider as they are developing trauma-informed practices for their own courses.