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The University of Tennessee

Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center

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Welcome to the Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center (TENN TLC)

“Faculty Transforming,
Leading, and Creating through continuous improvement of teaching and learning”

 Terry
Student in class

What's new at the Center? Upcoming workshops, faculty inquiry groups, and new resources on the website!

Workshops in February: Intercultural Infusion and Mentoring Graduate Students. Contact the TENN TLC to sign up: 865-974-3933 or tenntlc@utk.edu.

The TENNESSEE TEACHING AND LEARNING CENTER (TENN TLC) is pleased to again offer two popular Faculty Inquiry Groups.  Last semester we initiated the concept of a faculty inquiry group (FIG) to give interested faculty the opportunity to work with faculty experts (TENN TLC Faculty Fellows) in developing skills and creative ideas in key areas of teaching and learning.  These were warmly received, highly successful, and they filled up very quickly.  This semester we are going to offer two FIGs again:     

  • Principles of Acting Applied to Teaching – facilitated by Jed Diamond  (UT’s Director of the Acting Program) – will meet weekly Mondays at noon beginning January 25.

  • Reflective Practice Applied to Teaching and Learning – facilitated by Professor John Peters (Ed. Psych. and Counseling) will meet every other Wednesday at noon beginning January 27th.
    Sign up at 865-974-3933 or tenntlc@utk.edu.

Items of Interest

Are you following ProfHacker blog? It is one of the best blogs on teaching and is updated by a team of writers. Recent blogs include how to use the active voice on your syllabus and how to conduct asynchronous classroom discussions. Check it out at http://www.profhacker.com.

Teaching Tips

Tip 1: The first day of classes is this week and teachers are faced with a sea of students; how do you learn their names? Learning names has proven to be a primary means of engaging your students, as reported by students on evaluations and surveys. The National Teaching and Learning Form has a webpage of suggestions at http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/names.htm. My favorite is the following:

Student Pictures (Marty Rosenzweig)

On the first day, I bring in a camera and have one of the students take head shots of each student. At the second class, I return with the photos and have the students write something about themselves on the backs of their photos [use regular paper when printing to save costs] ....

I ask the students to transform their names into images -- the more grotesque the better -- [on the back of the photo] ... I play flashcards over the weekend, and by the third day of class, I know every student's name in both my classes -- sixty students.