A Free Online Resource to Help Solve Common Teaching Problems.

Steve Gilbert, Bonnie Mullinix, TLT Group Michele DiPietro and Michael Bridges, Carnegie Mellon University

My students don’t participate in discussions…My students complain that the test was unfair…My students don’t keep up with the readings – sound familiar? The Web offers many tips to address these and other common teaching problems, but many of the suggestions are disconnected and decontextualized, making it harder to adapt them to specific situations. The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University has developed an interactive online resource that enables faculty members and others to learn about possible reasons for some common problems in courses.  This resource works by providing a list of sample teaching problems that each lead to potential reasons for these problems.  Clicking on a reason leads faculty/faculty developers to research-based strategies and related learning principles.  In this online session, Dr. Michele DiPietro and Dr. Michael Bridges will introduce their conceptual framework for articulating teaching problems and strategies and demonstrate this free online resource, which won the 2008 POD Network Innovation Award. Join us to explore this resource and develop ideas for how to introduce, integrate and support faculty use of this resource in different contexts.

See this free resource at: http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/

Watch a video of the presenters talking about it at the 2008 POD Network Conference at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpww8Id3iVA