About Techniques in Learning & Teaching

The Techniques in Learning and Teaching blog started as reflective teaching and learning space featuring praxis-oriented scholarship of learning and teaching posts linked to work at the Center for Educational Innovation at the University of Minnesota. The blog actively posted SoTL essays from 2011 to 2016.

Our bloggers included CEI staff actively researching teaching and learning, as well as faculty, instructors, teaching assistants and adjunct/community instructors working within the University of Minnesota 5-campus system, and also alums and colleagues teaching beyond these campuses, this state, this country. Our aim was to write about learning and teaching in higher education, to think with – and because of – colleagues from right here and from across the world of higher education. Our writers aimed to offer insightful, research-based, locally tested, globally-minded and timely learning/teaching essays.

To learn more about the Center’s current resources, check out the Center’s current multimedia teaching guides focused on developing accessible and inclusive courses and class sessions in face-to-face, online, and blended modalities. Each of the four topical landing pages gather together several related resources:

Thanks for giving us a read. We’re keeping the site “open” for reading, sharing, and commenting.

Ilene D. Alexander, TILT editor (2011 – 2016) and on-going site maintainer

Techniques in Teaching and Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Featured Posts

Enhance Cognitive Capacity to Maximize Learning

Four Key Strategies Cognitive load refers to the amount of mental effort expended in your brain’s working memory. Learners only have so much working memory available. With attention to cognitive capacity and cognitive load, we support learners in managing the Too Much Information monster. When learning new material, what may be a simple concept for […]
Incorporating Canvas Tools: Helping Students Keep Up

As the University of Minnesota transitions from Moodle to Canvas, CEI will be highlighting some of the ways that instructors can leverage Canvas to meet learning and teaching goals. This is the first of four planned posts for this academic year. As instructors, we want students to come to class prepared, complete assignments on time […]
Online Learning Spaces – (Re)Imagining Discussions

3 Research Resources: (Re)Imagining Discussion in Online Learning Spaces How might we evaluate, measure and grade, online discussion forums? Teachers commonly opt for participation measures such as a counting the number of times and ways people participate, or the weighting of the quality of response content, or build a rubric to guide their review as […]
Developing a Learning Culture and Learning-Centered Climate

3 Resources Cultures of Learning 1. What is a culture of learning? The short answer, posted by an Edutopia blogger, is this: a culture of learning is a collection of thinking habits, beliefs about self, and collaborative workflows that result in sustained critical learning. 2. Rethinking our default definitions of learning is a crucial first step for thinking […]
The Write Situation: Assignment Clarity and Timing

With this post, we’re continuing our (re)introduction of the Teaching with Writing project’s monthly writing tips. See the Teaching with Writing pages on the Center for Writing website for teaching resources, including sample assignments and syllabi. Establish the Situation for Your Assignment “At the heart of every assignment is the rhetorical situation — someone […]