Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support Blog

Difficult classroom conversations build critical thinking, empathy, and civil discourse. By creating safe spaces, facilitating dialogue, structuring evaluation, and fostering perspective-taking, faculty prepare students for engaged citizenship.

A “warm demander” in higher ed pairs high expectations with empathy, using trust, consistency, and care to help students grow, persist, and succeed through both challenge and support.

In this Take 2 for Teaching and Learning video, Dr. Sarah Learman shares how exit tickets can bring you insight into student learning and progress in your course.

Professor Doug Lapp shares how transitioning from screencast videos to Lightboard Studio and using it for his long-running “Office Hours LIVE” has enhanced student engagement by making instruction more personal and accessible to all learners.

In this short video, Gabrielle Likavec introduces the jigsaw strategy, a collaborative learning approach that transforms group work into a purposeful, student-centered experience. Learn how to break down complex content into manageable subtopics and empower students to become both learners and teachers in your classroom. This strategy is perfect for medium—to large classes across disciplines.

In this episode of Take Two for Teaching, Dr. Brooke Moore explains how prediction is a strategy that helps your students become curious and engage with the course material before they fully understand the content. It can aid in learning whether a student’s prediction is right or wrong.

Sarah Learman discusses the importance of learning your students’ preferred names and provides tips to help you do so.

Modeling your thinking can demystify complex content and foster critical thinking skills in students.

Jim Carrol and Ralph Baber used the CIS Podcast Studio to connect virtually to Kimberly Chapman, an Ohio-based porcelain sculptor whose work challenges norms and sparks dialogue through a powerful female lens.

The CIS Lightboard Studio has recently enabled the CMU Museum of Cultural & Natural History to engage a much larger and more diverse audience throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the UK through its virtual distance learning and outreach programs.

After reading a recent article, Gabrielle Likavec reflects on teaching and what specifically about it brings her joy.

CMU Psychology faculty emeritus Dr. James Carroll, along with his friend and former CMU English faculty Ralph Baber, recently discovered the new CIS Podcast Studio in Park Library as a tool to enhance their Psychology Takeaway Podcast.

Dr. Steve Vance, Associate Dean of Clinical Education in CMU’s College of Medicine, recently used the CIS Lightboard Studio for an hour-long virtual class using Microsoft Teams.