Teaching Tips

CVM Syllabus Template 2020

We've recently developed a syllabus template for all DVM courses and will be using it beginning in the Fall 2020 semester. Using this template will give students a similar syllabus model to view from course to course and ensure that it's always accessed from the same convenient place in their Canvas courses.

CVM syllabus template video

CVM syllabus template slides

Available teaching resources 2020

Teaching tips, Journal club, CVM Instructor Development Program, Canvas Camp, Teaching Huddles and Education Day are teaching development opportunities available for faculty this coming year. What other resources at the college or university level are available to help you grow as a teacher?

Available Teaching Resources 2020 Video

Available Teaching Resources 2020 Slides

CVM Teaching Tips Archive Aug 2019 - June 2020

Best practices for teaching with images June 12 2020

US copyright law restricts use of copyrighted images. As instructors, some images can be used for teaching. What is the “fair use” exemption for teaching and what are best practices for using images in teaching?

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Resources: Copyright Services from UMN libraries

Testing as a teaching tool May 28 2020

Frequent low stakes testing helps student retain material. What are other benefits of frequent assessment and how can we use testing to increase student learning?

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Seductive Details May 13 2020

Can use of images harm learning? Seductive details are text, images, gifs, memes, animations, etc, that are tangentially related to the content, are interesting, and are irrelevant to the learning objectives for that course session. How may these harm student learning?

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Duty hour guidelines Feb 24 2020

These specify the number of hours that students are required to work, with attention to the quality and quantity of time they are not required to be on duty, including in-house and on-call activities. This is a description of duty hour guidelines brought forward by the Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA).

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Extra Credit Feb 13 2020

There is little in the education literature about extra credit. What are pros and cons of extra credit and what are best practices?

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Authentic Assignments Jan 24 2020

Authentic assignments and assessments ask students to do work that mimics real-life practice. What are the components of authentic assignments and assessments?

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Attendance Policies Jan 10 2020

Collegiate and University attendance policies – What are current attendance policies of the CVM and the University and what are students and course coordinators required to do to meet these policies?

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Alignment Dec 13 2019

Assignments should provide opportunities for students to meet the learning objectives, and assessments should reveal whether or not students can demonstrate the knowledge, technical skills, and non-technical skills described. This is alignment.

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The one-sentence lesson plan Nov 26 2019

The “one-sentence lesson plan” – How do we help students understand why we want them to do specific assignments, how they can complete the assignment, and what its relevance is to their future career?

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Accreditation at a glance Nov 7 2019

What are the standards of accreditation? Our next site visit will be in spring of 2021; what do we need to do to prepare for it?

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Grading guidelines Oct 25 2019

Grading Guidelines How do we ensure fair and equitable grading of all students? The Student Promotions committee has created these guidelines to ensure unbiased and consistent grading.

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Discussions in Canvas Oct 4 2019

Discussions are a great way to help students engage with material in a course. How specifically are discussions set up in Canvas and how can you best use them as an instructor?

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Setting Canvas notifications Sep 20 2019

Setting Canvas notifications – Canvas notifications are intended to provide you with the information you need in a timely fashion to make you an efficient and effective instructor. How do you customize notifications in Canvas to best suit your needs?

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Setting up your Canvas Dashboard Sep 9 2019

The Canvas Dashboard is the landing page you will see as you enter Canvas as an instructor or student. What is shown on that page and what options are available to customize it to make you an efficient instructor?

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Creating a clear syllabus Aug 23 2019

The syllabus is the contract between the course coordinator(s) and instructorsand the students for a given course. What are the components of a clear syllabus?

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Available Educational Resources Aug 1 2019

Teaching tips, journal club, Education Roundtable and Education Day are teaching development opportunities available for faculty this coming year. What other resources at the college or university level are available to help you grow as a teacher? View video | View slides

CVM Teaching Tips Archive Sep 2016 - Apr 2019

Introduction to Screencast-o-Matic (Apr 22 2019)

Introduction to Screencast-o-Matic (Apr 22 2019) watch

Screencast-o-matic is a UMN sanctioned tool that can record your screen, webcam and voice as well as serve as a video editor and it’s available for all students, staff and faculty to use free of charge. The accompanying video will help walk you through installation and show you the basics of using the software.

Screencast-o-matic overview, tutorials and support

Download Screencast-o-matic

Accommodating Students via Self Awareness as Instructors (Mar 29 2019)

Accommodating Students via Self Awareness as Instructors (Mar 29 2019) watch

If it seems that students are approaching their studies differently or getting different results than you expect, perhaps this video can help. Frank Williams, who teaches in the 1st year curriculum, shares ideas that have helped him take a step backward and tune up his teaching. This 5 minute video touches on a) the newest generation of students, b) a useful metric for revealing diversity in their - and our - learning styles, and c) useful distinctions among ‘modes' of information. The following online links are recommended and briefly discussed:

Disclaimer: Whether universal learning styles exist is a matter of longstanding debate. Our CVM students are a very select sample group, and the suggestions here are drawn from experience in dealing with them. :-)

What’s on the NAVLE these days? (Mar 8 2019)

What’s on the NAVLE these days? (Mar 8 2019) watch | slides

The North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) must be successfully completed if a graduate is going to practice veterinary medicine in the United States. How is the NAVLE constructed and what kinds of questions should students expect on the examination?

Brain breaks: An introduction (Feb 21 2019)

Brain breaks: An introduction (Feb 21 2019) watch | slides

Brain breaks are brief pauses during a class session to give students time to start to consolidate information and to give them a physical rest from presentation of material. What are examples of brain breaks we all can use?

Weighting of assignments and examinations as part of the total course grade (Feb 6 2019)

Weighting of assignments and examinations as part of the total course grade (Feb 6 2019) watch | slides

There are no collegiate or university policies regarding weighting of components as part of the grade. What are best practices to ensure grades are an accurate reflection of student achievement?

Case-based teaching (Jan 23, 2019)

Case-based teaching (Jan 23, 2019) watch | slides

What are the benefits of teaching with cases and what makes a good teaching case?

Exam Blueprints (Jan 9, 2019)

Exam Blueprints (Jan 9, 2019) watch | slides

Exam Blueprints are an easy way to make sure your tests reflect your course objectives. Learn about creating objectives based on backwards design, evaluation of questions and question types, and evaluation of the success of your teaching activities.

test blueprint form exam question vs objective eval template

Rubrics for grading (Dec 20, 2019)

Rubrics for grading (Dec 20, 2019) watch | slides

Rubrics provide clarity for students regarding expectations and provide consistency for faculty in grading. Canvas incorporates rubric in their Speed Grader system to easily permit faculty members to use rubrics for grading assignments.

How to identify and help students struggling with anxiety, stress or other mental disorders (Nov 28, 2018)

How to identify and help students struggling with anxiety, stress or other mental disorders (Nov 28, 2018) watch | slides

What do you do when a student is showing signs of poor mental health or high stress? This presentation offers resources and some tips on talking to students in these situations.

Also, the University of Minnesota has recently published this related article: Rising number of college students report mental health condition

Mentoring graduate and veterinary students (Nov 16, 2018)

Mentoring graduate and veterinary students (Nov 16, 2018) watch | slides

This is a description of best practices for mentors and a list of resources and suggestions for managing students who are struggling.

Lecture capture pros and cons (Oct 26, 2018)

Lecture capture pros and cons (Oct 26, 2018) watch | slides

What do the literature and survey of our students and faculty tell us about the pros and cons of lecture capture?

Impact of generational differences on teaching and learning (Oct 15, 2018)

Impact of generational differences on teaching and learning (Oct 15, 2018) watch | slides

Most of the faculty are from different generations than most of the students. Does this alter how we learn and, therefore, how we teach?

Answering questions in class (Sep 24, 2018)

Answering questions in class (Sep 24, 2018) watch | slides

What are best practices for managing student questions during and between class sessions?

Available educational resources (Sep 7, 2018)

Available educational resources (Sep 7, 2018) watch | slides

This is a description of faculty development opportunities in teaching that will be available over this school year and of the resources available at the College and University to assist faculty with instruction.

Posting assignment and and examination scores (April 12 2018)

April 12th

As the end of the semester approaches, it is a great time to make sure assignment and examination scores are being posted for students in a timely manner.

Feedback on assignments shapes their learning as they prepare for examinations and helps them plan how they will study.

For examinations, students need feedback about what they missed while still respecting the need for examination security. Examinations are a great opportunity for assessment of learning by instructors and assessment for learning by students. For online examinations, faculty can provide information about the correct answer and give some guidance on why other answers are not correct and this can display automatically for the students; if you're interested in this aspect of on-line quizzes, contact the CVM Education Support group ([email protected]). For hard copy examinations, faculty may host a post-examination review to talk about common problems or misconceptions. Finally, with either on-line or hard copy examination, faculty may post or email out some general information about common concerns or misconceptions to help students learn from their mistakes.

Some faculty withhold scores because one or more students have not yet taken the examination; if a student has missed an examination and can't take it within a 5-7 days, you should grade and return the other students' examinations and consider making other arrangements for the student(s) who missed the examination.

Teaching students how to handle client misconceptions (March 28 2018)

Teaching students how to handle client misconceptions (March 28th) watch | slides

Many clinicians deal regularly with clients who have deeply held beliefs or have found information on the Internet that makes them less likely to follow veterinary advice. How do you handle our communications with these clients and how can we help students learn this skill?

Talking aloud for learning (March 15 2018)

Talking aloud for learning (March 15th) watch | slides

Talking aloud as we work through a problem is not a natural skill. Clinical teachers can work with students to use this skill and from that, find better ways to provide specific feedback.

Metacognition (Feb 28 2018)

Metacognition (Feb 28) watch | slides

Metacognition is thinking about how we think and learn. How can we use knowledge of metacognition to make us better teachers and to help our students learn and retain information better?

Interpreting results from OMS for multiple-choice examinations (Feb 5 2018)

Interpreting results from OMS for multiple-choice examinations (Feb 5th) watch | slides

Any examination submitted for automatic grading through the Office of Measurement Services is returned with a wealth of information instructors can use to improve their examination questions. This is a brief review of how to use some of that information.

Errors in clinical decision-making (Jan 16 2018)

Errors in clinical decision-making (Jan 16th) watch | slides

We all have biases that play into errors in our clinical decision making process. This brief review helps us all consider our own tendencies toward error and helps us better understand how to guide clients in learning to recognize their own errors.

Resources

Clinical communications training across the curriculum (Jan 2 2018)

Clinical communications training across the curriculum (Jan 2nd) watch | slides

Where are our students taught to talk to clients, and what are they taught? Better understanding of what students are taught will help clinical teachers reinforce good habits in clinical communications.

Pros and cons of cumulative final exams (Dec 18 2017)

Pros and cons of cumulative final exams (Dec 18th) watch | slides

Is a cumulative final examination a great way to help students integrate and retain information or just an unnecessary exercise in memorization? Hear thoughts on both sides of this issue.

Organizing/Teaching a Laboratory (Dec 4 2017)

Organizing a Laboratory (Dec 4th) watch | slides

Teaching in the Laboratory (Dec 4th) watch | slides

These videos will help faculty understand the steps in helping prepare and teach laboratories in the veterinary college. See also the related documnets below.

Providing effective training feedback

One skill/hour/student/day

Peyton's 4 step approach for skills training

Preparing for the NAVLE (Nov 20 2017)

Preparing for the NAVLE (Nov 20th) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Have you ever wondered how we can best prepare our students for the North American Veterinary Licensing Exam (NAVLE)? We interviewed two students from the Class of 2017 who had performed very well. They were both VetPAC coaches so also had the perspective of how to prepare peers for a difficult exam. The following short videos capture these messages. The first two focus on resources and approaches to study that are most helpful. The third focuses on the big day with tips and tricks to help students stay calm and perform at their best.

Student - focused slide design (Nov 6 2017)

Student - focused slide design (Nov 6th) watch | slides

Students have some specific preferences that help them use PowerPoint slides for preparing for class, learning while in class, and studying afterward. This narrated PowerPoint gives you good tips in how to prepare PowerPoints to meet student learning needs.

Best practices for slide design (Oct 23 2017)

Best practices for slide design (Oct 23rd) watch | slides

This video gives information to help you answer the questions of why and how in regards to using slides to present your material.

Peer review of teaching (Oct 9 2017)

Peer review of teaching (Oct 9th) watch | slides

Are you interested in getting some peer review for your teaching? Watch this short CVM Teaching Tip for more information.

Available educational resources (Oct 2 2017)

Available educational resources (Oct 2nd) watch | slides

Resources to help you as a teacher are readily available. Watch this short video to see available on-line resources and how to access them.

Recorded Teaching Seminars 2016-2017

Defining day one competencies (SEP 27th, 2016) Presenter: Laura Molgaard | watch | slides |

Generational differences and possible impacts on teaching and learning (NOV 7th, 2016) Presenter: Peggy Root | watch | slides |

Decreasing binge and purge (JAN 31st, 2017) Presenters: Deb Wingert and Colleen Meyers | watch | slides |

Errors in clinical decision-making (FEB 6th, 2017) Presenter: Jeffrey Todd | watch | slides |

Examination Blueprints (FEB 27th, 2017) Presenter: Erin Malone | watch | slides|

Mindset - Feedback for process, not for outcomes (MAR 20th, 2017) Presenter: Peggy Root | watch