Mark Dixon - Faculty of ECEL

'Excellence in Teaching - what is it?'

Each year our students are more technically savvy than the year before. It's hard to keep up. But staying current goes a little way to demonstrating our ongoing commitment to best serve our students' needs. Using new technologies also helps build an appreciation for the opportunities, and limitations, of the new wave of "distance learning" methods, and for new opportunities in teaching and learning in general. Here are two techniques that Mark has used that you might consider to augment your student, tutor, or peer contact.

1. Post assignment specifications, and a marking guide for each assignment on the web. Link it to your unit's home page [your department's admin staff can do this for you, or give you access rights to do it yourself]. You can also put up lecture notes and readings this way. If you need to keep material confidential you can have it available only to your class by using a password.
2. Offer to accept assignments submitted by e-mail (not just on paper), and promise to acknowledge (by return e-mail) all submissions made this way. If you don't like to read papers on the screen you can print them, but having them in electronic form makes checking for plagiarism and other problems quite easy.