Alternative strategies for assessment and grading
Alternative strategies for assessment and grading
Helping Duke students learn more and helping more people learn from Duke.
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April 2022

Learning Innovation Named Presidential Award Winner

We are honored to share that Learning Innovation has been named a 2021-2022 Presidential Award Winner. The Presidential Awards honor individuals and teams who best demonstrate the values of respect, trust, inclusion, discovery, and excellence, which define and shape Duke as an institution. 
We are grateful for this recognition and are incredibly proud of our team for the important work they have done and continue to do supporting innovative teaching at Duke.

Alternative Strategies for Assessment and Grading

We encourage instructors to use assessment strategies that are purposefully designed to support student learning, in addition to their evaluative role. There are many ways to implement such alternative assessment options that require varying levels of time and expertise. To help you determine what assessment activities and policies best suit your needs, we have curated some suggestions which are loosely grouped by expected instructor time commitment. 
These recent blog posts highlight ways alternative assessments are already used at Duke:
Do you practice an alternative assessment method in your course? We’d love to hear from you! Or if you are interested in implementing an alternative assessment practice, we can help you get started. Either way - email us at learninginnovation@duke.edu
The 2021-2022 Bass Digital Education Fellows

Be Inspired by Our Bass Digital Education Fellows

In collaboration with Duke Graduate School, the semester-long Bass Digital Education Fellowship offers PhD students an opportunity to collaborate on digital projects in partnership with Duke faculty and under the guidance of Learning Innovation. 

Join us for the Showcase

April 14, 3:30 - 4:30 pm (virtual)
Through a series of lightning round presentations, our current fellows will showcase projects that feature emerging digital pedagogies, innovative teaching practices, and learning technologies with examples from a range of academic disciplines to transform your teaching.

Former Fellows Recognized for Teaching Excellence

Two former fellows - Emma Davenport and Emmaline Drew Eliseev - were both awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award was created to “celebrate and honor exemplary teaching by currently enrolled PhD students who are engaged in teaching Duke undergraduate or graduate students.”

Inclusive Online College Teaching Offered in the Summer 2022 Duke Graduate Academy

Course Details
GS990  |  Summer Session I, Section 01
June 6 – 10 (one-week course)  |  11 am – 12:15 pm EDT
This course prepares graduate students and future academic innovators with an understanding of digital teaching and learning in higher education and the resources available to design and develop online and hybrid courses built upon principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Join us to explore innovative teaching approaches and to re-envision student engagement, projects and assessment design to support all learners.

Upcoming Events

All events are virtual and in Eastern time unless otherwise noted.

BRITE Ideas: Student Lightning Talks
Monday, April 11, 12 - 1 pm
Learning Innovation and BRITE Lab invite you to join us for BRITE Ideas, a monthly discussion group to share and develop research on teaching and learning. This session will feature current BRITE Lab students presenting on their theses. Please join us and contribute to an engaged discussion to advance teaching excellence at Duke.
Register Now

Bass Digital Education Fellowship Showcase
Thursday, April 14, 3:30 - 4:30 pm
Join Learning Innovation and the Duke Graduate School for a showcase event highlighting the digital projects of this year’s Bass Digital Education Fellows. Through a series of lightning round presentations, fellows showcase projects ranging from inclusive assessments, hybrid course design, foreign language podcast pedagogy, AI and materials science video pedagogy, Nudge: an app that helps with students’ learning, and digital technologies for museum education.
Register Now

Academic Innovation for the Public Good: "Allies and Rivals"
Wednesday, April 27, 7 - 8 pm
Emily Levine is a historian and Associate Professor of Education at Stanford Graduate School of Education. Her latest book, Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University explores the evolution of higher education in the United States and Germany during the nineteenth century through post-World War II. 
Register Now

The 2022 Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium
Wednesday, May 11, 10 am - 3 pm
As we look toward the next academic year, we are confronted with the challenge of how to scale the best new pedagogies and technologies and make them a part of the university experience for more students. How do we move from innovation to real transformation? The 2022 Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium will feature original presentations from researchers representing dozens of universities that address this critical question through empirical research and translational analyses.
Register Now
Our events calendar also includes teaching and learning events from our partners.
See More Events
Find more events and opportunities for training, funding, consultation and more from the Duke Teaching Support Network.
Accessibility Quick Tips
A monthly series highlighting simple steps you can take to improve accessibility in your class.

Use headings for clarity

A quick and simple way to make your documents and web pages more accessible is to use headings (or headers) to indicate the main topics and subtopics of your information. (Not sure what headings are? Here’s a simple explanation of headings in web pages.) Using headings will transform your page’s text into a structured and ordered outline that helps people–especially those using screen readers–navigate through your information.
Tips for using headings:
  • Begin with your top-level heading (h1) and then proceed in order through descending sizes (h2, h3, h4, and so on). Don’t skip heading levels, which will confuse screen readers.
  • Use your top-level headings to indicate your most important/main topic(s) and indicate sub-topics (and sub-sub-topics) with smaller headings.
  • Don’t get carried away! In most cases you don’t need more than 3-5 levels of headings.
Once you’ve added headings to your documents and web pages, they will be easier for everyone to skim and to read actively. See additional tips about headings from the University of Dayton.

Sakai Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of the year again where we all clear out our closets of old clothes, wipe down every surface and in general try to declutter our lives. The same principles should be applied to your digital life and data. This blog post outlines three simple ways you can do so in Sakai.
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