Teaching guides
The following represent curated teaching guides compiled from books on teaching, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and conversations from past Rice Center events. We will add to these ideas and create new categories over time. Please let us know your feedback and suggestions to add to these curated teaching strategies by contacting a member of the Rice Center staff or by using our Suggestions and Feedback page.
- Syllabus design checklist. A checklist of items to consider adding to your syllabus, including some suggested language addressing college policies and resources.
- Strategies to promote active learning and student engagement. Approaches to help students actively engage in learning material and help teachers assess learning in real time.
- Models for leading classroom discussions. Different models for teacher-student and student-student interactions in class discussions with advantages and disadvantages for each.
- Helping students succeed by providing structure. Strategies for adding structure to a course to promote student success, reduce student anxiety, and increase inclusion of students from all backgrounds.
- Strategies for promoting student wellbeing throughout the semester. Strategies to reduce student stress, increase flexibility, and develop healthy habits throughout the semester.
- Guide to managing the use of generative AI in the classroom. Guidance for managing the use of text-based generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Bard.
- Resources for teaching writing. Thoughtful advice for teaching writing, put together by the Williams College Writing Center.
- Managing large class sizes. Ideas for addressing the inherent challenges in teaching courses with high enrollments.
- Managing student absences from class. Ideas for helping students make up work from absences from lecture, discussion, and skills-based (lab, studio, language) courses.
- Designing introductory science labs. Ideas for designing lab sessions for 100- or 200-level science courses that introduce students to new fields of study.
External links
Visual teaching resources from CaitKirby.com. Contains several visually-accessible resources on teaching and learning designed by Dr. Cait Kirby, Associate Director of the Rice Center for Teaching.
Teaching guides from Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Several thorough guides to a variety of teaching topics with summaries of evidence-based practices.
Course workload estimator from Rice University. An online tool useful for estimating student workload (hrs/week) in your course.
Guide to mentoring undergraduate students in STEM fields. A thorough guide to mentoring undergraduate students in the sciences the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
Clicker Resource Guide. A thorough guide for using clickers in the classroom for interactive active learning experiences from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Educational Initiative.