Tools and Resources

This resource offers principles of trauma-informed teaching and recommendations instructors
might consider as they are developing trauma-informed practices for their own courses.

The first few weeks of the semester set the trajectory for students’ behavior and success in a course. This resource for intructors provides an overview of Starfish as a student success resource.

This document describes a specific strategy that provides a collaborative learning experience for students.

Three-page overview of the steps in documenting one's teaching through a portfolio.

The Syllabus Checklist document provides a syllabus template that includes elements required on all syllabi by Penn State, plus additional recommended best practices in syllabus design.

This list of inclusive teaching strategies was created as part of the Schreyer Institute's Creating Inclusive Courses workshop. The workshop activity is also available in this repository. The list was compiled over many years and is intended to help instructors recognize what they might already be doing to demonstrate that all students are welcome contributors to the course learning community. This is not a "checklist." Creating inclusive course environments requires sincerity, intentionality, and reflection, not simply enacting a list of strategies. These strategies are most effective when combined with other efforts such as critical self-reflection reflection, learning about antiracist pedagogies, and taking steps to decolonize our classrooms.

This file is an example of a rubric that can be used to grade a science experiment. The use of a rubric can help instructors to grade more accurately and more quickly.

Starfish progress surveys are a critical tool instructors can use to support student success. This resource provides a few suggestions for how instructors might talk with their students about Starfish and the messages they receive through this tool.

Item Analysis (a.k.a. Test Question Analysis) is an empowering process that enables you to improve mutiple-choice test score validity and reliability by analyzing item performance over time and making necessary adjustments. Knowledge of score reliability, item difficulty, item discrimination, and crafting effective distractors can help you make decisions about whether to retain items for future administrations, revise them, or eliminate them from the test item pool. Item analysis can also help you to determine whether a particular portion of course content should be revised or enhanced.