Welcome to Dartmouth!
There are a variety of resources for New and Visiting Faculty that will help orient you to the unique teaching and learning context at the College. We’ve pulled some of them together here, with a particular focus on course design and Dartmouth’s educational technologies. In addition to these resources, you should be aware of New Faculty Orientation and the New Faculty Guide to Teaching at Dartmouth, offered via Dartmouth’s Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) in collaboration with Learning Design & Innovation.
New Faculty Orientation to Teaching
Dartmouth’s New Faculty Orientation to Teaching aims to provide useful information and introductions to help you get started successfully in your teaching role at Dartmouth. Facilitated annually by the DCAL and Learning Design and Innovation teams, the Orientation to Teaching is designed to complement other welcome and orientation sessions (with your department, the Dean of the Faculty, and Office of Human Resources) that you might attend as you begin your work at the College.
New Faculty Guide to Teaching at Dartmouth
One of the core resources provided during New Faculty Orientation is the New Faculty Guide to Teaching at Dartmouth. This guide is compiled by DCAL and Leaning Design and Innovation. It is updated annually.
Educational Technologies at Dartmouth
Canvas
Dartmouth uses the Canvas learning management system (LMS) for residential courses. Faculty use Canvas in a variety of ways, from a course information hub where students can find course files, the syllabus, and instructor information to an assignment portal and gradebook to an extension of the classroom itself, where students can interact with the instructor and one another.
- Start getting familiar with Canvas using our Canvas Setup Guide.
- Ensure your Canvas course and materials are accessible using UDOIT.
Ed Tech Tools to use with Canvas
Ed Discussion
A discussion tool that integrations with Canvas, Ed Discussion enables earners and instructors to engage with a variety of topics both asynchronously and synchronously. Learners have a chance to collaborate with their peers and instructors on course content and skills, but it’s all happening within a space that only those enrolled in the specific course (where Ed Discussion is being used) can access. With Ed Discussion in use, all of the course communications can happen in one location, and everything can be easily categorized. See Guide to Getting Started with Ed Discussion for more information.
Gradescope
Gradescope is a tool that helps faculty turn course assignments around faster and more efficiently, while still providing detailed feedback/rubrics! Additionally, it allows faculty to view data about how the assignments worked overall for their students. See Guide for Using Gradescope for Exams & Assignments in Canvas for more information.
Hypothesis
Is a social annotation tool that integrates with Canvas but can be used separately on the web to annotate course readings as well as websites and other digital media. See our Hypothesis Annotation Guide for more information.
VoiceThread
VoiceThread is a web application learning tool for enhancing student engagement and online presence. With VoiceThread, instructors and/or students can create, share, and comment on images, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, videos, audio files, documents, and PDFs, using microphone, webcam, text, phone, and audio-file upload. VoiceThread has a devoted following in language instruction, especially. For more information, see our VoiceThread Guide.
Zoom & Panopto
Dartmouth uses Zoom web conferencing software for remote class meetings and guest speakers. See Teaching With Zoom Quick Reference Guide and Best Practices for more information about Zoom and its integration with Canvas.
For video management, Dartmouth uses a tool called Panopto. In addition to storage, Panopto offers video editing and captioning functionalities. See Getting Started with Panopto for more information.
The Quarter System
Dartmouth Arts & Sciences courses take place on a quarter system in which there are three 10-week terms in addition to summer term. Teaching a course in 10 weeks if you are used to the semester system can have a steep learning curve.
Things to Know When Teaching on the Quarter System
- Going from semesters to quarters is not as simple as updating the weekly schedule in your syllabus. We recommend using a course workload estimator to get a feel for what’s possible in 10 weeks.
- Many faculty find success paring back content & activities––fewer topics, fewer texts, fewer assignments––so that everything that is included can be engaged with more deeply.
- Clearly articulated learning objectives will help you and your students stay on course.
- This learning objective builder from University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning, and this learning outcome generator from Syracuse University are both helpful tools.
- Dartmouth’s Course Design Institute is an excellent resource for developing your course and materials in real-time with DCAL and LDI
- Time is of the essence! Providing feedback to students in a timely matter may make the difference in whether or not students are able to adjust, revise, and demonstrate growing skill, knowledge, and expertise.
- Students typically take 3 courses a term, as opposed to the 4 or 5 course load of a semester system.
- The pace of the term can cause stress, assignments and exams tend to stack up, and rapid transitions between terms (especially Winter and Spring terms) can lead to confusion and disorientation for students and faculty alike.
- On the quarter system, midterms might take place any time between weeks 3 and 6.
- Our resource on Resilient course design has some pointers about wellbeing and flexibility in the classroom.
- This article on Designing for Fatigue may also be of interest.
- Each quarter has a big (party) weekend (Homecoming, Winter Carnival, and Green Key) that tends to impact attendance and engagement, many faculty take these weekends into account when planning major assignment due dates.
Curious about the student experience? Read a Dartmouth student’s perspective on the quarter system. Conversely, here is a student’s critique of the quarter system.
Resources on this site are created by Dartmouth ITC’s Learning Design and Innovation team. If you have comments, questions, or feedback, please email ldi@dartmouth.edu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 license — meaning anyone copy and redistribute the material as long as you give appropriate credit and do not use the material for commercial purposes (by Trustees of Dartmouth College). Other contributors are cited on each resource. Please give credit where credit is due.