Creating a positive and welcoming classroom climate and using clear and regular communication are among the most important things any instructor can do to set the tone and manage the class. One of the best ways to ensure a successful semester for you and your students is to take the time to cultivate a welcoming and supportive climate. In doing so, students are more likely to achieve the learning outcomes of the course, develop higher-order thinking skills, be motivated to learn, and be satisfied with the course (Cornelius-White, 2007; Granitz, Koernig, & Harich, 2009). Here are a few ways instructors can build a positive classroom community:

• Build rapport by incorporating icebreakers early and often. For more information, see the Center for Teaching and Learning's Guide to Icebreakers with a Purpose. 

• Consider using a survey to learn about your students – their interests, goals, needs, etc. 

• Learn and use students’ names. Using the class photo roster in UT CLIPs is helpful! 

• Arrive to class 10 minutes early and stay 10 minutes late to make space for informal time.

• Incorporate innovative teaching practices.

• Tell students that your class welcomes different viewpoints and that you will not tolerate insensitive remarks – hold them accountable as necessary. For more information, learn about Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. 

• Share your enthusiasm for the subject and for their learning - excitement and positivity are contagious! 

• Solicit student input and feedback throughout the semester. 

• Set community standards and / or class norms.

• Demonstrate and encourage social presence.

• Include multiple avenues for interaction and engagement.

• Model participation and behavioral expectations.

• Adopt a casual, conversational tone in announcements and messages.

• Allow time before, during, or after class for social conversation.

Additional Resources

• Managing the Learning Environment - UT Center for Teaching and Learning

“Facilitating discourse during the course is critical to maintaining interest, motivation and engagement of students in active learning” (Anderson, et al, 2001). Communication is critical to establishing trust and fostering student engagement. Here are some important tips for communicating with students:

• Plan to communicate often throughout the course. In long semesters, plan to communicate with students at least once a week, and more frequently early in the semester. 

• At the start of the course, tell students explicitly what to expect regarding communication, including:

  • your preferred method of communication (email, online discussion tool such as Slack, phone/text); 

  • when can they expect a response from the teaching team; 

  • when office hours are held; 

  • if and when they’ll get reminders about assignments or exams, etc. 

• Be creative and use different modalities in your communication. For example, use the video feature in Canvas to create a video announcement instead of the usual text. 

• Encourage students to come to office hours, and not only when they have a question about the subject matter. 

• Reach out, as possible, individually to students just to check in and see how they are doing. Don’t wait for them to have a problem and come to you, as we know, some never will. 

• When teaching, share parts of yourself – use anecdotes and examples from your life to activate emotions. Not only do student remember good stories, they’ll also feel connected to you and appreciate your willingness to share. 

• Model active listening strategies and do your best to facilitate this in your students. Communication works much better when we listen to understand each other! For more ideas on incorporating active learning into your classroom download this helpful list.  Also, check out this resource on active learning while physically distancing.

Additional Resources

• FERPA - UT Austin

Student motivation is both intrinsic and extrinsic and can be inspired by a variety of goals including good grades, high paying jobs, social belonging, personal growth and development, and more. Not all students will be motivated by the same things or in the same ways, so it’s important to use many different motivational strategies to reach as many students as possible. Nilson (2016) provides a list of 55 Strategies for Motivating Students broken down into variety of methods including your persona, the subject matter, your teaching, and assignments and tests. Strategies include:

• Getting to know your students and vice versa.

• Delivering presentations with enthusiasm and energy.

• Fostering good communication.

• Maintaining classroom civility. 

• Allowing students to contribute to course content and design.

• Explaining to students why you have chosen certain materials or methods.

• Teaching by inquiry.

• Ensuring the accessibility of materials.

• Setting high expectations but realistic performance goals. 

• Providing prompt and regular feedback - and don’t forget about positive feedback!

• Giving second chances.

• Allowing different options for students to demonstrate learning.

• Creating community agreements and using icebreakers regularly.

• Regularly soliciting feedback and input to shape and improve class.

• Encouraging attendance at office hours.

• Offering multiple ways to participate (hand raising, chat, discussion boards, etc.)

• Using multiple means of representation, action, and expression.

It is critical to solicit feedback from students on your course both during (formative) and at the end (summative) of the semester. At CATE, we suggest starting to collect feedback early in the semester as students will more often take time to give thoughtful, useful feedback if they know it will be incorporated into the rest of the class and impact them positively. Some ways you can solicit helpful feedback are to conduct a survey at the start of the semester to get to know students’ preferred names, pronouns, interests, learning preferences, and constraints. Run polls throughout the semester to get input on student well-being, attitudes, preferences, and needs. Reinforce, at different times and through different channels (e.g., in the syllabus, in class, announcement), that you value student input and will try to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate student needs. After collecting feedback, explicitly tell students how you used their input to make adjustments to the course. Send multiple reminders about Course Instructor Survey (CIS): before it opens, when it opens, and just before it closes. Give a point-based incentive for completing the Course Instructor Survey.

Mid-Semester Feedback

Getting feedback during the semester helps you understand students’ experience and needs and make adjustment that can impact their learning and engagement. CATE has created a mid-semester feedback survey that you can import into your Canvas course, if you wish, to make the collection process easier. Feel free to edit, add or remove questions to make the survey most helpful for you. Details on how to do this, as well as an importable file, are available for you to download.

End of Semester Course Evaluations

UT launched a new Course Evaluation System (CES) in Fall 2022 integrated with Canvas, which now includes a a “Course Evaluation” button in the left navigation panel of each course page. Under this tab, instructors will be able to track students’ response rate live while the survey is active by checking the “Subject Management” task available there. Canvas will automatically send a message to students with a link when the survey is open.

The main platform improvements include a better mobile phone user interface and downloading features to analyze survey results. It also enables Faculty to personalize questions, adding up to three additional enquiries. The new CES also generates a unique QR code and URL that takes the students directly to your survey rather than forcing them to navigate through their dashboard. To generate a QR code or URL, click the three dots at the lower right of the box on Canvas.

Read more about Course Evaluations at UT Austin. 

Read more about the new Course Evaluation System.

Click here to access the new Course Evaluation System.

For more information, email course-evals@utexas.edu.

Improving CES Return Rate

The utility of your Course Evaluation System (CES) results depends on a robust return rate. Below are some recommendations to help boost your CES return rates

The following practices are grounded in research and focus on actions instructors can take without changes to administrative systems, procedures or policies.

• Share this short video about giving meaningful feedback with students.

• Explicitly and repeatedly tell students you value their input. 

  • Add a statement in your syllabus.

  • Discuss it in your course introduction.

  • Remind students as the end of the course approaches.

• Demonstrate that you value student input throughout your course.

  • Poll students to get input on their preferences and needs.

  • Conduct a mid-semester evaluation.

  • Use student feedback to make adjustments in the course.

• Tell students that their feedback on the CES is important because it is used to evaluate your teaching and you use student input to improve your teaching. Provide examples of changes you have made based on student feedback.

You can get more tips in the Response Rate Guide. Click here to download.

For face-to-face Courses and Synchronous Online Courses

• Let students know in advance when you plan to administer the CES and remind them to bring a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
• Allow class time for students to complete the mobile-adaptive CES. The instructor should not be present when the CES is being administered. In Zoom, you can make someone else the host and exit the meeting.

For Asynchronous Online Courses

• Let students know the time window when the CES will be open before it opens.
• Send a reminder when the CES window opens.
• Send a “last chance” notice just before the CIS window closes.
• Include a link to the CES in your Canvas course and in your reminder messages.

Incentives

Research shows that extra credit is one of the most successful strategies for boosting course evaluation response rates. A point-based micro-incentive worth ≤ 0.5% of the overall course grade can be effective in boosting course evaluation return rates.

• You can require students to submit a screenshot of the CES completion confirmation screen as evidence that they completed the survey. This does not reveal any of their responses.
• A class-wide incentive giving extra points to the whole class if a high threshold response rate (e.g., 70%) is achieved can be as effective as individual incentives and is simpler to administer.
• If you offer point-based incentives, it should be only one of multiple ways to earn extra credit. Students should be able to earn all available extra credit through other means. For example, you could add a bonus question available to everyone to a final assignment or test if the course evaluation return rate meets a given threshold.

Additional Resources

• Feedback on Your Teaching - UT Center for Teaching and Learning

Teaching teams in Moody College can consist of teaching assistants, assistant instructors, Undergraduate Learning Assistants (ULAs), and/or undergraduate graders. Incorporating innovative practices into your work with the teaching team not only benefits current learners in your classroom, but also helps set up the next generation of  teachers for success. Whether you teach a large lecture course or a smaller lab-based class, here are some best practices for working with TAs, AIs, and ULAs:

Set Expectations

• Meeting as a group before the semester starts, and setting up regular meetings during the semester, helps clarify the roles that each teaching team member will play. This is particularly important for ULAs or TAs who may be assisting in a new class for the first time.
• During group meetings, set the teaching team up so everyone is in alignment with the course goals. Aim to eliminate guesswork at all stages. What do you expect for grading policies, for leading discussion sections, or for supervising labs? Provide clear expectations and guidelines.
• Providing these clear expectations and instructions allows team members to better plan their time so they can do their best work. Be sure to clarify that all TAs know which students they will be grading, and if they have specific sections of the class to work with.
• Have a clear grading dispute policy in your syllabus; for example, let students know how long they have to report a dispute, and what a report entails (written explanation, etc.).
• Noting deadlines for completing grading is extremely important, as this will ensure that students receive their feedback at the same time regardless of who is grading their assignments. If you are working with multiple TAs or AIs, decide who will change the Canvas settings so students do not see grades until all work is scored.
• Use rubrics for all assignments and use the blind grading feature on Canvas. This helps everyone if there are grading disputes. Have graduate students score practice exams or assignments first, and provide your feedback on the scoring.
• Making assignments from previous semesters available for graduate students to refer to as example is also a good practice. Consider creating a Google Drive or UT Box folder for your class, where students can share slides from labs or discussion sections with future TAs/AIs.
• Implementing these class-wide policies instills confidence in undergraduates that they are receiving the same treatment regardless of who is grading them.

Set Boundaries

• Work with students to decide on a class-wide policy for when teaching team members are available for questions. For example, you can set ‘business hour’ availability, where questions will be answered within typical 9-5 (weekday) business hours. Establishing class-wide policies allows students—and you!—to step away from certain class responsibilities over the weekend.
• Having a class-wide policy can be especially helpful for ULAs, who are closer in age to the students in class and may not feel as comfortable turning down requests for help.
• In large classes with many teaching team members, you can establish one person as a “lead” for question-answering.
• You can also set up a designated online space, such as a Canvas discussion board or a Discord server, for urgent questions or for FAQs. Keep adding to this throughout the semester as questions come in.
• How do you best communicate? Do you prefer texts, emails, phone calls? Let your graduate students know- and ask them their own preferences. Some classes have weekly phone call check-ins, while others communicate via email or have regular in-person meetings.
• Communicate clearly about when everyone’s working hours are- some people are early risers, while others are night owls. Knowing when people work best helps to set up what the class-wide availability is.

Know Your Graduate Students

• Many TAs have only recently graduated themselves, and may be uncomfortable grading undergraduates so close to them in age.
• Regular meetings with TAs and AIs provide space to address potential barriers and provide support for graduate students.

International Students

• Be aware of the individual factors that may impact how graduate students can succeed as TAs and AIs. Studies show, for example, that native speakers of English can have negative attitudes towards teaching assistants who are non-native English speakers, and that international students may not be accustomed to American classroom practices (Kang, Rubin & Lindemann, 2015). As an instructor, you can take steps to mitigate potential harm and help graduate students learn about a new setting.
• Many international graduate students come from teacher-centric and lecture-heavy learning communities, in which it is rare for students to interrupt a lecture with questions or to challenge a grade (Meadows et al, 2015). Acknowledging during your early meetings that such practices are more common in American university settings is helpful.
• Similarly, model teaching for native speakers of English and for American students who are on the teaching team. Create an expectation of cultural difference (Dimitrov et al, 2014) by acknowledging that, for example, people may participate in class in different ways. Build opportunities for all to participate.

Model Empathy

• Model trauma-informed grading practices. Trauma-informed pedagogy refers to understanding “how violence, victimization, and other traumatic experiences may have figured in the lives of the individuals involved and [applying] that understanding to the provision of services and the design of systems so that they accommodate the needs and vulnerabilities of trauma survivors” (Carello & Butler, 2014). Trauma-informed grading, for example, centers transparency about all aspects of the grading process so as to build trust.
• Help graduate students learn to spot students who may be in distress and/or need additional campus resources. The difference between poor academic performance and a distressed student is not always immediately clear.
• Demonstrate clear communicative practices in the classrooms; for example, clearly break down jargon or technical terms for newcomers or students from other disciplines. Invite questions from both students and teaching team members.

Additional Resources

• Teaching Resources for Graduate Teaching Assistants - UT Austin Center for Teaching and Learning