Author Archives: Jeff Allred

Welcome to Spring 2023

Posted on January 26, 2023 by Jeff Allred

The English department is rebooting its “Director of Undergraduate Studies” position, which supports core courses in our major (so far, 252, 304, 306, and 307, with hopes to expand). I am the current Director, after a brief start-up period in … Continue reading →

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ACERT hub for distance learning resources

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Jeff Allred

I hope everyone is hanging in there. It’s been a minute. I wanted to share with you a wonderful resource created by newly minted ACERT director Julie Van Peteghem (Romance Languages): Asynch Done Asynch đź’ˇ Tip: For the best viewing … Continue reading →

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social annotation with students using hypothes.is

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Jeff Allred

At today’s department meeting, Donna Paparella and I talked about hypothes.is, an online tool for annotating texts of all kinds (Word docs, .pdfs, web pages, etc.). I’ll keep things short here but wanted to share a few things for folks … Continue reading →

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to synch or not to synch?

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Jeff Allred

After polling my students at the quarter-term point, more or less, I decided to modulate my ENGL 252, so to speak, shifting from all synchronous meetings to a split schedule, with synchronous Mondays and asynchronous Thursdays. The first asynchronous session … Continue reading →

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DPLA and teaching literary/historical research

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jeff Allred

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) “amplifies the value of libraries and cultural organizations as Americans’ most trusted sources of shared knowledge.” In practice this means it’s a hub linking many disparate sources of online documents and multimedia objects. … Continue reading →

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engaging students semi-synchronously: the “puzzle” approach

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Jeff Allred

After listening to Donna Masini and others in our faculty meeting this week, I’ve been thinking about how to hang onto the dynamism of synchronous discussion while getting away from my droning at everyone or even being the emcee at … Continue reading →

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survey results are in…

Posted on August 27, 2020 by Jeff Allred

I’ve doubled down this term on something I’ve done sporadically in my face to face teaching: surveying students online. It’s a good idea for lots of things: figuring out what they know, taking the temperature on work load, etc. I’m … Continue reading →

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Tips for Students: Distance Learning in the time of COVID-19

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Jeff Allred

Just a quick share of a splendid collection of tips and resources for students amid the Covid pandemic. It provides constructive ideas for everything from individual self-care to study skills for courses to links to CUNY- and city-wide resources for … Continue reading →

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first day gambit

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Jeff Allred

I’m sure we all have a portfolio of first-day shtick to ease the transition for students and help us learn names. But this is tougher in a virtual environment. Standing on the shoulders of i fabbri migliori like our own … Continue reading →

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Zoom guidelines for students

Posted on August 24, 2020 by Jeff Allred

Real quick-like, I wanted to share a one-pager I created for my students on how to Zoom effectively. Here goes, and here’s a link to the document: feel free to steal or adapt.   Zoom Discussion Guidelines We will do … Continue reading →

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