Content & Instructional Resources

Every academic discipline has different needs in terms of materials, resources, software, etc. Many universities, vendors, organizations, and foundations create high quality material in the form of actual content, resources or tools like simulations, that is available for anyone to use. In most cases, these materials are thoroughly vetted by university professors and researchers and are research-based in their origins so they can be trusted as reliable. We have shared a variety of these resources and sites where you can search for materials specifically for your discipline. Don't forget to visit the Farley Library LibGuide for your disciple for a variety of curated content resources in your discipline.

As OTTL identifies solutions and suggestions for various departments, we will post them here. Similarly, if you find an excellent tool, site, or open educational resource (OER) that might be useful to others, please share it with us so we can add it to the list.

**This page will be updated as new resources are identified so check back often. Site updates are listed on the homepage.

General

Here's a great article with strategy suggestions for different types of classes, such a large lecture and seminar style.

Tips and Strategies for Large Online Courses is a nice list of resources for faculty trying to manage large classes in an online environment.

How to Quickly and Safely Move a Lab Online

A searchable set resources for online pedagogy including content, interaction and assessment from the University of Central Florida! One of our favorite sets of resources!

Visit this list of online instructional strategies prepared by the University of Illinois-Springfield that you might use to engage your students online.

Active Teaching in a Socially Distanced and/or Hybrid Setting

This article from the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching describes a variety of scenarios and teaching activities to help faculty work through some of the challenges that will inevitably come up this fall. For more about active teaching, visit our Active Learning page.

Merlot - Merlot is a curated collection of educational resources from simulations, case studies, lessons, labs, OER, etc. submitted by faculty for open use by anyone. Many are peer-reviewed and reviewed by other faculty. Many disciplines are available.

An excellent list from Vanderbilt University of Open Educational Resources such as open textbooks, internet archives, and other openly licensed material sites where faculty can search for content, textbooks, films, music, simulations, lab experiments - the list is endless!

Course Hero - On Course Hero you can search and filter to find lessons and activities for a variety of disciplines and specific micro-topics within a discipline. Could be really helpful to save time on content creation.

Visit the Adobe Education Exchange for free lessons, projects and activities geared toward higher education classes in all disciplines. Even if you or your students are not very familiar with Adobe products, this is worth exploring for the ideas alone. Many can be accomplished with other, more simple to learn tools, but some like those that use Adobe Spark, Post, or Video are super-easy to use and expand students' creative skills while they deepen their content knowledge. A win-win!

Many companies are offering tools, resources and services during this pandemic for either free or reduced cost. Take a look at this organized list, offered by University Business, to see if anything can be useful for you and your students during this time. Keep in mind some of these may have a temporary free offering so take note of the "fine print", but some are always free.

NEW - Interactive Simulations for STEM courses - Hundreds of simulations on many topics in physics, chemistry, math, biology and other STEM disciplines. Find useful simulations to help students understand complex laws, theories, interactions, etc. Simple to use - just grab the embed code, navigate to where you want to place it in your course, create a file then use the 'insert stuff' and add embed code and follow the prompts. We suggest avoiding any that use Flash though. Create a free account to obtain access to instructor support materials for each sim. Find useful tips and resources to make the best use of these great material on their Tips page.

This Web Toolbox features helpful online science research tools and resources for Analytical Chemistry, Life Science, Chemical Synthesis and Materials Science.

Here is a thread of resources and ideas for Biology faculty.

PASCO provides free access to their resources for university physics labs to faculty transitioning to remote learning.

On the Cutting Edge is an NSF-funded site full of resources to support better undergraduate Geoscience teaching - all free!

The Association for Theater in Higher Education has curated numerous resources to support faculty now forced to teach performing arts online. An excellent set of resources!

This is a set of resources for moving university dance classes online.

Martini plug-in license - PowerProduction Software is providing the Martini video editor plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Magix VEGAS Pro as a perpetual license that never expires. Martini’s interface guides editors through the quick creation of composite shots from style section to the implementation of characters, photos and props. Download the Martini license.

Canva for Education - Students can create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage for free using Canva for Education. The platform includes over 60,000 templates that can be filled with more than 2 million images and over 700 fonts. Canva for Education can be integrated with Google Classroom.

https://www.cyndance.org/ An example of a site created for a dance course during the pandemic. Only part is public but it gives a good idea of what faculty might do.

The Constitution Center is offering free lectures and civil dialogue sessions on the Constitution to all institutions k-20. Visit their site for details.