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Blogs

CTL Blog We intend the blog to be an active way for members of the RIT community to discuss ideas, experiences, innovations, adventures, challenges, and research about teaching and learning. The audience for the blog is the RIT teaching community, but the blog will be publicly accessible from the CTL homepage. We invite members of the RIT teaching and learning community (faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates) to submit potential blog posts. If you are interested in contributing, please read the guidelines below and complete the Idea Submission form.
Blog Post Guidlines Focus Contemporary teaching and learning topics.  Successful blog posts will do one or more of the following things:
  • Offer ideas & innovations
  • Refer to one or two resources
  • Make sense to readers in a range of disciplines and departments
  • Talk about the writer’s experience as an instructor or student or both
  • Consider instructive failures
Tone We invite posts that present a compelling case or invite readers to consider a topic from a new angle. However, we encourage our writers to keep it casual and to remember that people from many different backgrounds and disciplines may read your post. Avoid the use of disciplinary jargon or dense theoretical material. We encourage humor and the use of metaphors to draw connections. Suggested topics Interviews (asking questions), mini-case studies, response to an article, a reflective piece, or something else.
  • Active learning
  • Balancing teaching and research
  • Best practices
  • Inclusive teaching
  • Hybrid or online courses
  • Team or collaborative teaching
  • Working with Multilingual students
Visuals We would like all submissions to include visual (high resolution images only). We also encourage the addition of headers, bullet points, numbering, or anything else that will help make the post a little more reader friendly and visually appealing. Idea Submission Form

Blog posting tips

  1. Pick your topic, set your aims. Before you start writing your blog post be clear and specific on the topic and why you’re writing it. You might want to cover what you learned from a recent conference you attended or write a lay-summary of a journal article you’ve published.
  2. Choose the right platform: Once you know your topic and what you want to get out of writing the blog post, choose the platform which will meet your aims. Do you want to allow for discussion and engagement? Write for a blog which allows for comments – though make sure you’re prepared to respond to these. Do you want to reach a particular audience? Then write for a blog with this readership.
  3. Use an effective title. For a blog post you want to use a catchy title, encouraging people to click through. But at the same time, make sure it isn’t misleading and accurately reflects the content of the post. Snappy titles e.g. ’10 tips on ….’, ‘5 things I learned about…’ can often appeal to the time-short reader.
  4. Know your audience. Who do you want to reach? Is it researchers in your field? Those from outside your area of specialty? The general public? Policy makers or the media? Keeping your audience at the forefront of your mind is essential in every decision – from choosing the title to selecting images that will resonate.
  5. Translate your language. An academic blog post is different to an academic journal article. Often, they are intended for a wider audience, including those outside of academia so you need to tailor language to your audience. As journal and blog editor Per Carlbring notes, “do not use unnecessary technical expressions – it’s a difficult art to explain complicated principles in an easy way.”
  6. Be concise. Again, blogs are typically a lot more concise than journal articles. So, translate your arguments into the essential points.
  7. Make it visual – using appropriate videos or pictures can help break the text up and make your blog post more engaging to the audience. Make sure you have appropriate permissions to use any images, giving credit to the artist where necessary.
  8. Think about the whole picture. Your blog post is a publication, so make sure it fits in with the rest of your research ensuring you cite it appropriately and bear in mind any intellectual property issues. If your research has not yet been published, bear in mind any risks with giving information away.
  9. Include your social media handles. Include links to your other social media accounts, whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other academic networking site – helping build up your online research profile.
  10. Be aware of your digital footprint. These days it’s not uncommon for employers to look up potential candidates online. So, ensure your tone is professional and don’t include anything you wouldn’t want to be quoted on. 

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