Remote Teaching
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Using Your Syllabus to Set the Tone for Class
The syllabus is often the first window that students get into a course. An instructor may post it to Canvas, email it, or even still hand out printed copies. While the university sees it as a contract, and instructors and students see it as a description of expectations for course work, the syllabus can do a lot to set the tone for a class. Syllabi are often long, and honestly, dry. Is it any wonder that many students never read them, preferring to ask the instructor or peers questions when they already have the answers at their fingertips? While there are activities that can be done to encourage students to read the syllabus (scavenger hunts for…
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Using Oral Assessments to Collect Evidence of Learning
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-blue-top-beside-table-1181712/ Summary: Boost learning engagement with oral assessments! Discover how this dynamic approach can provide richer evidence of student understanding and mastery. Date of publishing: March 30, 2021 Oral assessments can serve as a great method to collect another type of evidence of student learning. It typically consists of a time-limited interview with a student to verbally confirm to what degree they’ve met one or more course outcomes through a series of questions and prompts to guide the conversation. Collecting assessment evidence this way can be especially helpful while teaching remotely. Please review this video to learn more about this assessment strategy. Additional Resources…
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You can only make a first impression once – make it a good one with your Canvas Homepage
Co-written by Toni Marchione and Ryan Banow, GMCTL Your course homepage is the first thing that students see when they log in to your Canvas course. It is their first impression of your course. As a landing page, it should be inviting, informative and easy to navigate. Canvas allows instructors to customize their homepage and choose between five different layout options: Course Activity Stream, Pages Front Page, Course Modules, Assignment List or Syllabus. It is simple to change How do I change the Course Home Page?. Course Modules is the most common option that instructors choose. If you would like to customize your homepage you must first create a page and then set it as the Front Page – How do I set a Front Page in a course? Whichever homepage layout you select you also have the option of displaying recent course…
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How students interact with your online course predicts their success
We all know that students are more successful when they have a deep interest in course materials or strong thinking skills. Similarly, we know we can help students do better when assessment is transparent. However, we are less aware of the impact that our course design has on likely student persistence and success. In online and remote environments, here are some key predictors of success controlled by how you design your course: Key factors: Student engagement with learning activities like posting on discussion boards or taking optional online quizzes to check their understanding (Zacharis, 2015) is a likely predictor of student success. Interestingly, time logged in and reading or viewing…
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Let Students Choose their Breakout Session and More – Now in WebEx!
USask’s version of WebEx recently updated with a few new features worth highlighting. Students can now choose which Breakout Session to join On certain devices WebEx, can now recognize hand gestures, including hand raising Students can now choose which Breakout Session to join This feature opens up new pedagogical opportunities in class sessions. There are a few obvious examples that come to mind: use this to help students form groups for class activities. Create a session for each potential topic and then allow students to self-enrol in the session for the topic of their choosing you could lead an activity where students choose a position in an argument. For example,…
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Create Groups for Collaborative Learning Spaces in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Perhaps you’d like to set up groups in your Canvas course for discussions, assignments, projects or presentations. The process creates smaller groups, as well as a space within the course for group members to collaborate, called a Group Homepage. Group creation can help our courses to be more active and social, and enable connection with the people, ideas and concepts students need to support their learning; using groups is aligned with USask’s Learning Technology Ecosystem Principles, characteristics of effective digital learning spaces, and can support skill development and learner achievement for our students. By bringing students together in smaller groups and inviting them to communicate and work…
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Elaborations on Canvas collaborations
The transition to remote learning has been in progress for almost a year now, with many instructors grabbing the Canvas bull by the horns and learning how to use the different Canvas tools to provide their students with the best learning experience possible. With what feels like the whole world working remotely right now, collaborating with peers and colleagues is a necessary skill that we can help students develop and refine. Learning to work collaboratively is important because it not only helps to prepare students for careers but it elegantly highlights that it is often easier to succeed at tasks when working in a team. Canvas gives you the ability…
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Office hours in Canvas
Office hours are important because they allow our student to connect with us and ask questions, but they can be time consuming to set up in a remote environment. Using Meets in Canvas, you can quickly and simply set up remote meeting times as “office hours” so your students can sign up for a time to meet with you. You’ll want to do it this way instead of some outside tool because: You can set a block of time, and divide it into any length of appointments You can auto schedule short breaks between appointments You can push one set of office hours to all your classes, so student from…
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Ready to Talk to Students About Suspected Academic Misconduct?
When you suspect academic misconduct in your course, it’s common to feel frustrated. Some educators feel insulted or angry. Some blame themselves. Some people have a mix of all of this. Regardless, if you suspect a student has engaged in academic misconduct it is important to talk to them about it. The points below are offered to help you think through your approach, so that you can feel confident and clear about how you will facilitate that conversation. Key things to think about First, get grounded. Return to your own commitment to what ethical teaching and learning looks like in your course, in your subject/disciplinary area. Ask yourself: What am…
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Students in Grief: What can you do?
By Lisa Greig, Student Support and Outreach Coordinator It has been a difficult nine months for many as we have all been braving the waves of grief, collectively, in this pandemic. Understanding grief Jack Jordan provides a great definition of grief: it is “the whole person response to the actual or threatened loss of anything which we are psychologically attached”. This is important because grief is not just tied to a death loss, it is a response to any loss. And, where loss lives, grief will follow (Carrington, 2020). A few things to note about grief: It is Normal There is no timeline Grief is the universal response to loss…
