Uncategorized
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, Experiential Learning, Instructional / Course Design, Uncategorized
Time for a Jump Start? Teaching and Learning Fund at the GMCTL
Feeling stuck? Even though good ideas for change are exciting and energizing, sometimes they sit still or do not progress. Common reasons include: Working at it sporadically or “off the side of your desk” Attending to more urgent or pressing issues Being at (or beyond) your limit in terms of projects and things to do Uncertainty about next steps, or seeing the next steps as daunting Questioning if this is really what you’re supposed to be doing, anyway If the time has come for an infusion of help and your project is about one or more of the following Program-level curriculum change (see the 4-step process for successful change) Assessment improvement across…
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Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement within JSGS
By Jamie Mayoh-Bauche, Instructional Designer, U of R, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy Keeping up with the latest scholarship on evidence-based practice can be a challenge for instructors who are busy with their own areas of research, amongst all the other things. In response to this challenge, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School (JSGS) embarked on creating a culture of continuous learning by making recent evidence-based teaching and learning practices easy and accessible for our instructors. Throughout the 2021/2022 school year, we organized a series of events and workshops aimed at building a shared understanding of program level competencies and instructional approaches that enhance student competency development. We gathered monthly…
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Perusall or Discussion Boards
Previous blog posts have introduced Perusall to turn pre-class readings into social learning. In this post, let’s explore how instructors might use Perusall to overcome discussion board fatigue and provide resources on using Perusall along with sample learning activities. Perusall is a free social learning tool that students can access through Canvas. Students have discussions in the same space as they read course material. The image below shows what a student would see in Perusall, with the reading in the middle and the conversation on the side. This post only refers to the use of readings in Perusall. However, videos, images, podcasts, and webpages can all be used. Additionally, responses…
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Creating Efficiencies: Grading Discussions in Canvas
Perhaps you are using Discussions in Canvas as a supplement to your face-to-face class or using it in an online course. While students’ posts may provide evidence of their learning and allow for online engagement, giving feedback on the posts is a vital part of the process – and as you are no doubt aware, can be a very time-consuming task! Strategies to manage your marking load and provide timely, actionable, and specific feedback for students, seem to fall into three categories: 1) Lighten the load for everyone: Requiring weekly discussions may impact quality through posting and grading burnout; consider bi-weekly discussions or the option for students to post…
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Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 2
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The exchange of questions and responses is vital to teaching and learning. The types of questions we pose as instructors should grab our students’ attention and curiosity, reinforce key points, encourage reflection, and foster active learning. Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 1 explored creating open-ended questions by using Bloom’s hierarchy of cognitive skills. Part 2 looks at categorizing questions by type and using divergent, higher level questions in discussion forums. Categorizing Questions by Type1 The type of questions used in the discussion forum is dependent on the purpose of the discussion and your learning outcomes. Some question types are useful for redirecting,…
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Writing Learning Outcomes for the Sustainable Development Goals
This is a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) written in 2021. Each post dives into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. You can view the 2021 blog posts below or you can view the 2023 revised open resource here https://openpress.usask.ca/sdgs/ SDG 1 No Poverty SDG 2 Zero Hunger SDG 3 Good Health and Well-Being SDG 4 Quality Education SDG 5 Gender Equality SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation SDG 7 Affordable and Clean…
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Masking protocols and a values-based approach to norms in the classroom
As we start to anticipate the needs of students and instructors at the start of term, we recognize that some folks will be on-campus and in-person for the first time since the pandemic began. We know that setting the tone for the class at the start of term is very important and we wanted to address masking and distancing practices you may wish to consider with your class from the first day. The university has established procedures and practices to the best of their ability with the most current information. Please stay informed by reading the covid19 website regularly and checking USask email communications. At the time of this publication,…
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Breakout Rooms in Zoom
This feature in Zoom allows you to sort your students into small groups where they can collaborate on projects, discuss topics or brainstorm ideas. If you have a large class, breaking students up into smaller groups helps build connection between students and ensures that everyone in the group has a voice. The breakout rooms in Zoom can be pre-assigned before the meeting starts or they can be created once the meeting has started. Once rooms have been created students can be assigned automatically or manually to a room. Alternatively, you may decide to let students choose their own rooms. This video explains how to create breakout rooms in Zoom Once…
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Making it Accessible: Turn on Live Captions in Zoom
When you have certain learning disabilities or you are studying in a language you aren’t fully fluent in, it is easy to miss important details of what your professor says. As an instructor, you can make what you say accessible for all your learners by turning on captions before your Zoom meetings. The button to turn it on is located in the “More” section at the bottom of your computer screen in Zoom. From there you can choose to “Show” or “Hide Captions” as well as the caption language. The images below show where to find these buttons. You need to deliberately turn captions on for each meeting. However, Audio…
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In Testimonial: Collaborative Online International Learning
Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies, Dr. Martin Gaal, shares about his COIL experience in a recently produced testimonial video. COIL is a framework of teaching and learning that promotes intercultural opportunities through a short-term virtual exchange program. It involves an instructor from the university partnering with an instructor from a partnering institution abroad to develop a course-based project or experience. His COIL journey began last Spring after he initiated planning arrangements with a partner instructor at the Florida International University. Together they developed a discussion topic that brought together their respective course subject matter and students of different backgrounds. USask students who participated in the course were also…