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Grading reflection
Giulia Forsythe, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Summary: Reflect on grading practices to enhance student learning and equity. Discover how thoughtful assessment can drive better educational outcomes. How can you determine if someone’s reflection is good enough, and how can you signal that to students so they reflect well and understand the feedback and grades they receive? Date of publishing: September 2, 2022 We want students to reflect as a part of the learning process, because it helps them to consolidate what they have learned, think about why it is important to them, and be able to apply what they have learned later. But when we get ready to grade that…
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Keep it Active with Classroom Polling
After about 15 minutes listening in a large lecture hall, many students’ minds are likely wandering. An easy way to make your class more active and allow your students to see if they are understanding is to use polling software. A poll can be an open text response, multiple choice, and even a visual you interact with. The USask tool is called Poll Everywhere. You can see all the details for how to set up and use Poll Everywhere, including in Canvas, in the Poll Everywhere teaching guide in the Learning Technology Ecosystem. To keep students engaged when you are doing a lot of the talking, space questions and activities…
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Graduate Transformative Skills Project Series: Faculty Perspective
In 2019-20, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) funded a faculty fellow, Dr. Loleen Berdahl, to study the needs for graduate student professional skill development at USask and recommend next steps. This blogpost series examines and translates the data from differing perspectives. We invite you review the data here. This work continues through the Graduate Competencies project, led by Wendy James and Chelsea Smith. Faculty Perspectives Jon Farthing is a Professor in the College of Kinesiology, University of Saskatchewan. His research focuses on Human Performance, Healthy Aging and Management of Chronic Conditions, and Neuromuscular Physiology, with specific interest in adaptations to various types of acute and chronic strength training.…
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Graduate Transformative Skills Project Series: Graduate Student and Postdoc Perspective
In 2019-20, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) funded a faculty fellow, Dr. Loleen Berdahl, to study the needs for graduate student professional skill development at USask and recommend next steps. This blogpost series examines and translates the data from differing perspectives. We invite you review the data here. This work continues through the Graduate Competencies project, led by Wendy James and Chelsea Smith. Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Researcher Perspectives Holly is a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Medicine, who loves dogs. Edgar is a PhD candidate in Engineering, who also loves dogs What stands out to you about the Transformative Skills Project data? Holly: Focusing…
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Graduate Transformative Skills Project Series: Support Perspective
In 2019-20, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) funded a faculty fellow, Dr. Loleen Berdahl, to study the needs for graduate student professional skill development at USask and recommend next steps. This blogpost series examines and translates the data from differing perspectives. We invite you review the data here. This work continues through the Graduate Competencies project, led by Wendy James and Chelsea Smith. Support Perspectives Chelsea Smith: I’m the Professional Development and Postdoctoral Studies Coordinator with the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. In my role, I support Postdoctoral Fellows and faculty and staff that work directly with postdocs. Postdocs come to USask to develop the…
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USask Sustainability Fellows Leading the Way
For the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of co-facilitating the first of the two years of the Sustainability Faculty Fellowship sessions with Aditi Garg. There are six Faculty Fellows, each bringing different experiences, ideas, and perspectives to the group. The Faculty Fellows are: Tate Cao from Engineering Kate Congreves from Agriculture and Bioresources (Plant Sciences) Shannon Forrester from Kinesiology Brooke Klassen from Edwards School of Business Eric Micheels from Agriculture and Bioresources (Agriculture and Resource Economics) Ulrich Teucher from Arts and Science Year One We began with a meet-and-greet breakfast in mid-May and followed that with seven two-hour sessions over four weeks during which we discussed aspects of…
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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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USask Releases New Syllabus Template and Guide
Before starting work on your syllabus for the Fall term, be sure to look through the new syllabus template and guide. While you’re departments, colleges, or schools may have their own syllabus template, the guide will provide you with a clear explanation of what is required to be in your syllabus under the Academic Courses Policy, as well as examples of language that may help convey the tone you want to set for the course. In the following example showing the section of the guide on Participation, you can see That Participation is a required section in your syllabus under the Academic Courses Policy Two examples of language you might…
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You May Have Too Much Content, But What Should You Take Out?
One of my favourite blog posts is actually entitled “Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong, really” and it’s by Grant Wiggins. I know it’s a depressing title, but it speaks to the problem we often have in higher education of thinking of curriculum as content. Wiggins’ post goes back to Dewey and Tyler to clarify that higher education is not about learning the sum of knowledge: “In medicine, engineering, business, and law courses are no longer built backward from content. They are built backward from key performances and problems in the fields.” Since there is always more content as knowledge develops, and I, as an expert, might know…
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Using Poll Everywhere to Integrate Formative Assessment in Courses
Poll Everywhere is integrated polling tool at USask. As you begin planning for the fall term, you may be considering how you will make use of formative assessment in your courses, including the use of Poll Everywhere. For Learners Formative assessments allow students to obtain feedback on how well they’ve grasped concepts and improve through practice prior to assessments that are higher stakes (exams, major projects, etc.). For example, if you have been teaching about concept A during a particular class meeting (ten-minute chunks are ideal) you can create a poll in Poll Everywhere and have students answer the question individually or in groups. This practice will help students retain…
