CTL Happenings - Message #308

Creating assignments that align with and allow for the accurate assessment of learning objectives requires careful planning. Such planning can help improve student understanding of your expectations, student achievement of your learning objectives, and can also set the stage for a smoother assessment process. This webinar will review methods for designing or refining assignments to target specific objectives, for communicating critical assignment components to students, and for scaffolding assignments to help students achieve intended learning outcomes.

Using rubrics increases grading transparency, consistency, and efficiency while encouraging students to link assignments to learning objectives and become more critical assessors of their own work. However, many faculty feel that creating a rubric and using it effectively requires time and effort that they cannot spare. In this online mini-workshop, participants will learn some basic principles for quickly creating effective rubrics that will make assessing student work faster, more consistent, and more rewarding.

Video services like YouTube and IU’s Kaltura Mediaspace (kaltura.iu.edu) now make it possible for users to add mechanically generated captions to their videos, however those captions are not always perfectly accurate. In this session, participants will learn to add and manage mechanical captions in Kaltura, and how to edit captions using the Cielo Editor in Kaltura. This session is suitable for people with little or no experience working with video.

A syllabus is often the first impression that students form of a course, and it serves both faculty and student as a guide to and contract for the semester. A well designed and personalized syllabus can help faculty set the proper tone while simultaneously helping them avoid having to repeatedly answer basic student questions about expectations, policies, and deadlines. By examining syllabi from various disciplines, this online mini-workshop will offer tips and considerations for effective syllabus design, show example syllabi, and include time for questions and discussion.

Slide show presentations such as ones prepared in PowerPoint are ubiquitous but not always supportive of learning. In this session, participants will discover evidence-supported slide show presentation techniques that will encourage learning and promote engagement. To make the most of this session, participants should have proficiency with PowerPoint, Keynote or similar slide show authoring tools.

Learn how to use Canvas, IU's new Learning Management System, at your own pace or in a guided tutorial. The Center for Teaching and Learning, along with IT Training, offers a wide variety of workshops and webinars to help faculty set up Canvas sites for summer and fall semesters.

Upcoming workshops:

• Canvas:  Assignments and Grading Overview (July 7)
• Canvas:  Pages (Content in Context) (July 11)
• Canvas:  Building and Organizing Content with Modules (July 20)
  
  

Oncourse to Canvas Migration Support

If you have been teaching in Oncourse and are ready to make the move to Canvas, here are some resources you may find helpful:

• Read Using the Canvas Migration Tool Knowledge Base
• Request a consultation with a Consultant
• Request a Canvas Workshop for your school, department or program
  
  

The Office of Online Education, in collaboration with the Office of Collaborative Programs and eLearning Design and Services, is hosting an inaugural statewide IU Online Conference, November 11, 2016 on the IUPUI campus.  

In preparation for the conference, the Office of Online Education is seeking proposals from IU faculty and staff from across the state who are innovators and collaborators in the online space. These proposals will focus on supporting IU's mission of delivering high-quality, highly engaging, online courses and programs to IU students around the globe.

The Office of Online Education will consider proposals for 45-minute presentations that address empirical research, showcase best practices, and/or describe lessons learned related to online courses or programs. Proposals are due Sunday, September 25, 2016 by 11:59 p.m. For additional information, or to submit a proposal, visit the conference proposal page at https://teachingonline.iu.edu/events/conference2016.

The Mack Fellows’ work is at the very core of the mission of Indiana University’s Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning. Each year a group of fellows is selected from the full-time faculty (tenured, holding tenurable appointments, Lecturers, Librarians with Faculty rank) of IU campuses to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).  

Each applicant must propose an ambitious yet attainable SoTL research project that is innovative, well grounded in the emerging body of knowledge about SoTL, and has a projected important effect on the home campus, IU, SoTL and/or on scholarly teaching across the academy.  Applications are due by October 1, 2016. For additional information, visit:  https://facet.iu.edu/news-events/_news/20160603-mack-fellows-call.html.

IU Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) SOTL 101 webpage:  https://facet.iu.edu/sotl/sotl-101.