CTL Happenings - Message #492

The vast majority of courses being offering this fall semester will be a traditional online course or some version of a mix/hybrid experience, where students complete part of the class online coupled with some synchronous meetings (remotely or face-to-face).

This facilitated Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is designed to provide faculty with the opportunity to learn about strategies for increasing student engagement and active learning within online and hybrid environments.  The book, Small Teaching Online, by Flower Darby, will be used to guide the work of the faculty learning community.

Faculty participants are eligible for a $500 stipend if they complete specified requirements.

The Faculty Learning Community will be offered at six different times. For more information and to register:

FLC # 1: Mondays – July 6, 13, 20, and 27 from 10:30 a.m. - noon  Register 
FLC # 2: Tuesdays - July 7, 14, 21, 28 from 11:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m.  Register 
FLC # 3: Wednesdays - July 8, 15, 22, 29 from 1:30 - 3:00 p.m.  Register
FLC # 4: Mondays -July 27, Aug 3, Aug 10, Aug 17 from 10:30 a.m. - noon  Register
FLC # 5: Tuesdays - July 28, Aug 4, Aug 11, Aug 18 from 1:00 -2:30 p.m.  Register
FLC # 6: Wednesdays - July 29, Aug 5, Aug 12, Aug 19 from 9-10:30 a.m.   Register

Will you be a new graduate teaching assistant (TA) in fall 2020 and/or spring 2021? Register for the 2020 TA Orientation, to learn about the expectations and responsibilities of your new position, and develop strategies to confidently and effectively interact with faculty and undergraduate students in face-to-face and online classes. Click here for more information and registration details.

In this webinar, participants will learn about some of the decision points for teaching a STEM lab online. Whether you are designing a new online lab or moving an existing face-to-face lab to the online environment, this webinar will help you understand the major decisions you will have to make about your course. We will also discuss two common concerns: group work and assessment. 

This webinar is repeated on the following dates:

Monday, July 13, 2020 at 2:00 p.m.   Register
Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 3:00 p.m.   Register 

Quality Matters (QM) is a faculty-centered and faculty-led quality-assurance organization for online and hybrid (blended) teaching. The QM organization has become the de-facto leader in this area, receiving national recognition for its approach and process, and for the rubric it created to guide and assess online courses. In this brief introduction to the QM process and rubric, join fellow instructors to learn about how the QM process, the QM rubric, and QM-inspired resources, can help you develop, evaluate, and improve your online or blended course at IU.

This session introduces faculty and graduate students to the practice of documenting one’s teaching. Participants will examine different kinds of evidence and documents to capture, and to make the case for, teaching achievements.  Participants will consider how to shape their evolution as teachers through the use of many kinds of documents that include—but do not rely on—student evaluations of teaching. This webinar is the 3rd webinar in a 3-webinar series designed to introduce faculty and graduate students to the process of creating, refining and documenting one’s teaching practices.

The Academic Calendar for 2020-21 introduces two 3-week online intensive scheduling blocks at IUPUI. While not every course will be suitable for delivery in this new format, with careful consideration, planning, and implementation, departments or programs may wish to offer select courses in this manner. This workshop identifies the benefits and challenges of offering intensive online courses; discusses the criteria for selecting courses to consider offering in this format; and outlines faculty, student, logistical, and instructional considerations in developing and delivering these types of courses. Resources and examples will be provided, along with an opportunity to participate in a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project focusing on 3-week intensive online courses.

Ensuring your students have sufficient prerequisite knowledge and skills is essential for maximizing their learning in your course. In this webinar, participants will learn strategies to guide students’ pre-class learning, to make explicit the relevance of pre-class work, and to assess students’ preparation and prior knowledge. 

Will you or your students be in a classroom at any point during this fall semester? Do you have questions about how you will teach, how your students will engage, or how your class meetings might be different? The purpose of this webinar is to give you an opportunity to begin addressing questions and framing your approach to student engagement and general logistics for classroom meetings this fall based on the new classroom protocols and potential disruptions to in-person class meetings throughout the semester.  Webinar facilitators will share some scenarios of student engagement strategies for various classroom contexts.

If you have specific questions about this topic that you’d like the webinar facilitators to address, please respond to the prompt soliciting questions at the time of webinar registration.

So, you know what you want your students to learn, and you’ve developed assignments to get them there. But, do you know what makes certain assignments work well and others not so much? We begin with these questions to reveal the ways of thinking that your discipline values and that the kinds of learning you expect of your students. This webinar will ask you to examine how students learn in your course, the underlying processes required for that learning, and the corresponding learning activities (assignments) and assessments used to facilitate and reveal that learning. You will also be able to situate your teaching within well-understood conceptions of how learning works. Be prepared to discuss a learning activity, assignment, or assessment from your course. 

Diversity and inclusion play an important role in promoting student learning. Today’s college students are increasingly diverse compared to prior generations.  Traditional teaching strategies have also been shown to lead to lower academic achievement for under-served students compared to majority students even when differences in GPA and other factors are controlled for. By considering the diversity of the classroom and implementing equitable teaching strategies, instructors can increase student learning and sense of belonging for all students, not just those who are underserved. In this webinar, participants will learn how to leverage student diversity and incorporate inclusive teaching strategies in their classrooms. Questions and discussion will be encouraged.

Join us for an interactive session where we will walk you through core principles, tips and strategies to initiate new or adapt service-learning projects and partnerships for online and mixed course formats. This session will include practical examples, project ideas, and sample assignments.

The deadline for FACET/Mack Center SoTL Travel Grants for travel to present SoTL research in the Fall 2020 is July 1, 2020. Grants are for allowable costs as delineated by IU Travel Management up to $750, faculty are encouraged to combine this funding with other sources. Look here for more information.

Dates: July 2 
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. 
Connect Via Zoom here

Open Educational Resources (OERs): Don’t reinvent the wheel! Open Office Hours are 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., Thursdays, July 2. 

Did you know that there are thousands of open educational resources available freely for every discipline? These include textbooks but also question banks and interactive content. As you’re thinking about putting parts of your fall classes online, OERs can provide digital instructional materials that you can use and adapt to fit your needs. 

University Library, The Center for Teaching and Learning, and Digital Education Programs & Initiatives will have joint Zoom Open Office Hours on Thursdays from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., July 2. Feel free to drop in with questions, to discuss your project ideas, or just to learn more about OER at IU! People will be available to talk with you about adding open content to your course using Canvas or Pressbooks and help you discover OERs in your content area. 

The general application period for the Community Engagement Associate's program is open, and applications are being accepted through June 30th. Given the various possibilities for Fall regarding courses and programming, we will be asking all applicants to include information on whether or not their funded work can be done virtually or remotely. This will be an important consideration for all funding decisions for next academic year.

Please consider how funding for a CEA project can benefit or support your engaged work in this way, even if the program, course, or experience you originally planned cannot continue in a virtual or remote format. We will need to consider a variety of possibilities for Fall and Spring programming. 

If you have any questions or want to talk further about how this program can benefit your engaged work contact Morgan Struder, IUPUI Center for Service and Learning. 

Digital course materials save money and ensure all students have their required course materials on the first day of class.  In preparation for the Fall 2020 semester, the IU eTexts ordering deadline has been extended through July 2 to allow faculty to order low cost digital course materials for their fall courses.

With more than 35 publishers available, IU eTexts are affordable, convenient, and promote academic success. Digital learning materials can be accessed via Canvas, incorporate student and instructor mark-up tools, and provide analytics to guide instruction.  For more about IU eTexts and ordering procedures, see IU eTexts.

The SEA Change Institute will be hosting five, short online learning events with the authors of Talking about Leaving Revisited. Each event will focus on specific implications of TALR, and the authors of will provide an overview of their findings and answer questions from participants. Registration for the TALR events is open to all who are interested – SEA Change Membership is not required to participate in this SEA Change Institute offering.

Please follow the links below for to register for each event individually. 

Webinar 2: Entering an uneven playing field
Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 11 a.m. -12:00 p.m. EST

Webinar 3: STEM learning experiences and their consequences
Tuesday, August 18, 2020, 11:00 a.m. -12 p.m. EST

Webinar 4: Dysfunctions of the STEM weed-out system
Tuesday, September 22, 2020, 11 a.m. -12:15 p.m. EST

Webinar 5: Dimensions of STEM persistence
Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 11 a.m. -12:15 p.m. EST

ePortfolio at IUPUI is a Canvas Expand site that any faculty and staff instructor can self-enroll in, browse ePortfolio assignments and activities to use with students in Canvas, and then import any of the resources into their own Canvas site to use.  All of the resources in the Canvas Expand site are designed for use in online courses and can also be used in face-to-face and hybrid courses.  Each of the resources can be used as-is or edited to meet your learning goals once imported into your site.  Resources include: CourseNetworking ePortfolio Resources, Assignment Templates, First-Year Experience, Service-Learning/Community Engagement, Internships, Career, and Google Sites Resources. 

Here are some tips for using the ePortfolio at IUPUI resources - Do you want your students to create an ePortfolio but you’re not sure how to get started?  Import the “Introduce ePortfolio” or “Set up your CN ePortfolio” assignment to your course.  Concerned about how your students will get help?  Import the two CN help guide pages – “Get help with the CN ePortfolio” and “Take your CN ePortfolio to the next level” into your course site.  Do you have a course assignment you want students to add to their ePortfolio?  Import the “ePortfolio Wrap-around Assignment”, which includes instructions for students to add any regular course assignment to their ePortfolio. 

Self-enroll in the ePortfolio at IUPUI Canvas Expand course here – https://expand.iu.edu/browse/iupui/iel/courses/eportfolio-at-iupui

Teaching for Student Success: An Evidence-Based Approach is a new module series developed in response to President McRobbie’s call for supporting excellence in teaching and learning at IU. 

Created expressly for IU faculty, by members of the IU faculty, this professional development series provides a framework for education grounded in empirical research, combined with opportunities to document evidence-based practices
Module topics include:

1. Course Design
2. Assessment
3. Science of learning
4. Active and interactive learning
5. High-impact practices
6. Creating positive first impressions 

To learn more about the module series click here.

The Inequalities Behind COVID-19 Disparities for African Americans in Indianapolis
The Polis Center at IUPUI published research outlining the inequities that black Indy residents face and that contribute to increased positivity rates of COVID-19 for black residents. As you know, black residents of Marion County have tested positive for COVID-19 at a rate nearly twice that of white residents, like other cities across the US. Analyzing SAVI data, we learned that because of historic and systemic racism, inequities in our society put many black individuals at higher risk for exposure to the virus, having a serious case or dying, and suffering from the economic impacts compared to white residents. An interactive map allows you to view risk factors by Marion County neighborhood. These increased risks are a result of the fact that black residents, when compared to white residents, are:

• More likely to be exposed to coronavirus because of factors like working in front-line essential sectors, living in denser neighborhoods, and working in jobs that cannot be performed from home.
• More likely to have a serious case because of increased rates for some underlying health conditions, a higher likelihood of living in neighborhoods with high risk from air pollutants, and a lower likelihood of having health insurance
• More likely to suffer from economic impacts because of already high. unemployment rates, lower average incomes even before the crisis, and lower access to good-paying jobs due to disparities in educational attainment.

Please check out the detailed analysis here.

NOTE: This study is a continuation of neighborhood-level research on COVID-19 issues we add to the  SAVI Coronavirus Data Hub  regularly. The Polis Center at IUPUI created the hub to show the latest local data and research on COVID-19 cases, risk, and impact. We track Indiana county-level cases and risks and national COVID-19 cases. In addition to the research described above, the hub provides a senior social isolation index, emergency food/meal locations in Marion County, and neighborhood risk maps for Indianapolis, Bloomington, and South Bend.

McMurtrie, B. (2020, June 18). 'We can’t ignore this issue’: How to talk with students about racism. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

You may be wondering if and how you should address the recent protests and racism in your course. While you may be tempted to ignore these issues, doing so sends the message that you are uninformed or you do not care, both of which can perpetuate inequity in your course. This article includes advice for how to initiate and guide these conversations from a variety of experts and a list of resources and articles on teaching about racism.