This week's webinar was a brief overview of some common issues faculty are facing in classrooms regarding diversity, accessibility and inclusion, and resources to support faculty that want to know more. ASU is focusing on a mission to build open and accessible communities for students and in the classroom, that can mean that faculty need to be aware of key strategies to support these communities. The first key strategy is to become mindful of challenges that many of our students face in classes, and then start developing activities and classrooms that create comfortable environments. Below are few of the ideas that were shared, and gathered from various ASU resources for faculty. Example of a microagression Help diverse international students be successful: Model behaviors for group work Share examples for papers and projects Set clear and specific expectations Create assignments that focus on global issues Make coursepages and online content accessible : Use tag...

41% of Millennials check Facebook daily, but are as equally connected through Instagram and Snapchat. YouTube is their favorite social network, but podcasts are trending up as an alternative to books, allowing them to learn about their interests and their world. Our webinar this week helped faculty learn easy ways to engage students in the course content by integrating technologies that they are using daily. We shared the 5 questions that UC Berkeley uses to guide faculty that want to use social media in their class. These questions help instructors plan and be thoughtful about issues that might come up. We also shared 5 classroom activities and the recommended technologies for each. Embedding Twitter feeds into Blackboard pages Sharing lists of appropriate podcasts through CastBox Creating an online bulletin board for students to share links with Padlet Example: EBT Debrief Assigning Video Diaries for students, and having them learn basic video editing through WeVideo...

Online courses are rapidly increasing, and in this week's webinar, Jeremy Hopper and Andrew Ells shared some tips to get started. Three key components to success were discussed: A Student-Friendly Course Structure Clear and Measurable Learning Objectives Active Instructor Presence Many ideas were shared by both the hosts and participants to build these components.  We discussed the use of Quality Matters guidelines for course structure and showed the typical ASU Online template for BlackBoard. Learning Objectives were defined and tips were given for how to write effective ones that would help students demonstrate what they were learning, and which helps faculty assess the students.  Finally, we emphasized the importance of having instructor presence to let students know they were connected to a "real" person, and would receive timely feedback on their assignments. Ideas were shared about online office hours, and managing active online discussions to create ...

This month's TeachT@lk webinar focused on the topic of creating effective and efficient virtual office hours. It was lead by Jennifer Mansfield and Amy Kitchens from the ASU GOEE group. We started with some tips for why you should consider doing office hours and what the benefits are to both the student and instructor. Then we discussed when to do them so they were convenient for online students work schedules. Different technologies were discussed, including: Zoom Adobe Connect Google Hangouts Skype Slack Shindig The webinar wrapped up with some strategies and tips, including Using a Google Spreadsheet for appointments Offering incentives- extra credit for best question, first login, etc. Recording sessions for an archive that students can review Bringing in a guest speaker, or focusing on a specific topic of interest   Resources : PowerPoint Slides Recording Article: Zoom:Create Your Classroom in the Cloud (handout)   Article: 7 Strategies for...

ASU currently has 13,164 international students enrolled, and is the #1 US public university to host international students. At our last TeachT@lk Webinar, Renee Klug , University International Educator, Sr. shared information with faculty on understanding and teaching international students. Click on image to view larger Intercultural Competence is a set of cognitive, effective and behavioral skills that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts. Renee helped faculty assess their own intercultural sensitivity by sharing 6 models, and having faculty evaluate common statements to understand what level was being used. Once faculty understood the models, she presented classroom strategies that could be used with common student challenges mentioned by faculty, including: reluctance to work in groups negotiating grades not willing to ask for help not speaking up in class not citing resources appropriately  Click on image to see l...